Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00The End
00:30as the drover runs the cattle trail and the sailor follows billowed sail so the hobo tames
00:45the iron trail and longs for places far the open road becomes his home he can't subdue his urge
00:53to roam the headlight and the whistles moan become his guiding star who works and wanders
01:02also learns and in his heart he always yearns to see beyond the river's turns the view from rolling cars
01:12all around the water tanks waiting for a train a thousand miles away from home
01:32sleeping in the rain i walked up to a brakeman to give him time to talk he says you've got money
01:47i'll see that you don't walk i haven't got a nickel not a penny can i show
01:59get off get off you railroad bum and he slammed that boxcar door
02:06you know when we were kids he used to walk the railroad tracks to see how far he could walk
02:19make 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 you wondered where these people were going
02:40there's a fascinating adventure in our little lives and to look at these fellas and realize that
02:51they were going somewhere and on a train
02:55i was a real hobo i did not have a stable home so i was always willing to head out for
03:08a new adventure i listened to a lot of those old jimmy rogers songs and uh he talked about riding
03:16freight trains and made it sound so enticing that i just couldn't stay off of them i like the lifestyle
03:21like the people i associate with and of course it's a free ride it's like being on a time machine
03:26where you you ride along and you and you see so many historical elements of this country i've always
03:33been intrigued with travel and uh adventure it's like kind of recharging your batteries i'm out here
03:41seeing things i missed when i was a kid it's an experience that in a lot of ways just escapes a
03:47uh an explanation you you really have to do it to understand what it's like i think it's the
03:52adventure and the thrill and the and sometimes just the peace to watch the country go by and
03:58i always call it national geographic life self-survival you know eat when you want to eat sleep when you
04:06want to sleep you don't have to worry about the irs it's uh in the blood i guess once once you do it you
04:16you're just it's in you you can't quit you call your own shots as you see fit for yourself i don't
04:25own a car right now i don't like riding greyhound buses man because i always get lucky man i always
04:30draw the wild card i get some big old gal sitting next to me wants to fall asleep with her head in my
04:34lap and i can't smoke a cigarette or drink a beer and i can do this in a box car i rode freight trains
04:39all my life because i just love to do it ah the rhythm of the rails is an enticing song to those
04:47who long to be far away like the pied piper wandering souls have followed the tracks
04:54stitched like seams across the country since the civil war
04:59legend has it that eerie crypt and philly pop two discharged union soldiers were the founding members
05:06of the fraternity of freight hopping hobos the two men accustomed to the open-air military lifestyle
05:13hitched a ride on a passing freight and rambled over the horizon other civil war veterans followed
05:20suit and hopped on trains to get back home while the less fortunate soldiers left homeless by the
05:26devastating war rode the rails in search of a new beginning a great number of these early wanderers
05:32sought jobs as migrant farm workers and carried hoes along with them therefore it is thought the nickname
05:41hobo is derived from being called homeward bound soldiers or ho boys both shortened to hobo
05:52as the nation expanded westward the railroads needed laborers to set ties and lay tracks and the hobos
05:58played a vital role in these activities to feed a growing nation the hobos became the harvesters
06:05who reaped the crops in mid-america often working a route that took them from the texas panhandle to
06:11the canadian border each season during the prime age of dam construction the hobos formed the nucleus of
06:18the hardy traveling workforces who built these massive structures often in remote areas whose only real
06:25access was by freight train these restless men continued to follow the developing railroads through
06:32the rocky mountains and became the 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 and farms to fall into ruin
07:00banks went broke and millions of people lost their life savings it was a nightmare
07:04and created a new surge of hobos who took to the rails in search of work in 1934 the u.s bureau of
07:13transient affairs estimated there were one and a half million men and women riding america's freight trains
07:22you could taste the depression these were bad years you know
07:27uh 30 31 32 everything was lean and mean no jobs you had to start with uh trying to get it everything
07:41from a day's work to whatever you can get back then everybody had a relative a brother a son a father
07:49an uncle who was riding the trains looking for work ah that lonesome whistle continues to recruit new
07:57visionaries offering passage to where dreams are found i hopped my first freight train back in 1966
08:08in athens alabama a couple of buddies and i wanted to go up to nashville and we didn't know how to get there
08:15except take the bus and so we were sitting down the weeds by the college there and uh this freight
08:23train came by and it was going real slow so we said let's do it next thing you know we're on our way to
08:28nashville well i started uh riding freight trains as a kind of a recreational boyish adventure when i was
08:35about 15 and i rode pretty hard for several years finally coming to rest at about 21 or 22. well the first
08:43freight train i rode i was a kid about 15 years old and i wanted to get home from minnesota down into
08:50iowa and i didn't want to wait for my father to come up there to get me so i rode a freight train
08:56the first true hobo trip i ever took was uh when my brother hop along chet and i were going back
09:04to our grandfather's 90th reunion and we rode from barstow california to the east coast to boston
09:11and took us eight days and uh 13 different train connections and from that moment on we were hooked
09:18i decided to make a documentary film and it was mostly the film started out as an excuse for me to
09:24figure out how to get on a freight train so when i finally took my first ride it was everything that i
09:34had imagined it might be and it was pretty much an immediate addiction i've been doing this since
09:41the age of 13 years old that's i'm telling you the real mccoy a friend of mine used to work for
09:48canadian national up in montreal and he knew i liked trains a lot i'd always like trains going way back
09:54to when i was a little kid and he said you know you might think about jumping on trains to get around
10:01i mean you like to travel around a lot and you like trains and and that was sort of the beginning
10:06of it and i took it from there i think the first time was an old oil spur up there where i used to
10:12live in oildale but the first long trip i took was from bakersfield to fresno in the old sp at the age of
10:2012 12 or 13. i was living near philadelphia and with a partner a year older we bummed our way
10:36all the way to the canadian border and all the way south to florida
10:43every year at a different location alongside a mainline railroad the national hobo association
10:55sponsors the hobo poetry and music festival this year's site is charming marquette iowa
11:02on the banks of the mighty mississippi river playing the guitar and singing the melody oh and music has
11:08always been a central component of hobo life they'd sing of their old homes their old loves their work
11:14and their trains they'd play guitars mandolins and banjos and simpler instruments like gin whistles
11:22harmonicas and jews the boss set me a driving spikes the sweat was enough to blind me the boss he didn't
11:48like my face so i left my jaw behind me i climbed aboard an old freight train round the country traveled
11:57the mysteries of a hobo's life to me were soon unraveled yes and the jungle telegraph goes out to
12:05hobos and hobos at heart in every corner of america and they come from all nooks and crannies they arrive
12:13by various modes of conveyance many by car truck or motorhome and of course the freight train oh
12:23the big rock candy mountain there's a land so fair and bright where the boxcars all are empty and you
12:29sleep out every night where the handouts grow on bushes and the sun shines every day on the birds
12:36and the bees and the cigarette trees and the lemonade springs with the bluebird sings in the big rock candy
12:40mountain
12:59this fun-filled event brings out the free spirit of the hobo that lives within us all
13:04and everyone is encouraged to partake in the wide variety of family activities
13:15this retired hobo is being hounded by his alter ego to return to the rails we could hop an extra west
13:22and head out toward the coast or maybe take the valley route with the river as our host you always
13:27liked the scenery on the colorado run or the smell of hay as the boxcars weighed in the autumn kansas sun
13:33he said we never rode the chesapeake or the seaboard or the sioux and what about the cotton belt that
13:38promise came from you you said we'd ride the lehigh in the wabash cannonball and you absolutely promised
13:44we'd ride new england in the fall how long can i resist the call i really couldn't say but the inner
13:50hobo's argument gets stronger every day now i'm not one for idle talk but i want the world to know
13:56that if i hear that whistle one more time i just might up and go
14:04early in the morning and it looked like rain around the band cover past the train
14:08under the camp was casey jones a good engineer but he dead ain't gone
14:12dead ain't gone dead ain't gone a good engineer but he dead and gone
14:20well casey jones was a brave engineer he told this fireman not to fear
14:25all he needed was a water and cold put your head out to win and see the drivers roll hey yeah the
14:30drivers roll put your head out to win and see the drivers roll
14:33train trains are marvelous contraptions under any circumstance they are unreal shimmering steel
14:44creatures that are almost alive fire breathing monsters with intense undulating tails so what is
14:52it that lures a hobo to mount these beasts again and again and being that i like to play music you know
14:59there's nothing finer than sort of like the rhythm you know you're in tune with the rhythm not only
15:04the rails but i get in tune with the rhythm of waters that the trains go by the speed the power of
15:11the train all those really they really turn me on the freedom not not getting away from everything
15:18getting away from everything not not not feeling like i've got to be responsible about anything being
15:24punctual being somewhere at an exact time being able to just hang out go with the train get
15:29somewhere for free i'm getting from point a to point b and i don't have to drive i don't have to
15:34deal with inner city traffic or anybody who's not going to let me get in my lane a nice day
15:43a 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
15:59no signs of any commercial activity no billboards no exit signs no neon seeing america from a from a
16:08boxcar you see the wild horses you see the ghost towns you see you know you see everything about
16:15america that's that's wonderful to be out in the open prairie where there's nothing but beautiful land
16:20around me and i have all that solitude and all that time to think things out and get creative seeing
16:26different parts of the country a new new piece of scenery every day there are places like idaho and
16:34montana and wyoming all those western places i love there those mountains are beautiful sheer excitement of
16:42getting to new places and new experiences just to see what i call priceless wonders those things that
16:50drift by you when you're riding a train and 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 it's that's what keeps me going back i think more than anything
17:10they're not in a nine to five office kind of person and we can sit and tell tall tales and relate to
17:15each other i really enjoy those kind of folks we're not caught up in that hustle bustle uh credit card
17:21plastic money car payments concrete highways and going from the office to the to the club to make the
17:26scene in other words i use the hobo as a medium for my poetry and found that everybody i've met so far
17:34has a story and that helps me tremendously with my with my feelings the friendship of the young fellow who
17:43took me to canada and to florida was precious when i started out i had my own preconceptions about
17:54who is out riding freight trains and i thought that it was a fairly homogeneous group and i think what
18:00i've one of the things i've really learned is that there are many different personalities that are out riding the freight
18:06and those different personalities rarely devolves their family names adopting unique aliases instead
18:15everybody's road name kind of gives in a nutshell who they are and what they represent so i can
18:22introduce myself as jet set john and and that kind of tells a little bit of the other side of me rather
18:27than just being a hobo some guys will walk along the track they might call him track man you know
18:35and sidecar sam he was riding sidecar on a tanker with his feet dangling down alongside the tank that's
18:43why i named him sidecar sam then low line larry he rides from florida all the way up to utah and he
18:50rides that low line so i give him the name of low line everybody has a road name
18:55i was a stranger passing through your town
19:08i was a stranger passing through your town
19:12when i ask you a favor good girl you turn me down
19:29most of the time i'm alone because i have my own destination and i have my own reason for going
19:34somewhere i love solitude i was lonely before i started riding i never got lonely anywhere
19:40i told my wife i was going on an 18-day trip she 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 my brother has
19:50been with me one time but he wouldn't he doesn't want to do it again but he kind of likes the concept
19:55you know what i mean my mother looks a little bit askance at it you know like it's not the greatest
20:01thing but she understands that i enjoy it and have a good time doing it so my family i i don't really
20:07tell them anymore because uh you get a lot of a lot of shaking heads and shrugged shoulders and
20:11they don't really understand why i do it since i'm a senior citizen it's kind of frowned on
20:19a lot of them think it's really neat but then there's some that just think i'm out totally out
20:22of my mind most of my friends think it's uh it sounds like fun sounds entertaining they don't do it
20:29my friends they're uh they're a little more understanding they they uh they tell me it's happened more
20:35than a few times that they tell me they want to come out on a ride with me and as soon as i pack up
20:39my gear and i'm ready to head out the door they uh they seem to disappear my mother spent a lot of
20:45worrisome years i'm sure she uh when i got to dunsmeyer on that trip there i called her and just so
20:51happened i had a check coming from a job that i'd worked before i left a couple months before and she
20:56sent it to me by western union i got my butt on it god dang greyhound quitted quitted that hobo
21:05outside the rain was falling on the lonely boxcar door but the little form of hobo bill they did up on the floor
21:36while the train sped through the darkness with the raging storm outside no one knew that hobo bill was
21:48always always cold and stuff was always blowing in your face and and uh i think the coldest ride
22:08i had i had was from eugene oregon to uh klamath falls oregon and i don't own into dunsmeyer but uh
22:20we rode over the top of the mountain there in a snowstorm and a couple other bows and myself
22:26were in the uh in the ice compartment back in those old old 40-foot reefers they if they didn't have any uh
22:33uh fruit they were carrying they'd leave those reefer tops open sometime and and it was an excellent
22:39place to get if you couldn't get inside of a boxcar somewhere and that's where we were on that on that
22:44mountain in that snowstorm sometimes it's just too hot you get stuck in the back end of a of a
22:49well car there's no way to get out of the sun and you broil to death the worst part about it would be in
22:54situations where you've run out of water and you know that's going to be a long time before you can find
22:58any finding a place to take a shower being hungry lonesome towns waiting waiting waiting what you're
23:04waiting for is when you finally catch out again and you start moving and you have that ah this is what
23:09i was waiting for but 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 this is really a pain but in the end it is always
23:20worth it well the worst thing that i used to think was getting a flat wheel and you're lying there trying
23:26to sleep and you're bouncing off the floor every time that wheel goes around the railroad boat
23:30running you out of the yards or the town clown putting a run on you from his town and telling you to
23:41move on i get sick and tired of the bugs sometimes some of the places i always slapping
23:46the bugs all of a sudden in the middle of the night man they'll break air and leave me out in the
23:50middle of nowhere in the desert that's kind of that's kind of hard the worst thing that could possibly
23:56happen for some of us would be if they made it legal i'd like to make a little disclaimer here
24:03just for our our lawyers sake no bail came down to make sure we're all in line by no means does
24:10the national hobo association encourage anybody to go get on a freight train it's illegal and it's dangerous
24:17during the depression hundreds of trespassers invaded yards like this and risked the wrath of the railroad
24:27bull today it's a misdemeanor in most places the law's main concern being vandalism of railroad property
24:36but a pesky hobo could surely wind up in jail if the bull's warning goes unheeded had to run alongside
24:44and follow the advice of the older men hook a ride and get in and the railroad police
24:55couldn't stop you from doing that because it was just as risky for them as it was for us
25:01but they could masterfully keep you out of the railroad yards and that's where we uh tangled with them
25:15back in the old days you're gonna go to the chain gang for 30 days you know especially down south they
25:22were mean and bad well in the old days they used to hit you with them uh brakeman's club
25:33today they're not too bad i guess they didn't uh stop us from getting aboard the train slow moving
25:43and we were very agile and we had done it many times uh once we broke through their lines we were
25:53on our way to peoria they walked the train with the deputy sheriffs pulled us off of there but it
25:59was kind of nice so like aunt b bringing us dinner and everything you know it's kind of fun they wrote
26:03us a ticket for trespassing on railroad property we had to spend the night in the jail they told us to
26:07get out of town the next morning because the d.a wasn't going to prosecute it city was too small
26:11i was never badly treated by them they saw that i was younger they were in a sense protective
26:24but they did not want me aboard their freight trains i got in into a box car with about eight other
26:31hobos and and i was hungry and i went down broke the seal on one of them refrigerator cars and did the
26:36unimaginable and took a whole case of green beans out of there and i threw it up in that box car and
26:43those hobos went to screaming at me and said man we'll get 50 years in jail what are you doing breaking
26:48the seal in that box car said they'll throw us all off this train i said well at least we'll be hungry
26:54won't be hungry and uh one old hobo way back in the corner of the box car he threw over a can opener and
27:02her spoon he said i'll join you young man
27:14hobo camps also known as jungles grew up near the train yards water tanks crew change points anywhere
27:21locomotives stopped sooner or later you did fall into one of the camps
27:28camps and uh very imaginative men ran them they were congenial places you didn't want to leave
27:40you made friends you heard great stories well i remember going into a hobo jungle one time in uh in
27:49barstow they had a really a large hobo camp there i participated in some community stew
27:57a couple times in my life fit for a king hobo stew the famous mulligan that's been made in spike cans
28:09and paint buckets under bridges and on the edge of the railroad yard since the civil war the stew pot
28:15cooked gurgled over the fire for days on end they just kept adding ingredients as the as the level went
28:20down those jungles they were clean they had a order they didn't throw uh garbage around usually if a guy
28:31come in the jungles he came there with his loaf of bread and his bologna and cheese and maybe he wanted
28:39to make a a pot of coffee and wait for a train and catch out it's the townspeople that uh complain they
28:52complain to the police the police complain to the railroad bulls and the railroad bulls run them out
28:57if they keep the place clean you know and uh pick up all their trash and stuff i don't think they'd
29:03even be bothered the jungles are being wiped out with caterpillar tractors so that there will be no
29:09place for the riders to hide there's very few jungles nowadays oh to sleep you weary hobo
29:22let the town strip slowly by
29:25can't you hear the steel rail humming that's a hobo lullaby though your clothes are torn ragged
29:43can't you hear the steel rail humming that's a hobo lullaby though your hair is turning gray
29:52though you've spent a lifetime searching you'll find happiness someday
30:03so go to sleep you weary hobo
30:07let the town strip slowly by
30:16can't you hear the steel rail humming
30:22that's a hobo's lullaby
30:31hobos communicate through the national hobo association
30:34founded in 1987 by santa fe bow who's been a trained barnacle since the 70s his two goals were
30:42uniting 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 a publication that dated
30:57back to 1908 consequently he created the hobo times america's journal of
31:04wanderlust and began distributing it to kindred spirits in 1990 buzz potter came on board and
31:12together they upgraded the times to the only magazine in america that features a blend of railroad
31:18adventure stories poetry nostalgia and the current news of life on the hobo trail a letter that we got
31:26from a 96 year old former hobo who rode back in the depression and he found out about us and he sent us a
31:35letter and it said very simply dear national hobo association please don't let the hobo die
31:42it grew slowly over the years and uh but steadily and today we have thousands of members nationwide that
31:49span the demographic uh uh spectrum from lawyers to labor professional people uh corporate people
31:57they're from all walks of life and they've been where i've got to go yet and uh i learned from their
32:03experiences it's amazing how many people don't realize they're hobos until they come and see us
32:08and they realize that they're on the same wavelength with us with their kindred spirits they have the
32:13wanderlust the sense of romance and and the sense of nostalgia all of a sudden we understood that
32:20there are other people like ourselves and we found out how to get a hold of them it provides a forum for
32:25us to get together and tell our tales rather than just maybe running into one or two people in the
32:30jungle and telling your individual experiences and to get together uh occasionally and share the fellowship
32:35that was forged early in early days around campfires and remote places throughout the country
32:40now we're a little more respectable i guess we get together with you know with much better stew and
32:45much better clothes and much warmer fires perhaps but the fellowship hasn't changed we enjoy brotherhood
32:52camaraderie we sing songs we trade photographs and addresses and we sort of get together this to me is
32:58my family we have younger people now some of the uh the x generation people who who are looking for
33:03themselves trying to find themselves i guess and and part of that is is seeing america and we're trying to
33:10educate our children and our uh younger folk who might not know what a steam locomotive is and
33:15what a hobo jungle was and a mulligan stew and a pot and a frisco circle and stuff like that terms
33:20that were used back in the uh 20s and 30s and 40s many nha members are devoted collectors of hobo
33:29memorabilia george horton has acquired hobo artifacts such as these antique carvings each whittled from a single
33:38piece of wood these whistles and chains were formed in a similar fashion enterprising hobos even chiseled
33:46peach pits into monkey trinkets del romines wrote a book on hobo nickels explaining how bows tooled indian
33:56head coins to match the profiles of their paying customers they'd even reshape the buffalo image on the
34:03reverse side drummond manfield's art reflects earlier days when it was pretty much a man's world out on
34:12the road but nowadays women are prominent members of the hobo community we have a lot of fun uh together
34:21and it becomes like your extended family your brothers your sisters and you make friends for life so
34:27i love them hoboings definitely in connecticut shorty's blood her father was a hobo for 40 years
34:36and by no means a bum you see real hobos bristle at the intimation that they shunned work
34:44in fact they discreetly marked their own hieroglyphics around train yards
34:49to alert each other about town prospects an off-repeated axiom sums up the men on the road
35:00a hobo is a traveling worker a tramp is a traveling non-worker a bum is a non-traveling non-worker
35:11you got to do work in order to keep yourself independent traveling money
35:19take any kind of a job whether it's two hours or two days or two months
35:25get a road stake the western farmers had a deal with the railroads
35:33whereby they would ship their cattle from the ranch to the slaughterhouse in chicago
35:43they had to have somebody aboard the train so that at every 12-hour interval you stopped
35:54unloaded the cattle exercised them watered them fed them
36:00got back aboard the train and went on to chicago you got no money for this but you didn't get
36:09transportation we used to hay that have uh two cuttings of hay a year and uh you're good for
36:19a week to two weeks of haying we went and caught a freight out of denver and went west
36:26and we wound up in yakima washington and he had an ant there that had a a an apple orchard and he
36:35thought well we could find that place and maybe we could pick some apples we never found the place
36:41we had the great state of washington state that's the real apple knocking country and we were
36:51we were everybody was a hobo back then road hog washed all the windows in my house inside and out
36:57side door had scrubbed my kitchen floor immaculate and uh they raked all the leaves in my yard it was
37:03fall late september and that was to pay me back for the ride and uh the uh um you know the little
37:10bedroom i gave them so separate from mine of course well i've done all dug irrigation ditches broke horses
37:17uh uh hold watermelon in the fields i've done just about every kind of work you can think of
37:26i worked in a produce packing house loading lettuce and bananas stuff like that primarily i play guitar
37:36i do a lot i do a lot of folk festivals around the country i play veterans hospitals i do children's
37:40hospitals i try to bring a few hundred dollars along with me on the freights when i take a trip
37:45and uh if i run out or if i happen to follow the job i'll take it i do anything from painting
37:52carpentry concrete work trimming trees and when i'm broken between guitar gigs i go to day labor and
37:58push a wheelbarrow dig a ditch just anything i can you know to get by you know
38:05the average hobo isn't going to last long at any job
38:08uh today there's a new class of unticketed passengers who vary from the old-time hobos
38:17they aren't chasing down jobs they're running from them and have come to be known as yuppie
38:23or recreational hobos yuppie hobos they're they're pretty good group
38:29a lot of those guys really do more than their share i approve of them i'd like to see everybody
38:37see america it's a beautiful country and and there's so much that the people don't really see
38:43well you know everybody deserves a vacation these guys work hard you know they put all the big money
38:48together i mean if i could have a bmw and ride the rails and have the better of two equals i'd have a
38:52great life too they're not as generous as our old school were and has been they're uh a different
39:02breed of bows i'm out there just like them just riding the rails seeing the country and that's uh
39:08that's really what the real hobos are all about i had somebody send me fifty dollars a month that
39:12was the deal couldn't send me more than fifty dollars a month unless i came back to minneapolis and
39:18re-sign papers because i figured the less i'd spend the more i'd experience and and uh so i would
39:26go that last week you know where i'd burn all my money and then i wouldn't have any money for a week
39:32i always found that the third week of the month i had more fun as a professional pilot there is a
39:37courtesy 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
39:48don't have quite the time coming here i rode up in the cockpit of a 747 400 where they offered me
39:55their bunk room to sleep which is just like a pullman car so it's really a high class hobo way of
40:02traveling i don't really think i qualify as a yuppie i mean i'm not really young and i'm not trying to be
40:08upwardly mobile i'm sort of a professional now doing nursing work but i don't really think anybody that
40:15knows me would characterize me as a yuppie i don't i don't really think i am uh i got no complaints
40:21about other people having a different approach to it somewhat i think most people sort of called me
40:26like a recreational rider i guess so i got into riding freight trains as a at a necessity but after
40:33i eventually got back on my feet and got to working and got a place to live and all that then i became
40:38somewhat of a recreational rider because i just couldn't get away from it i just had that wanderlust in my
40:43blood but we all have one thing in common we like to steal rides besides traveling for free the ever
40:52frugal hobo has learned to survive on mother nature's free lunches most people think that uh hobos
41:00went to houses for meals or work and try and pay for them but uh a lot of meals were uh taken from
41:08right around here right along trackside uh here we have plantain which no doubt was definitely part of
41:17the hobo diet i know a lot of uh stories i've read hobos and other people would always just pick up a
41:26little bit chew on it tastes good with other plants and uh between plantain with a little bit of lemon
41:34clover flavor you can eat a great meal when i finally broke free of money and realized that i
41:41could live off the i could live off the blackberries you know that and i know where they are and the
41:47raspberries are where they are and the other things that are around the yards you can eat right off the
41:51land or the dumpsters or whatever else a quick-witted hobo has traditionally added humor to his social
42:01commentary put your lobsters in the trash eat your peasant while it's under a glass get into your
42:08garbage i have no cash a little dinner i'll be gone in a flash won't you hold them pickles hold that
42:14lettuce special orders they don't upset us just as long as they would let us dive it our way
42:21yeah we're gonna go dumpster diving i'm surviving my kitty cats are thriving today
42:34just open the lid have a little look it's all prepared there's no need to cook
42:40we're going to dumpster diving whoa whoa hooray i told you can't wait you can't i saw
42:50fetching rides on freight trains is notoriously dangerous even the most seasoned hobo will
42:56caution against novices trying to jump on board a moving train telling horror stories of accidents they've
43:02witnessed resulting in agonizing dismemberments or gruesome deaths one wrong move and you've ended
43:11your days there were extended couplings probably 10 or 15 feet across and the trains were moving and
43:18there were the two of us one guy would stand here and shine the light at the couplings and after he
43:24safely got across we'd leave the light on and this was at night and train maybe going 50 or 60 miles an
43:29hour we'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 and we had
43:40to 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 i still get goosebumps bumps when i think about it there's dangers out there and
43:50there's no way you can avoid them and even the most experienced veterans cannot avoid the dangers of
43:55riding trains i mean i just really never travel with somebody i don't know yeah you just you just
44:02it's just too chancy it's too chancy people uh who wish you harm and want to want to take you and rob
44:12you that's the biggest danger today it's not from the bulls and it's not from falling off the trains
44:19back in the old days there was nothing for 10 15 guys and a side door pullman which is
44:25a box car to ride in the same car nowadays you wouldn't dare to ride with strange hobos or
44:35anyone you didn't know you ride by yourself i was learning how to fight from a friend of mine on a
44:41box car one time he showed me how to take a knife away from a guy and flip him and all that stuff he
44:47learned it in the marine corps i think we practiced that on in a box car moving about 80 miles an hour
44:52one time when it comes to train riding you have to give that train all of your respect but the train
44:57will never won't give you any so you can't rely upon the train to get you where you're going or to
45:04be a smooth ride or a safe one i have a great concern about equipment failure i have a concern about
45:10human error with regard to rail operations and these kinds of things i have no control over
45:15and you never know whenever you're going to be on a train that has a crew that's gone to sleep at the
45:19throttle and next thing you know you're in a big pile up at the bottom of a hill
45:28i rode the rods from iowa to illinois
45:36and a more hellish experience no young fellow ever had
45:41it was horrible you set up a little protection there to keep the soot out of your face
45:56and you bounced along and you you felt the ride would never end it was a descent into hell
46:05and how these men could do it again and again again bewildered me
46:13no matter how long it may take us life-threatening challenges took our new dimensions on december
46:20the 7th 1941 the day many believed the hobo died will win through to absolute victory
46:28no longer did bose jungle up in frisco spoke hello or many hopeless now it was anzio normandy and iwo jima
46:40and when they were welcomed back home there were jobs for everyone new automobiles and even diesel
46:46locomotives life on the hobo trail would indeed never be the same what will become of the hobo
46:58whenever his time comes to die i wouldn't trade my experiences out here on the road for anybody's
47:08college education and though though i never really accomplished anything by all this travel
47:17it satisfied something in me i don't know whether i was born with it
47:23continue to wrong but it started very young will there be and i never stopped
47:33i got stopped
47:36but i would
47:41look right now to be in one of those hobo camps
47:43will they tell us that we cannot ride will the hobo come with the rich man
47:56will the hobo survive or will he go the way of the steam train we wonder
48:06if you think about how many
48:10lifestyles or how many
48:13businesses or whatever have lasted 150 years
48:17there's not very damn many of them and yet hobo continues to you know to be with us the day is
48:21coming when we won't be able to ride freight trains this is not the 30s or the 40s anymore
48:27but that doesn't mean that it still isn't an alluring prospect for people of adventurous souls
48:32as long as there's trains there's going to be people riding them i can guarantee you that
48:35with a strong railroad industry you're going to have plenty of trains and you're going to have more
48:39people riding them i had a dream about a train that was completely hobo proof there was no possible
48:46way you could jump on it in fact it was just so slick there was no grab irons there was nothing
48:50i don't know if the rail industry is going to go that far and design cars exclusively to keep people
48:55off of them it's really getting a lot of tougher a lot of railroad corporations are merging together
49:01security is tightening up a lot because there's a lot of there's a few idiots out there derailing
49:05trains it might get harder again to hop freights it might get easier but it'll always be here
49:12there's not going to be too much of it in the future i'm afraid because uh well they're seeming
49:18to get pretty tough on the hobos now there's just more and more poor people i'm sorry to say i think
49:23there's going to be more and more poor people they may be back on the trains again going around looking
49:29for odd jobs i think maybe the hobo is pretty much gone and in the east but in the west he will live
49:37the old hobos now too too old to travel they're becoming homeboys now they just stay in one location
49:46they don't travel no more i think we'll always have heavy duty rail riders people that want to ride
49:51freights and go for the adventure but the old bridger steam train hobo they're pretty much gone we're losing
49:58a few more every year and my era of uh hobos they're vastly dying out the real hobo is a dying breed a
50:12guy out there who's who's trying to get by going from town to town looking for work a real gentleman
50:17honest fellow is a hobo i have a sinking feeling in my heart that the day of the hobo is about over
50:24i think it's a fading game there's a legacy that will always live on and it will change with the
50:32different groups who are out there but as long as there's a rail to ride i think someone will be
50:36riding it the future could could be pretty bright actually if they if a young man should want a hobo
50:43in this country it might be the way to go i think there will always be
50:48a little bit of a thwart civil civilization i've been a loner i've been my own man fiercely so
51:09hey now come alive all you ran with all of you travelers on a road well the time has come
51:22to remember what you're going
51:28like where do you come from and where do you think you're going
51:39i don't know how any of the bows ride the trains these days for the simple reason they got all
51:52the letters cut off and uh you say to yourself well how do they get up there you know but they do
52:00and they make their way and they're still hobo and all around the country god bless them
52:05see you down the road
52:13all around the water tanks waiting for a train a thousand miles away from home sleeping in the rain
52:27i walked up to a brakeman to give him my talk he says if you've got money i'll see that you don't walk
52:43i haven't got a nickel not a penny can i show
52:52get off get off you railroad bum and he slammed that boxcar door
53:02though my pocketbook is empty and my heart is full of pain
53:14i'm a thousand miles away from home waiting for a train
53:20You're the Leo, the Leo, the Leo