- 8 hours ago
The American Hobo -Sd
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Short filmTranscript
00:00The End
00:30As the drover runs the cattle trail, and the sailor follows billowed sail, so the hobo
00:45tames the iron trail and longs for places far.
00:49The open road becomes his home, he can't subdue his urge to roam.
00:54The headlight and the whistle's moan become his guiding star, who works and wanders, also
01:03learns and in his heart he always yearns to see beyond the river's turns, the view from
01:10rolling cars.
01:12All around the water tanks waiting for a train, a thousand miles away from home sleeping
01:33in the rain, I walked up to a brakeman to give him time to talk.
01:44He says, you've got money, I'll see that you don't walk.
01:51You know, when we were kids, we used to walk the railroad tracks to see how far we could
02:18walk, make bets among ourselves, you know, oh boy, look at this, look how far he's gone.
02:24And occasionally you see a train pass by, and you see a hobo up there, and you wave at him.
02:33They'd wave back.
02:36You wonder where these people were going.
02:40It was a fascinating adventure in our little lives, and to look at these fellas and realize
02:50that they were going somewhere, and on a train.
02:55I was a real hobo.
03:01I did not have a stable home, so I was always willing to head out for a new adventure.
03:11I listened to a lot of those old Jimmy Rogers songs, and he talked about riding freight
03:16trains and made it sound so enticing that I just couldn't stay off of them.
03:20I like the lifestyle, I like the people I associate with, and of course it's a free ride.
03:25It's like being on a time machine, where you ride along and you see so many historical elements
03:31of this country.
03:32I've always been intrigued with travel and adventure.
03:38It's like kind of recharging your batteries.
03:41I'm out here seeing things I missed when I was a kid.
03:44It's an experience that, in a lot of ways, just escapes an explanation.
03:49We really have to do it to understand what it's like.
03:52I think it's the adventure, and the thrill, and sometimes just the peace to watch the country
03:57go by, and I always call it National Geographic Life.
04:02Self-survival, you know.
04:05Eat when you want to eat, sleep when you want to sleep.
04:10You don't have to worry about the IRS.
04:12It's in the blood, I guess.
04:14Once you do it, it's in you, you can't quit.
04:19You call your own shots as you see fit for yourself.
04:24I don't own a car right now.
04:26I don't like riding Greyhound buses, man, because I always get lucky, man.
04:30I always draw the wild card.
04:31I get some big old gal sitting next to me who wants to fall asleep with her head in my lap,
04:35and I can't smoke a cigarette or drink a beer, and I can do this in a boxcar.
04:38I rode freight trains all my life because I just love to do it.
04:42Ah, the rhythm of the rails is an enticing song to those who long to be far away.
04:49Like the Pied Piper, wandering souls have followed the tracks, stitched like seams across the
04:56country since the Civil War.
04:59Legend has it that Erie Crip and Philly Pop, two discharged Union soldiers, were the founding
05:05members of the fraternity of freight-hopping hobos.
05:09The two men, accustomed to the open-air military lifestyle, hitched a ride on a passing freight
05:15and rambled over the horizon.
05:19Other Civil War veterans followed suit and hopped on trains to get back home while the
05:23less fortunate soldiers, left homeless by the devastating war, rode the rails in search
05:29of a new beginning.
05:30A great number of these early wanderers sought jobs as migrant farm workers and carried hoes
05:37along with them.
05:38Therefore, it is thought the nickname hobo is derived from being called homeward-bound soldiers
05:46or ho-boys, both shortened to hobo.
05:52As the nation expanded westward, the railroads needed laborers to set ties and lay tracks and
05:58the hobos played a vital role in these activities.
06:01To feed a growing nation, the hobos became the harvesters who reaped the crops in mid-America,
06:06often working a route that took them from the Texas Panhandle to the Canadian border each
06:12season.
06:13During the prime age of dam construction, the hobos formed the nucleus of the hardy traveling
06:19workforces who built these massive structures, often in remote areas whose only real access
06:26was by freight train.
06:27These restless men continued to follow the developing railroads through the Rocky Mountains and became
06:34the lumberjacks of the Northwest woods and merchant seamen of the Pacific Ocean.
06:40The Great Depression of the 30s prompted factories to lay off laborers, businesses to foreclose,
06:57and farms to fall into ruin.
07:00Banks went broke and millions of people lost their life savings.
07:03It was a nightmare and created a new surge of hobos who took to the rails in search of
07:09work.
07:10In 1934, the U.S. Bureau of Transient Affairs estimated there were one and a half million
07:17men and women riding America's freight trains.
07:21You could taste the depression.
07:24These were bad years, you know.
07:2830, 31, 32.
07:32Everything was lean and mean.
07:35No jobs.
07:36You had to start with trying to get everything from a day's work to whatever you can get.
07:43Back then, everybody had a relative, a brother, a son, a father, an uncle who was riding
07:50the trains looking for work.
07:53Ah, that lonesome whistle continues to recruit new visionaries, offering passage to where dreams
08:00are found.
08:01I hopped my first freight train back in 1966 in Athens, Alabama.
08:09A couple of buddies and I wanted to go up to Nashville, and we didn't know how to get
08:14there except take the bus.
08:17So we were sitting down the weeds by the college there, and this freight train came by and
08:23was going real slow.
08:24So we said, let's do it.
08:26Next thing you know, we're on our way to Nashville.
08:28Well, I started riding freight trains as a kind of a recreational boyish adventure when
08:34I was about 15, and I rode pretty hard for several years, finally coming to rest at about 21 or 22.
08:42Well, the first freight train I rode, I was a kid about 15 years old, and I wanted to get
08:47home from Minnesota down into Iowa.
08:50And I didn't want to wait for my father to come up there to get me, so I rode a freight train.
08:55The first true hobo trip I ever took was when my brother Hopalong Chet and I were going back
09:04to our grandfather's 90th reunion, and we rode from Barstow, California to the East Coast
09:10to Boston.
09:11It took us eight days and 13 different train connections, and from that moment on we were
09:16hooked.
09:17I decided to make a documentary film, and it was mostly the film started out as an excuse
09:23for me to figure out how to get on a freight train.
09:26So, when I finally took my first ride, it was everything that I had imagined it might
09:34be, and it was pretty much an immediate addiction.
09:39I've been doing this since the age of 13 years old.
09:42That's, I'm telling you, the real McCoy.
09:45A friend of mine used to work for Canadian National up in Montreal, and he knew I liked trains
09:51a lot.
09:52I'd always like trains going way back to when I was a little kid, and he said, you know,
09:57you might think about jumping on trains to get around.
10:00I mean, you like to travel around a lot, and you like trains, and that was sort of the beginning
10:05of it, and I took it from there.
10:07I think the first time was an old oil spur up there where I used to live in Oildale,
10:12but the first long trip I took was from Bakersfield to Fresno in the old SP.
10:19At the age of 12 or 13, I was living near Philadelphia, and with a partner a year older, we bummed our
10:34way all the way to the Canadian border and all the way south to Florida.
10:47Every year, at a different location alongside a mainline railroad, the National Hobo Association
10:54sponsors the Hobo Poetry and Music Festival.
10:57This year's site is charming Marquette, Iowa, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.
11:05Oh, and music has always been a central component of hobo life.
11:10They'd sing of their old homes, their old loves, their work, and their trains.
11:15They'd play guitars, mandolins, and banjos, and simpler instruments like gin whistles, harmonicas,
11:22and Jews' hearts.
11:40The boss set me a-driving spikes. The sweat was enough to blind me.
11:46The boss, he didn't like my pace, so I left my job behind me.
11:52I climbed aboard an old freight train, round the country traveled.
11:57The mysteries of a hobo's life to me were soon unraveled.
12:02Yes, and the Jungle Telegraph goes out to hobos and hobos at heart in every corner of America.
12:09And they come from all nooks and crannies.
12:11They arrive by various modes of conveyance, many by car, truck, or motorhome, and, of course, the freight train.
12:21Oh, the big rock candy mountain. There's a land so fair and bright,
12:26where the boxcars all are empty and you sleep out every night,
12:30where the handouts grow on bushes and the sun shines every day,
12:34on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees and the lemonade springs,
12:37where the bluebird sings in the big rock candy mountain.
12:41This fun-filled event brings out the free spirit of the hobo that lives within us all.
13:02And everyone is encouraged to partake in the wide variety of family activities.
13:13This retired hobo is being hounded by his alter ego to return to the rails.
13:19We could hop an extra west and head out toward the coast,
13:22or maybe take the valley route with the river as our host.
13:25You always liked the scenery on the Colorado run,
13:28or the smell of hay as the boxcars weighed in the autumn Kansas sun.
13:32He said we never rode the Chesapeake or the seaboard or the Sioux,
13:35and what about the cotton belt? That promise came from you.
13:38You said we'd ride the Lehigh in the Wabash Cannonball,
13:41and you absolutely promised we'd ride New England in the fall.
13:45How long can I resist the call? I really couldn't say.
13:49But the inner hobo's argument gets stronger every day.
13:52Now, I'm not one for idle talk, but I want the world to know
13:55that if I hear that whistle one more time, I just might up and go.
14:04Early in the morning, and it looked like rain.
14:06Around the bend, coming past the train.
14:08Under the camp was Casey Jones,
14:10a good engineer, but a daddy ain't gone.
14:12Daddy ain't gone, a daddy ain't gone.
14:14A good engineer, but a daddy ain't gone.
14:20Well, Casey Jones was a brave engineer.
14:22He told his fireman not to fear.
14:24All he needed was a water and coal.
14:26Put your head out to wind to see the drivers roll.
14:28Hey, yeah, the drivers roll.
14:30Put your head out to wind to see the drivers roll.
14:32I need to be in a way for a rescue, and kind of get out of fire that's supposed to be.
14:36The gardens are marvelous contraptions under any circumstance.
14:42They are unreal shimmering steel creatures that are almost alive.
14:46Fire breathing monsters with intense undulating tails.
14:51So what is it that lures a hobo to mount these beasts again and again?
14:58And being that I like to play music, you know, there's nothing finer than sort of like the rhythm, you know.
15:03You're in tune with the rhythm, not only the rails, but I get in tune with the rhythm of waters that the trains go by.
15:09The speed, the power of the train, all those really, they really turn me on.
15:15The freedom, not getting away from everything, getting away from everything, not feeling like I've got to be responsible about anything,
15:24being punctual, being somewhere at an exact time, being able to just hang out, go with the train, get somewhere for free.
15:31I'm getting from point A to point B and I don't have to drive.
15:34I don't have to deal with city traffic or anybody who's not going to let me get in my lane.
15:40A nice day, a good ride. I like to get into a terminal, too, that I haven't seen before and poke around. I like to do that.
15:54You also go through parts of the country, unlike the interstate system, that has virtually no signs of any commercial activity.
16:03No billboards, no exit signs, no neon.
16:06Seeing America from a boxcar, you see the wild horses, you see the ghost towns, you see everything about America that's wonderful.
16:18To be out in the open prairie where there's nothing but beautiful land around me and I have all that solitude and all that time to think things out and get creative.
16:25Seeing different parts of the country, a new piece of scenery every day.
16:30There are places like Idaho and Montana and Wyoming, all those western places I love. Those mountains are beautiful.
16:40The sheer excitement of getting to new places and new experiences.
16:47Just to see what I call priceless wonders, those things that drift by when you're riding a train.
16:52And the adventure doesn't end when the ride's over.
16:57Breathtaking landscapes give way to the colorful characters who pass through the train yards.
17:04The friends you meet along the way, that's what keeps me going back, I think, more than anything.
17:10They're not a nine-to-five office kind of person, and we can sit and tell tall tales and relate to each other.
17:16I really enjoy those kind of folks.
17:18We're not caught up in that hustle-bustle credit card, plastic money, car payments, concrete highways,
17:24and going from the office to the club to make the scene, in other words.
17:27I use the hobo as a medium for my poetry and found that everybody I've met so far has a story,
17:35and that helps me tremendously with my feelings.
17:39The friendship of the young fellow who took me to Canada and to Florida was precious.
17:48When I started out, I had my own preconceptions about who was out riding freight trains,
17:56and I thought that it was a fairly homogenous group.
18:00And I think one of the things I've really learned is that there are many different personalities
18:05that are out riding the freights.
18:06And those different personalities rarely devolves their family names,
18:12adopting unique aliases instead.
18:15Everybody's road name kind of gives in a nutshell who they are and what they represent.
18:22So I can introduce myself as Jet Set John, and that kind of tells a little bit of the other side of me
18:27rather than just being a hobo.
18:30Some guys that walk along the track, they might call him Track Man, you know.
18:34And Sidecar Sam, he was riding Sidecar on a tanker with his feet dangling down alongside the tank.
18:43That's why I named him Sidecar Sam.
18:46Then Low Line Larry, he rides from Florida all the way up to Utah, and he rides that low line.
18:51So I gave him the name of low line.
18:53Everybody has a road name.
18:55I was a stranger passing through your town.
19:05I was a stranger passing through your town.
19:12When I ask you a favor, good girl, you turn me down.
19:21Do you believe that he can't tell him about me?
19:28Most of the time I'm alone because I have my own destination, and I have my own reason for going somewhere.
19:35I love solitude.
19:37I was lonely before I started riding.
19:38I never got lonely anywhere.
19:40I told my wife I was going on an 18-day trip.
19:43She, uh, I hopefully, hopefully was sorry to see me go.
19:46My sister and everybody, they get a kick out of telling their friends what I do.
19:49My brother has been with me one time, but he wouldn't, he doesn't want to do it again, but he kind of likes the concept, you know what I mean?
19:56My mother looks a little bit askance at it, you know, like it's not the greatest thing, but she understands that I enjoy it and have a good time doing it, so.
20:05My family, I don't really tell them anymore because you get a lot of, a lot of shaking heads and shrugged shoulders, and they don't really understand why I do it.
20:13Since I'm a senior citizen, it's kind of frowned on.
20:18A lot of them think it's really neat, but then there's some that just think I'm totally out of my mind.
20:24Most of my friends think it's, uh, it sounds like fun, sounds entertaining.
20:28They don't do it.
20:30My friends, they're, uh, they're a little more understanding.
20:33They, they, uh, they tell me, it's happened more than a few times, that they tell me they want to come out on a ride with me,
20:38and as soon as I pack up my gear and I'm ready to head out the door, they, uh, they seem to disappear.
20:43My mother spent a lot of worrisome years, I'm sure.
20:46She, uh, when I got to Dunsmeyer on that trip there, I called her, and it just so happened I had a check coming from a job that I'd worked before I left,
20:55a couple months before, and she sent it to me by Western Union.
20:58And I got my butt on a goddamn Greyhound.
21:01Quitted, quitted that whole boy.
21:02Outside the rain was falling on the lonely boxcar door,
21:26But the little farm of Hobo Bill, they did upon the floor.
21:35While the train sped through the darkness, with a raging storm outside,
21:43No one knew that Hobo Bill was taking his last ride.
21:53Hey, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, Bill.
21:57Oh, it was always cold, and stuff was always blowing in your face.
22:05And, uh, I think the coldest ride I had was from, uh, Eugene, Oregon, to, uh, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
22:17And then on into Dunsmeyer, but, uh, we rode over the top of the mountain there in a snowstorm,
22:23and a couple of other bows and myself were in the, uh, in the ice compartment back in those old, old 40-foot reefers.
22:31They, if they didn't have any, uh, fruit they were carrying, they'd leave those reefer tops open sometime.
22:37And it was an excellent place to get if you couldn't get inside of a boxcar somewhere.
22:42And that's where we were on that, on that mountain in that snowstorm.
22:45Sometimes it's just too hot. You get stuck in the back end of a, of a, of a, uh, well car.
22:50There's no way to get out of the sun, and you broil to death.
22:53The worst part about it would be in situations where you've run out of water,
22:56and you know that it's going to be a long time before you can find any.
22:58Finding a place to take a shower.
23:00Being hungry.
23:01Lonesome towns.
23:02Waiting, waiting, waiting.
23:04What you're waiting for is when you finally catch out again, and you start moving, and you have that, ah, this is what I was waiting for.
23:10But when you wait a long time for that, you some, I sometimes sit there and go, no.
23:14Is this really worth it just to get on that train?
23:17This is really a pain.
23:18But in the end, it is always worth it.
23:21Well, the worst thing that I used to think was getting a flat wheel, and you're lying there trying to sleep,
23:26and you're bouncing off the floor every time that wheel goes around.
23:29The railroad bull running you out of the yards, or the town clown putting a run on you from his town, and telling you to move on.
23:42I get sick and tired of the bugs sometimes.
23:44Some of the places, highways, slapping the bugs.
23:47All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, man, they'll break air, and they'll leave me out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
23:51That's kind of, that's kind of hard.
23:53The worst thing that could possibly happen for some of us would be if they made it legal.
24:00I'd like to make a little disclaimer here, just for our lawyers' sake, no bail.
24:06Came down to make sure we're all in line.
24:09By no means does the National Hobo Association encourage anybody to go get on a freight train.
24:14It's illegal, and it's dangerous.
24:19During the Depression, hundreds of trespassers invaded yards like this and risked the wrath of the railroad bull.
24:28Today, it's a misdemeanor in most places.
24:31The law's main concern being vandalism of railroad property.
24:35But a pesky hobo could surely wind up in jail if the bull's warning goes unheeded.
24:42They had to run alongside and follow the advice of the older men, hook a ride and get in.
24:52The railroad police couldn't stop you from doing that, because it was just as risky for them as it was for us.
25:03But they could masterfully keep you out of the railroad yards, and that's where we tangled with them.
25:15Back in the old days, you were going to go to the chain gang for 30 days, you know, especially down south.
25:21They were mean and bad.
25:27Well, in the old days, they used to hit you with them breakman's club.
25:32Today, they're not too bad, I guess.
25:35They didn't stop us from getting aboard the train slow moving, and we were very agile, and we had done it many times.
25:49Once we broke through their lines, we were on our way to Peoria.
25:55They walked the train with the deputy sheriffs, pulled us off of there.
25:59But it was kind of nice, sort of like Aunt Bea bringing us dinner and everything, you know.
26:02It was kind of fun.
26:03They wrote us a ticket for trespassing on railroad property.
26:05We had to spend the night in the jail, and they told us to get out of town the next morning,
26:08because the D.A. wasn't going to prosecute it.
26:10The city was too small.
26:11I was never badly treated by them.
26:17They saw that I was younger.
26:20They were, in a sense, protective.
26:24But they did not want me aboard their freight trains.
26:28I got into a boxcar with about eight other hobos, and I was hungry.
26:33And I went down and broke the seal on one of them refrigerator cars,
26:36and did the unmancipal, and took a whole case of green beans out of there.
26:41And I threw it up in that boxcar, and those hobos went to screaming at me
26:45and said, man, we'll get 50 years in jail.
26:47What are you doing breaking the seal on that boxcar?
26:49I said, they'll throw us all off this train.
26:51I said, well, at least we'll be hungry, won't be hungry.
26:55And one old hobo way back in the corner of the boxcar,
27:00he threw over a can opener and a spoon.
27:03He said, I'll join you, young man.
27:05Hold on it, yes.
27:07When you're out of room, move on down and down.
27:10Thank you, appreciate it.
27:14Hobo camps, also known as jungles,
27:16grew up near the train yards, water tanks, crew change points,
27:20anywhere locomotives stopped.
27:23Sooner or later, you did fall into one of the camps,
27:29and very imaginative men ran them.
27:34They were congenial places.
27:37You didn't want to leave.
27:39You made friends.
27:41You heard great stories.
27:43Well, I remember going into a hobo jungle one time in Barstow.
27:50They had really a large hobo camp there.
27:54I participated in some community stew a couple times in my life.
28:03Fit for a king.
28:05Hobo stew.
28:06The famous mulligan that's been made in spike cans and paint buckets under bridges
28:10and on the edge of the railroad yard since the Civil War.
28:13The stew pot gurgled over the fire for days on end.
28:17They just kept adding ingredients as the level went down.
28:21Those jungles, they were clean.
28:23They had an order.
28:26They didn't throw garbage around.
28:29Usually, if a guy come into jungles, he came there with his loaf of bread
28:36and his bologna and cheese and maybe he wanted to make a pot of coffee and wait for a train and catch out.
28:49It's the townspeople that complain.
28:51They complain to the police.
28:52The police complain to the railroad bulls and the railroad bulls run them out.
28:56If they keep the place clean, you know, and pick up all their trash and stuff,
29:02I don't think they'd even be bothered.
29:05The jungles are being wiped out with caterpillar tractors
29:08so that there would be no place for the riders to hide.
29:11There's very few jungles nowadays.
29:15I don't want to stop a loaded conjugation.
29:25Oh, you're worried all that inspires you to ruin hell.
29:30So, to sleep you weary hobo.
29:34Let the town drip slowly by.
29:40Though your clothes are torn ragged, though your hair is turning gray,
29:52though you've spent a lifetime searching, you'll find happiness someday.
30:02So go to sleep, you weary hobo. Let the towns drip slowly by. Can't you hear the steel rail humming? That's a hobo's lullaby.
30:27Hobo's communicate through the National Hobo Association, founded in 1987 by Santa Fe Bone, who has been a trained barnacle since the 70s.
30:41His two goals were uniting others who shared a love of the open road and preserving the history of the hobo.
30:49During his travels, Santa Fe came across an old copy of the now defunct Hobo News,
30:55a publication that dated back to 1908.
30:59Consequently, he created the Hobo Times, America's Journal of Wanderlust, and began distributing it to kindred spirits.
31:09In 1990, Buzz Potter came on board, and together they upgraded the Times to the only magazine in America that features a blend of railroad adventure stories, poetry, nostalgia, and the current news of life on the hobo trail.
31:25A letter that we got from a 96-year-old former hobo who rode back in the Depression, and he found out about us, and he sent us a letter, and it said very simply,
31:37Dear National Hobo Association, please don't let the hobo die.
31:41It grew slowly over the years, but steadily, and today we have thousands of members nationwide that span the demographic spectrum from lawyers to laborers, professional people, corporate people.
31:57They're from all walks of life, and they've been where I've got to go yet, and I learned from their experiences.
32:03It's amazing how many people don't realize they're hobos until they come and see us, and they realize that they're on the same wavelength with us, with their kindred spirits.
32:12They have the wanderlust, the sense of romance, and the sense of nostalgia.
32:17All of a sudden we understood that there were other people like ourselves, and we found out how to get a hold of them.
32:23It provides a forum for us to get together and tell our tales, rather than just maybe running into one or two people in the jungle and telling your individual experiences.
32:32And to get together occasionally and share the fellowship that was forged in early days around campfires in remote places throughout the country.
32:40Now we're a little more respectable, I guess, and we get together with much better stew and much better clothes and much warmer fires perhaps, but the fellowship hasn't changed.
32:50We enjoy brotherhood, camaraderie, we sing songs, we trade photographs and addresses, and we sort of get together. This, to me, is my family.
32:58We have younger people now, some of the X generation people who are looking for themselves, trying to find themselves, I guess, and part of that is seeing America.
33:09And we're trying to educate our children and our younger folk who might not know what a steam locomotive is and what a hobo jungle was and a mulligan stew and a pot and a frisco circle and stuff like that, terms that were used back in the 20s and 30s and 40s.
33:24Many NHA members are devoted collectors of hobo memorabilia.
33:30George Horton has acquired hobo artifacts such as these antique carvings, each whittled from a single piece of wood.
33:39These whistles and chains were formed in a similar fashion, enterprising hobos even chiseled peach pits into monkey trinkets.
33:49Del Romines wrote a book on hobo nickels, explaining how bows tooled Indian head coins to match the profiles of their paying customers.
34:00They'd even reshaped the buffalo image on the reverse side.
34:04Drummond Manfield's art reflects earlier days when it was pretty much a man's world out on the road.
34:12But nowadays, women are prominent members of the hobo community.
34:17We have a lot of fun together, and it becomes like your extended family, your brothers, your sisters, and you make friends for life.
34:26So, I love them.
34:29Hoboings definitely in Connecticut Shorty's blood.
34:33Her father was a hobo for 40 years and by no means a bum.
34:38You see, real hobos bristle at the intimation that they shunned work.
34:44In fact, they discreetly mark their own hieroglyphics around train yards to alert each other about town prospects.
34:52An oft-repeated axiom sums up the men on the road.
34:59A hobo is a traveling worker.
35:02A tramp is a traveling non-worker.
35:06A bum is a non-traveling non-worker.
35:10You gotta do work in order to keep yourself independent.
35:15Traveling money.
35:17Take any kind of a job, whether it's two hours or two days or two months.
35:25Get a road stake.
35:27The western farmers had a deal with the railroads whereby they would ship their cattle from the ranch to the slaughterhouse in Chicago.
35:42They had to have somebody aboard the train so that at every 12-hour interval, you stopped, unloaded the cattle, exercised them, watered them, fed them, got back aboard the train and went on to Chicago.
36:05You got no money for this, but you didn't get transportation.
36:10We used to hay that have two cuttings of hay a year, and you're good for a week to two weeks of haying.
36:21We went and caught a freight out of Denver and went west, and we wound up in Yakima, Washington, and he had an ant there that had an apple orchard, and he thought, well, we could find that place and maybe we could pick some apples.
36:39We never found the place.
36:40We had the great state of Washington state.
36:45That's the real apple-knocking country.
36:50And we were, everybody was a hobo back then.
36:54Roadhog washed all the windows in my house inside and out.
36:57Side door had scrubbed my kitchen floor immaculate, and they raked all the leaves in my yard.
37:03It was fall, late September, and that was to pay me back for the ride and the, you know, the little bedroom I gave them.
37:11So, separate from mine, of course.
37:13Well, I've done all dug irrigation ditches, broke horses, hoed watermelon in the fields.
37:23I've done just about every kind of work you can think of.
37:26I worked in a produce packing house loading lettuce and bananas and stuff like that.
37:34Primarily, I play guitar.
37:36I do a lot of folk festivals around the country.
37:38I play veterans' hospitals.
37:39I do children's hospitals.
37:41I try to bring a few hundred dollars along with me on the freights when I take a trip.
37:46And if I run out or if I happen to follow the job, I'll take it.
37:50I do anything from painting, carpentry, concrete work, trimming trees.
37:56And when I'm broke in between guitar gigs, I go to day labor and push a wheelbarrow, dig a ditch, just anything I can, you know, to get by, you know.
38:02The average hobo isn't going to last long at any job.
38:08Ah, today there's a new class of unticketed passengers who vary from the old-time hobos.
38:16They aren't chasing down jobs.
38:19They're running from them and have come to be known as yuppie or recreational hobos.
38:25The yuppie hobos, they're a pretty good group.
38:30A lot of those guys really do more than their share.
38:33I approve of them.
38:35I'd like to see everybody see America.
38:38It's a beautiful country and there's so much that people don't really see.
38:43Well, you know, everybody deserves a vacation.
38:45These guys work hard, you know, they put all the big money together.
38:48I mean, if I could have a BMW and ride the rails and have the better of two equals, I'd have a great life, too.
38:53They're not as generous as our old school were and has been.
39:00They're a different breed of bows.
39:03I'm out there just like them, just riding the rails, seeing the country.
39:06And that's really what the real hobos are all about.
39:09I had somebody send me $50 a month, that was the deal.
39:12Couldn't send me more than $50 a month unless I came back to Minneapolis and re-signed the papers.
39:18Because I figured the less I'd spend, the more I'd experience.
39:22And so I would go that last week, you know, where I'd burn all my money.
39:28And then I wouldn't have any money for a week.
39:31And I always found that the third week of the month I had more fun.
39:35As a professional pilot, there is a courtesy among airline pilots that if you present your ID card, they'll let you ride up in the cockpit.
39:43And since the name of the game is Traveling for Free, it's a little faster way of getting somewhere if you don't have quite the time.
39:49Coming here, I rode up in the cockpit of a 747-400 where they offered me their bunk room to sleep, which is just like a Pullman car.
39:59So it's really a high-class hobo way of traveling.
40:03I don't really think I qualify as a yuppie.
40:06I mean, I'm not really young and I'm not trying to be upwardly mobile.
40:09I'm sort of a professional now doing nursing work.
40:12But I don't really think anybody that knows me would characterize me as a yuppie.
40:17I don't really think I am.
40:20I got no complaints about other people having a different approach to it somewhat.
40:24I think most people sort of called me like a recreational rider, I guess.
40:28So I got into riding freight trains at a necessity, but after I eventually got back on my feet and got to working and got a place to live and all that, then I became somewhat of a recreational rider because I just couldn't get away from it.
40:41I just had that wanderlust in my blood.
40:43But we all have one thing in common.
40:46We like to steal rides.
40:49Besides traveling for free, the ever-frugal hobo has learned to survive on Mother Nature's free lunches.
40:57Most people think that hobos went to houses for meals or work and try and pay for them.
41:04But a lot of meals were taken from right around here, right along Trackside.
41:10Here we have plantain, which no doubt was definitely part of the hobo diet.
41:18I know a lot of stories I've read, hobos and other people would always just pick up a little bit, chew on it, taste good with other plants.
41:31And between plantain with a little bit of lemon clover flavor, you can eat a great meal.
41:38When I finally broke free of money and realized that I could live off the blackberries, you know, and I know where they are and the raspberries are where they are and the other things that are around the yards, you can eat right off the land or the dumpsters or whatever else.
41:55A quick-witted hobo has traditionally added humor to his social commentary.
42:01Put your lobsters in the trash, eat your pheasant while it's under glass, get into your garbage or have no cash.
42:10Little dinner I'll be gone in a flash, won't you hold them pickles, hold that lettuce.
42:15Special orders, they don't upset us, just as long as they would let us dive it our way.
42:22Yeah, we're gonna go dumpster diving.
42:26I'm surviving, my kitty cats are thriving today.
42:33Just open the lid, have a little look.
42:36It's all prepared, there's no need to cook.
42:39We're going dumpster diving, whoa, whoa, hooray.
42:43I told you, get away kitty cat, I saw you.
42:50Catching rides on freight trains is notoriously dangerous.
42:53Even the most seasoned hobo will caution against novices trying to jump on board a moving train,
43:00telling horror stories of accidents they've witnessed, resulting in agonizing dismemberments or gruesome deaths.
43:08One wrong move, and you've ended your days.
43:12There were extended couplings, probably 10 or 15 feet across, and the trains were moving, and there were the two of us.
43:19One guy would stand here and shine the light at the couplings, and after he safely got across, we'd leave the light on,
43:26and this was at night and train maybe going 50 or 60 miles an hour.
43:29We'd toss the flashlight to the other guy, and of course it was up to him to make sure he caught it.
43:34And then in turn, he would shine the light as the second guy would go across the railings.
43:39And we had to do this for about four or five cars, and I think back, it's probably the most foolish thing I ever did.
43:45I'd never do it again, and I still get goosebumps when I think about it.
43:49There's dangers out there, and there's no way you can avoid them,
43:51and even the most experienced veterans cannot avoid the dangers of riding trains.
43:56I mean, I just really never travel with somebody I don't know.
44:00You just, you just, it's just too chancy. It's too chancy.
44:05People who wish you harm and want to take you and rob you, that's the biggest danger today.
44:15It's not from the bulls, and it's not from falling off the trains.
44:18Back in the old days, there was nothing for 10, 15 guys and a side door pullman, which is a boxcar, to ride in the same car.
44:28Nowadays, you wouldn't dare to ride with strange hobos or anyone you didn't know.
44:36You ride by yourself.
44:38I was learning how to fight from a friend of mine on a boxcar one time.
44:42He showed me how to take a knife away from a guy and flip him and all that stuff.
44:47He learned it in the Marine Corps, I think, and we practiced that in a boxcar moving about 80 miles an hour one time.
44:52When it comes to train riding, you have to give that train all of your respect, but the train will never, won't give you any.
44:59See, you can't rely upon the train to get you where you're going or to be a smooth ride or a safe one.
45:05I have a great concern about equipment failure.
45:08I have a concern about human error with regard to rail operations, and these kinds of things I have no control over.
45:14And you never know whenever you're going to be on a train that has a crew that's gone to sleep at the throttle,
45:19and next thing you know you're in a big pileup at the bottom of a hill.
45:23I rode the rods from Iowa to Illinois, and a more hellish experience no young fellow ever had.
45:42It was horrible. You set up a little protection there to keep the soot out of your face, and you bounced along.
45:58And you felt the ride would never end.
46:02It was a descent into hell.
46:06And how these men could do it again and again and again bewildered me.
46:13No matter how long it may take us...
46:16Life-threatening challenges took our new dimensions on December the 7th, 1941,
46:21the day many believed the hobo died.
46:28No longer did Bo's jungle up in Frisco, Spokolo or many hopeless.
46:35Now it was Anzio, Normandy and Iwo Jima.
46:40And when they were welcomed back home, there were jobs for everyone.
46:44New automobiles and even diesel locomotives.
46:47Life on the hobo trail would indeed never be the same.
46:52What will become of the hobo whenever his time comes to die?
47:03I wouldn't trade my experiences out here on the road for anybody's college education.
47:09And though I never really accomplished anything by all this travel,
47:16it satisfied something in me.
47:19I don't know whether I was born with it, but it started very young.
47:28And I never stopped.
47:32I got stopped.
47:33But I would look right now to be in one of those hobo camps.
47:45Will they tell us that we cannot ride?
47:51Will the hobo come with the rich man?
47:56Will the hobo survive?
47:58Or will he go the way of the steam train?
48:01We wonder.
48:03If you think about how many lifestyles or how many businesses or whatever have lasted 150 years,
48:16there's not very damn many of them.
48:18And yet hobo continues to be with us.
48:20The day is coming when we won't be able to ride freight trains.
48:23This is not the 30s or the 40s anymore.
48:26But that doesn't mean that it still isn't an alluring prospect for people of adventurous souls.
48:31As long as there's trains, there's going to be people riding them.
48:33I can guarantee you that.
48:35With a strong railroad industry, you're going to have plenty of trains
48:38and you're going to have more people riding them.
48:40I had a dream about a train that was completely hobo-proof.
48:44There was no possible way you could jump on it.
48:47In fact, it was just so slick.
48:48There was no grab irons.
48:49There was nothing.
48:50I don't know if the rail industry is going to go that far and design cars exclusively to keep people off of them.
48:56It's really getting a lot tougher.
48:58A lot of railroad corporations are merging together.
49:01Security is tightening up a lot because there's a few idiots out there derailing trains.
49:05It might get harder again to hop freights.
49:07It might get easier.
49:09But it will always be here.
49:11There's not going to be too much of it in the future, I'm afraid.
49:14Because, well, they seem to get pretty tough on the hobos now.
49:20There's just more and more poor people.
49:22I'm sorry to say, I think there's going to be more and more poor people.
49:26They may be back on the trains again going around looking for odd jobs.
49:30I think maybe the hobo is pretty much gone in the east.
49:35But in the west, he will live.
49:38The old hobos now are too old to travel.
49:42They're becoming homeboys now.
49:44They just stay in one location.
49:46They don't travel no more.
49:47I think we'll always have heavy duty rail riders, people that want to ride freights and go for the adventure.
49:53But the old Bridger steam train hobo, they're pretty much gone.
49:57We're losing a few more every year.
49:59And my era of hobos, they're vastly dying out.
50:09The real hobo is a dying breed.
50:12A guy out there who's trying to get by, going from town to town, looking for work.
50:16A real gentleman, honest fellow is a hobo.
50:18I have a sinking feeling in my heart that the day of the hobo is about over.
50:24I think it's a fading game.
50:27There's a legacy that will always live on.
50:30And it will change with the different groups who are out there.
50:33But as long as there's a rail to ride, I think someone will be riding it.
50:37The future could be pretty bright, actually.
50:40If a young man should want a hobo in this country, it might be the way to go.
50:46I think there will always be young men like me who are a little bit a thwart civilization.
51:02I've been a loner, I've been my own man, fiercely so.
51:11Hey, now come the high of all you ramblers.
51:16All of you travelers on the road.
51:19Well, the time has come to remember what's just on.
51:27Like, where do you come from and where do you think you're going?
51:46I don't know how any of the bows ride the trains these days.
51:50For the simple reason they got all the ladders cut off.
51:53And you say to yourself, well, how do they get up there?
51:57You know.
51:58But they do.
51:59And they make their way.
52:01And they're still hobo and all around the country.
52:04God bless them.
52:06See you down the road.
52:09All around the water tanks waiting for a train.
52:21A thousand miles away from home sleeping in the rain.
52:28I walked up to a brakeman to give him my talk.
52:37He says, if you've got money, I'll see that you don't walk.
52:44I haven't got a nickel.
52:47Not a penny can I show.
52:51Get off, get off, you railroad bum.
52:56And he slammed that boxcar door.
52:59Though my pocketbook is empty and my heart is full of pain.
53:13I'm a thousand miles away from home waiting for a train.
53:20You're delayed, oh, delayed, oh, delayed.
53:28I've tried my eBay, you're loaded.
53:30I've tried myPerfecters hill and myik1 jobs set in the bank.
53:34But I can't do anything like that I can split.
53:35I can't do anything like that I did the wrong with no myajay
53:36I can't do anything like that I can do it.
53:40I don't understand any번 whether people come out.
53:43I can't do anything like that.
53:45I do have a luxury for a train to drive and walk.
53:47Some people will get happy and stuff up.
53:49I can't receive yes, I do not be desired.
53:51And I can't do anything like that.
53:53Standards today have been hidden.
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