• 5 months ago
Transcript
00:00I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
00:30As the drover runs the cattle trail And the sailor follows billowed sail
00:44So the hobo tames the iron trail And longs for places far
00:50The 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
00:59He works and wanders, also learns And in his heart he always yearns
01:06To see beyond the river's turns The view from rolling cars
01:11All around the water tanks Waiting for a train
01:27A thousand miles away from home Sleeping in the rain
01:35I walked up to the brakeman To give him a fine talk
01:43He says, you've got money I'll see that you don't walk
01:51I haven't got a nickel Not a penny can I show
01:58Get off, get off your railroad bum And he slammed that boxcar door
02:13You know, when we were kids, we used to walk the railroad tracks to see how far we could walk,
02:20make bets among ourselves, you know, oh boy, look at this, look how far he's gone.
02:24And occasionally you'd see a train pass by and you'd see a hobo up there and you'd wave at him.
02:35They'd wave back. You wondered where these people were going.
02:43It was a fascinating adventure in our little lives to look at these fellas and realize that
02:51they were going somewhere and on a train.
02:58I was a real hobo. I did not have a stable home, so I was always willing to head out for a
03:10new adventure.
03:11I listened to a lot of those old Jimmy Rogers songs and he talked about riding freight trains
03:16and 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
03:30so many historical elements of 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.
03:43It's an experience that in a lot of ways just escapes an explanation.
03:49You 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
03:56to watch the country go by. I always call it National Geographic Live.
04:01Self-survival, you know. Eat when you want to eat, sleep when you want to sleep.
04:09You don't have to worry about the IRS.
04:12It's in the blood, I guess. Once you do it, it's in you. You can't quit.
04:19You call your own shots as you see fit for yourself.
04:25I don't own a car right now. I don't like riding greyhound buses, man,
04:29because I always get lucky, man. I 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.
04:44The 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,
04:54stitched like seams across the country since the Civil War.
04:59Legend has it that Erie Cripp and Philly Pop, two discharged Union soldiers,
05:05were the founding members of the fraternity of freight-hopping hobos.
05:09The two men, accustomed to the open-air military lifestyle,
05:13hitched a ride on a passing freight and rambled over the horizon.
05:17Other Civil War veterans followed suit and hopped on trains to get back home,
05:22while the less fortunate soldiers, left homeless by the devastating war,
05:26rode the rails in search of a new beginning.
05:29A great number of these early wanderers sought jobs as migrant farm workers
05:34and carried hoes along with them.
05:37Therefore, it is thought the nickname hobo is derived from being called
05:44homeward bound soldiers or ho-boys, both shortened to hobo.
05:52As the nation expanded westward,
05:54the railroads needed laborers to set ties and lay tracks,
05:57and the hobos played a vital role in these activities.
06:01To feed a growing nation, the hobos became the harvesters
06:05who reaped the crops of mid-America, often working a route
06:08that took them from the Texas panhandle to the Canadian border each season.
06:13During the prime age of dam construction,
06:16the hobos formed the nucleus of the hardy traveling workforces
06:20who built these massive structures,
06:23often in remote areas whose only real access was by freight train.
06:28These restless men continued to follow the developing railroads
06:32through the Rocky Mountains and became the lumberjacks
06:35of the Northwest Woods and merchant seamen of the Pacific Ocean.
06:42This land is my land, from California to the New York Island,
06:49from the Redwood Forest...
06:51The Great Depression of the 30s prompted factories to lay off laborers,
06:56businesses to foreclose, and 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
07:07who took to the rails in search of work.
07:10In 1934, the U.S. Bureau of Transient Affairs estimated
07:15there were one and a half million men and women riding America's freight trains.
07:22You could taste the Depression.
07:25These were bad years, you know.
07:2930, 31, 32.
07:33Everything 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.
07:44Back then, everybody had a relative, a brother, a son, a father,
07:49an uncle who was riding the trains looking for work.
07:54That lonesome whistle continues to recruit new visionaries,
07:58offering passage to where dreams are found.
08:02I hopped my first freight train back in 1966 in Athens, Alabama.
08:10A couple of buddies and I wanted to go up to Nashville
08:13and we didn't know how to get there except take the bus.
08:18So we were sitting down the weeds by the college there and
08:22this freight train came by and it was going real slow.
08:25So we said, let's do it.
08:26Next thing you know, we're on our way to Nashville.
08:29Well, I started riding freight trains as a kind of a recreational
08:34boyish adventure when I was about 15.
08:36And I rode pretty hard for several years, finally coming to rest at about 21 or 22.
08:43Well, the first freight train I rode, I was a kid about 15 years old
08:47and I wanted to get home from Minnesota down into Iowa
08:51and I didn't want to wait for my father to come up there to get me.
08:54So I rode a freight train.
08:56The first true hobo trip I ever took was when my brother Hopalong Chet and I
09:03were going back to our grandfather's 90th reunion
09:06and we rode from Barstow, California to the East Coast to Boston
09:11and took us eight days and 13 different train connections.
09:15And from that moment on, we were hooked.
09:18I decided to make a documentary film and it was mostly,
09:22the film started out as an excuse for 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 be.
09:36And it was pretty much an immediate addiction.
09:40I've been doing this since the age of 13 years old.
09:43That's, I'm telling you the real McCoy.
09:46Friend of mine used to work for Canadian National up in Montreal
09:50and he knew I liked trains a lot.
09:52I'd always liked trains going way back to when I was a little kid
09:56and 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
10:04and that was sort of the beginning of it and I took it from there.
10:09I think the first time was an old oil spur up there where I used to live in Oildale,
10:13but the first long trip I took was from Bakersfield to Fresno on the old SP.
10:19At the age of 12 or 13, I was living near Philadelphia
10:27and with a partner a year older,
10:33we bummed our way all the way to the Canadian border and all the way south to Florida.
10:43Every year at a different location alongside a mainline railroad,
10:49the National Hobo Association sponsors the Hobo Poetry and Music Festival.
10:54This year's site is charming Marquette, Iowa on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.
11:03Oh, and music has always been a central component of hobo life.
11:07They'd sing of their old home and their old friends.
11:11They'd sing of their old homes, their old loves, their work, and their trains.
11:16They'd play guitars, mandolins, and banjos,
11:19and simpler instruments like gin whistles, harmonicas, and Jews' hearts.
11:41The boss set me a drive in spikes. The sweat was enough to blind me.
11:47The boss, he didn't like my pace, so I left my job behind me.
11:53I climbed aboard an old freight train round the country travel.
11:57The mysteries of a hobo's life to me were soon unraveled.
12:03Yes, and the Jungle Telegraph goes out to hobos and hobos at heart
12:07in every corner of America, and they come from all nooks and crannies.
12:12They arrive by various modes of conveyance, many by car, truck, or motorhome, and,
12:19of course, a freight train.
12:22Oh, the big rock handy mountain. There's a land so fair and bright
12:27where the boxcars all are empty and you sleep out every night.
12:31Where the handouts grow on bushes and the sun shines every day
12:35on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
12:37and the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
12:39in the big rock handy mountain.
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.
13:21We could hop an extra west and head out toward the coast,
13:23or maybe take the valley route with the river as our host.
13:26You always like the scenery on the Colorado run
13:29or the smell of hay as the boxcars wade in the autumn Kansas sun.
13:33He said, we never rode the Chesapeake or the seaboard or the Sioux,
13:36and what about the cotton belt? That promise came from you.
13:39You said we'd ride the Lehigh and the Wabash Cannonball,
13:42and you absolutely promised we'd ride New England in the fall.
13:46How long can I resist the call? I really couldn't say,
13:49but the inner hobo's argument gets stronger every day.
13:53Now, 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,
14:06around the bend coming past the train.
14:08Under the cab was Casey Jones, a good engineer, but he's dead and gone.
14:12Dead and gone, he's dead and gone, a good engineer, but he's dead and gone.
14:20Well, Casey Jones was a brave engineer, he told his fireman not to fear.
14:25All he needed was water and coal,
14:27put your head out the window, see the drivers roll.
14:29Hey, yeah, the drivers roll.
14:31Put your head out the window, see the drivers roll.
14:38Trains are marvelous contraptions under any circumstance.
14:42They are unreal, shimmering steel, creatures that are almost alive,
14:47fire-breathing monsters with intense, undulating tails.
14:52So what is it that lures a hobo to mount these beasts again and again?
14:57And being that I like to play music, you know,
14:59there's nothing finer than sort of like the rhythm, you know.
15:03You're in tune with the rhythm, not only the rails,
15:05but I get in tune with the rhythm of waters that the trains go by.
15:08The speed, the power of the train, all those really, they really turn me on.
15:15The freedom, getting away from everything, getting away from everything,
15:21not feeling like I've got to be responsible about anything,
15:24being punctual, being somewhere at an exact time,
15:27being able to just hang out, go with the train, get somewhere for free.
15:30I'm getting from point A to point B and I don't have to drive.
15:34I don't have to deal with inner city traffic or
15:38anybody who's not going to let me get in my lane.
15:41A nice day, a good ride.
15:44I like to get into a terminal too that I haven't seen before and poke around.
15:48I like to do that.
15:50You also go through parts of the country, unlike the interstate system,
15:53that has virtually no signs of any commercial activity.
15:58No billboards, no exit signs, no neon.
16:02Seeing America from a boxcar, you see the wild horses, you see the ghost towns,
16:08you see, you know, you see everything about America that's, that's wonderful.
16:13To be out in the open for the first time,
16:15To be out in the open prairie where there's nothing but beautiful land around me,
16:21and 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, new piece of scenery every day.
16:31There are places like Idaho and Montana and Wyoming, all those western places I love.
16:38Those mountains are beautiful.
16:40Sheer 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.
16:53And 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,
17:08more than anything.
17:10They're not a nine-to-five office kind of person,
17:13and 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,
17:22concrete highways, and going from the office to the, 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, with my feelings.
17:40The 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
17:54who was out riding freight trains, and I thought that it was a fairly homogenous group.
18:00And I think what I've, one of the things I've really learned is that there are
18:04many different personalities that are out riding the freights.
18:07And those different personalities rarely divulge 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,
18:25and that kind of tells a little bit of the other side of me, rather than just being a hobo.
18:31Some 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,
18:39with his feet dangling down alongside the tank.
18:43That's why I named him Sidecar Sam.
18:46Then Lowline Larry, he rides from Florida all the way up to Utah, and he rides that lowline.
18:51So I gave him the name of Lowline.
18:53Everybody has a road name.
18:56I was a stranger passing through your town.
19:03I was a stranger passing through your town.
19:09When I asked you a favor, good girl, you turned me down.
19:17Good girl, you turned me down.
19:29Most of the time I'm alone because I have my own destination,
19:33and I have my own reason for going somewhere.
19:35I love solitude.
19:36I 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, 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,
19:54but 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,
20:01but 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,
20:09a 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.
20:19A lot of them think it's really neat, but then there's some that just think I'm out,
20:22totally out of my mind.
20:24Most of my friends think it's, it sounds like fun, sounds entertaining.
20:28They don't do it.
20:29My friends, they're, they're a little more understanding.
20:32They, they, they tell me, it's happened more than a few times that they tell me they want
20:36to come out on a ride with me, and as soon as I pack up my gear and I'm ready to head
20:40out the door, they, they seem to disappear.
20:43My mother spent a lot of worrisome years, I'm sure.
20:46She, when I got to Dunsmire on that trip there, I called her, and it just so happened I had
20:51a check coming from a job that I'd worked before I left, a couple months before, and
20:56she sent it to me by Western Union.
20:58I got my butt on it, goddang greyhound.
21:00Quitted, quitted that hoboing.
21:13Outside the rain was falling on the lonely boxcar door.
21:27But the little farm of hobo Bill lay dead upon the floor.
21:36While the train sped through the darkness with the raging storm outside.
21:44No one knew that hobo Bill was taking his last ride.
21:52Hey, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
22:02Oh, it was always cold, and stuff was always blowing in your face, and, and I think the
22:07coldest ride I had was from Eugene, Oregon, to Klamath Falls, Oregon, and on into Dunsmire,
22:20but we rode over the top of the mountain there in the snowstorm, and a couple other bows
22:25and myself were in the, in the ice compartment back in those old, old 40-foot reefers.
22:31They, if they didn't have any fruit they were carrying, they'd leave those reefer tops open
22:37sometime, and, and it was an excellent place to get if you couldn't get inside of a boxcar
22:41somewhere, and 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 well car,
22:50there's no way to get out of the sun, and you roil to death.
22:53The worst part about it would be in situations where you've run out of water,
22:56and you know that'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,
23:06and 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, but in the end it is always worth it.
23:21Well, the worst thing that I used to think was getting a flat wheel,
23:25and you're lying there trying to sleep, and you're bouncing off the floor every time that wheel goes around.
23:30The railroad bull running you out of the yards,
23:32or 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.
23:45Some of the places I went, slapping the bugs.
23:48All of a sudden in the middle of the night, man,
23:49they'll break air and they'll leave me out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
23:52That's kind of, that's kind of hard.
23:54The worst thing that could possibly happen for some of us
23:58would be if they made it legal.
24:01I'd like to make a little disclaimer here, just for our lawyers' sake.
24:06No bail.
24:07Came down to make sure we're all in line.
24:10By no means does the National Hobo Association encourage anybody to go get on a freight train.
24:15It's illegal and it's dangerous.
24:20During the Depression, hundreds of trespassers invaded yards like this
24:25and 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.
24:36But a pesky hobo could surely wind up in jail if the bull's warning goes unheeded.
24:43Had to run alongside and follow the advice of the older men.
24:50Hook a ride, get in.
24:52And the railroad police couldn't stop you from doing that
24:58because it was just as risky for them as it was for us.
25:03But they could masterfully keep you out of the railroad yards.
25:10And that's where we tangled with them.
25:15Back in the old days, you're going to go to the chain gang for 30 days, you know.
25:20Especially down south.
25:21They were mean and bad.
25:28Well, in the old days, they used to hit you with them brakeman's club.
25:33Today, they're not too bad, I guess.
25:36They didn't stop us from getting aboard the train, slow moving.
25:44And 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.
25:54They walked the train with the deputy sheriffs, pulled us off of there.
25:58But it was kind of nice, sort of like Aunt Bea bringing us dinner and everything, you know.
26:01It was kind of fun.
26:02They wrote us a ticket for trespassing on railroad property.
26:04We had to spend the night in the jail.
26:05They told us to get out of town the next morning because the D.A. wasn't going to prosecute it.
26:09The city was too small.
26:11I was never badly treated by them.
26:15They saw that I was younger.
26:21They 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, broke the seal on one of them refrigerator cars and did the unmanageable and
26:38took a whole case of green beans out of there.
26:41I threw it up in that boxcar and those hobos went to screaming at me and said,
26:45man, we'll get 50 years in jail.
26:47What are you doing breaking the seal on that boxcar?
26:49They'll throw us all off this train.
26:51I said, well, at least we'll be hungry.
26:54Won't be hungry.
26:55And one old hobo way back in the corner of the boxcar, he threw over a can opener and a spoon.
27:03He said, I'll join you, young man.
27:12Hobo camps, also known as jungles, grew up near the train yards, water tanks,
27:19crew change points, anywhere locomotives stopped.
27:24Sooner or later, you did fall into one of the camps.
27:30And very imaginative men ran them.
27:34They were congenial places.
27:37You didn't want to leave.
27:39You made friends.
27:40You heard great stories.
27:43Well, I remember going into a hobo jungle one time in Barstow.
27:49And they had a really a large hobo camp there.
27:53I participated in some community stew a couple of times in my life.
28:03Fit for a king, hobo stew.
28:05Hobo stew, the famous mulligan that's been made in the spike cans and paint
28:09buckets under bridges and on the edge of the railroad yards since the Civil War.
28:14The 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.
28:30Usually, if a guy come into jungles, he came there with his loaf of bread and his bologna
28:37and 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.
28:52They complain to the police.
28:53The police complain to the railroad bulls, and the railroad bulls run them out.
28:57They 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.
29:12There's very few jungles nowadays.
29:16Go to sleep, you weary hobo.
29:20Let the town strip slowly by.
29:28Can't you hear the steel rail humming?
29:34That's a hobo's lullaby.
29:40Though your clothes are torn and ragged.
29:46Though your hair is turning gray.
29:51Though you've spent a lifetime searching.
29:58You'll find happiness someday.
30:03So go to sleep, you weary hobo.
30:10Let the town strip slowly by.
30:13Can't you hear the steel rail humming?
30:22That's a hobo's lullaby.
30:31Hobos Communicate through the National Hobo Association.
30:35Founded in 1987 by Santa Fe Bow, who's been a trained barnacle since the 70s.
30:41His two goals were uniting others who shared a love of the open road.
30:45And 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.
31:02America's Journal of Wanderlust.
31:05And began distributing it to kindred spirits.
31:09In 1990, Buzz Potter came on board.
31:12And together they upgraded the Times to the only magazine in America.
31:16That features a blend of railroad adventure stories.
31:20Poetry, nostalgia, and the current news of life on the hobo trail.
31:25A letter that we got from a 96 year old former hobo.
31:30Who rode back in the depression.
31:33And he found out about us and he sent us a letter.
31:36And it said very simply.
31:37Dear National Hobo Association.
31:39Please don't let the hobo die.
31:42It grew slowly over the years.
31:44But steadily.
31:45And today we have thousands of members nationwide.
31:48That span the demographic spectrum.
31:53From lawyers to laborers.
31:54Professional people.
31:56Corporate people.
31:57They're from all walks of life.
31:59And they've been where I've got to go yet.
32:01And I learn from their experiences.
32:04It'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.
32:11With their kindred spirits.
32:12They have the wanderlust.
32:14The sense of romance and the sense of nostalgia.
32:18All of a sudden we understood that there were other people like ourselves.
32:21And we found out how to get a hold of them.
32:23It provides a forum for us to get together and tell our tales.
32:27Rather than just maybe running into one or two people in the jungle.
32:30And telling your individual experiences.
32:32And to get together occasionally.
32:34And share the fellowship that was forged in early days around campfires.
32:38In remote places throughout the country.
32:40Now we're a little more respectable I guess.
32:43And we get together with much better stew.
32:45And much better clothes.
32:46And much warmer fires perhaps.
32:48But the fellowship hasn't changed.
32:50We enjoy brotherhood camaraderie.
32:52We sing songs.
32:53We trade photographs and addresses.
32:56And we sort of get together.
32:57This to me is my family.
32:58We have younger people now.
33:00Some of the ex-generation people who are looking for themselves.
33:04Trying to find themselves I guess.
33:06And part of that is seeing America.
33:09We're trying to educate our children and our younger folk.
33:13Who might not know what a steam locomotive is.
33:15And what a hobo jungle was.
33:16And a mulligan stew in a pot.
33:18And a frisco circle and stuff like that.
33:20Terms that were used back in the 20s and 30s and 40s.
33:23Many NHA members are devoted collectors of hobo memorabilia.
33:29George Horton has acquired hobo artifacts such as these antique carvings.
33:34Each whittled from a single piece of wood.
33:37These whistles and chains were formed in a similar fashion.
33:42Enterprising hobos even chiseled peach pits into monkey trinkets.
33:48Del Romines wrote a book on hobo nickels.
33:51Explaining how bows tooled Indian head coins to match the profiles of their paying customers.
33:58They'd even reshaped the buffalo image on the reverse side.
34:03Drummond Manfield's art reflects earlier days.
34:07When it was pretty much a man's world out on the road.
34:11But nowadays women are prominent members of the hobo community.
34:16We have a lot of fun together.
34:19And it becomes like your extended family, your brothers, your sisters.
34:23And you make friends for life.
34:24So I love them.
34:28Hobo-ings definitely in Connecticut Shorty's blood.
34:32Her father was a hobo for 40 years and by no means a bum.
34:37You see real hobos bristle at the intimation that they shunned work.
34:42In fact, they discreetly marked their own hieroglyphics around train yards.
34:47To alert each other about town prospects.
34:54An oft-repeated axiom sums up the men on the road.
34:58A hobo is a traveling worker.
35:01A tramp is a traveling non-worker.
35:05A bum is a non-traveling non-worker.
35:09You got to do work in order to keep yourself independent.
35:14Traveling money.
35:16Traveling money.
35:19Take any kind of a job, whether it's two hours or two days or two months.
35:25Get a road stake.
35:28The western farmers had a deal with the railroads.
35:35Whereby 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,
35:54unloaded the cattle, exercised them, watered them, fed them,
36:01got back aboard the train and went on to Chicago.
36:05You got no money for this, but you did get transportation.
36:10We used to hay.
36:12They'd have two cuttings of hay a year.
36:16And you're good for a week to two weeks of haying.
36:22We went and caught a freight out of Denver and went west.
36:26And we wound up in Yakima, Washington.
36:29And he had an aunt there that had an apple orchard.
36:35And he thought, well, we could find that place and maybe we could pick some apples.
36:39We never found the place.
36:41We 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.
36:54Road hog washed all the windows in my house inside and out.
36:57Side door had scrubbed my kitchen floor immaculate.
37:01And they raked all the leaves in my yard.
37:03It was fall, late September.
37:04And that was to pay me back for the ride and the, you know,
37:10the little bedroom I gave them.
37:11So separate from mine, of course.
37:14I've done all irrigation ditches, broke horses,
37:19hoed 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,
37:30loading lettuce, bananas, stuff like that.
37:34Primarily, I play guitar.
37:36I do a lot of folk festivals around the country.
37:38I play veterans hospitals.
37:40I do children's hospitals.
37:42I 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 fall out the job, I'll take it.
37:50I do anything from painting, carpentry, concrete work, trimming trees.
37:56And when I'm broken between guitar gigs, I go to day labor and push a wheelbarrow,
37:59dig 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.
38:11Today, there's a new class of unticketed passengers who vary from the old time hobos.
38:17They aren't chasing down jobs.
38:19They're running from them and have come to be known as yuppie or recreational hobos.
38:26Yuppie hobos, they're a pretty good group.
38:31A lot of those guys really do more than their share.
38:35I approve of them.
38:36I'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.
38:46These 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,
38:51I'd have a great life, too.
38:54They're not as generous as our old school were and has been.
39:00They're a different breed of bulls.
39:04I'm out there just like them, just riding the rails, seeing the country.
39:07And that's really what the real hobos are all about.
39:10I had somebody send me $50 a month.
39:12That was the deal.
39:13Couldn't send me more than $50 a month unless I came back to Minneapolis and re-sign papers,
39:19because I figured the less I'd spend, the more I'd experience.
39:23And so I would go that last week, you know, where I'd burn all my money
39:29and 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.
39:35As a professional pilot, there is a courtesy among airline pilots
39:39that 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,
39:46it'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
39:53where 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.
40:10I'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 would sort of call me like a recreational rider, I guess.
40:29So I got into riding freight trains as a necessity,
40:32but after I eventually got back on my feet and got to working and got a place to live and all that,
40:38then 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.
40:44But we all have one thing in common.
40:46We like to steal rides.
40:50Besides traveling for free,
40:52the ever-frugal hobo has learned to survive on Mother Nature's free lunches.
40:58Most people think that hobos went to houses for meals or worked and try and pay for them,
41:04but a lot of meals were taken from right around here, right along trackside.
41:12Here we have plantain, which no doubt was definitely part of the hobo diet.
41:20I know a lot of stories I've read,
41:23hobos and other people would always just pick up a little bit
41:27chew on it, taste good with other plants,
41:30and between plantain with a little bit of lemon clover flavor,
41:36you can eat a great meal.
41:38When I finally broke free of money and realized that I could live off the blackberries,
41:46and I know where they are and the raspberries are where they are
41:48and the other things that are around the yards,
41:50you can eat right off the land or the dumpsters or whatever else.
41:56The quick-witted hobo has traditionally added humor to his social commentary.
42:02Put your lobsters in the trash,
42:04eat your pheasant while it's under glass,
42:07get into your garbage, I have no cash.
42:10Little dinner, I'll be gone in a flash,
42:12won't you hold them pickles, hold that lettuce.
42:15Special orders, they don't upset us,
42:18just as long as they would let us dive it our way.
42:22Yeah, we're gonna go dumpster diving,
42:27I'm surviving, my kitty cats are thriving today.
42:34Just open the lid, have a little look,
42:37it's all prepared, there's no need to cook,
42:40we're going dumpster diving, whoa, whoa, hooray.
42:43Catching rides on freight trains is notoriously dangerous.
42:54Even the most seasoned hobo will caution against novices
42:57trying to jump on board a moving train,
43:00telling horror stories of accidents they've witnessed,
43:03resulting 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
43:16and the trains were moving and there were the two of us.
43:20One guy would stand here and shine the light at the couplings
43:23and 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,
43:30we'd toss the flashlight to the other guy
43:32and of course it was up to him to make sure he caught it
43:34and then in turn he would shine the light
43:37as the second guy would go across the railings
43:39and we had to do this for about four or five cars
43:41and I think back it's probably the most foolish thing I ever did.
43:45I'd never do it again.
43:46I still get goose bumps when I think about it.
43:49There's dangers out there and there's no way you can avoid them
43:52and even the most experienced veterans
43:54cannot 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.
44:03It's too chancy.
44:05People who wish you harm and want to take you and rob you,
44:12that's the biggest danger today.
44:14It'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
44:22in a side door Pullman, which is a boxcar,
44:25to ride in the same car.
44:27Nowadays, you wouldn't dare to ride with strange hobos
44:34or anyone you didn't know.
44:37You 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
44:45and all that stuff.
44:47He learned it in the Marine Corps, I think.
44:48We practiced that in a boxcar moving about 80 miles an hour one time.
44:52When it comes to train riding,
44:54you have to give that train all of your respect,
44:57but the train will never, won't give you any.
45:00So you can't rely upon the train to get you where you're going
45:03or to be a smooth ride or a safe one.
45:06I have a great concern about equipment failure.
45:08I have a concern about human error with regard to rail operations
45:12and these kinds of things I have no control over.
45:15And you never know whenever you're going to be on a train
45:17that has a crew that's gone to sleep at the throttle.
45:20And 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.
45:31And a more hellish experience no young fellow ever had.
45:39It was horrible.
45:43You set up a little protection there to keep you safe.
45:51Protection there to keep the soot out of your face.
45:56And you bounced along and you felt the ride would never end.
46:03It 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 on new dimensions on December the 7th, 1941.
46:22The day many believed the hobo died.
46:25We'll win through to absolute victory.
46:29No longer did bows jungle up in Frisco, Spokolo or many hopeless.
46:36Now 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.
46:48Life on the hobo trail would indeed never be the same.
47:03I wouldn't trade my experiences out here on the road for anybody's college education.
47:10And though I never really accomplished anything by all this travel.
47:17It satisfied something in me.
47:21I don't know whether I was born with it.
47:25But it started very young.
47:29And I never stopped.
47:33I got stopped.
47:34But I would look right now to be in one of those hobo camps.
47:56Will the hobo survive?
47:59Or will he go the way of the steam train?
48:02We wonder.
48:06If 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.
48:17And yet hobo continues to, you know, 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.
48:32As long as there's trains, there's going to be people riding them.
48:34I can guarantee you that.
48:35With a strong railroad industry,
48:37you're going to have plenty of trains and 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
48:54exclusively to keep people off of them.
48:57It'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 lot of,
49:03there's a few idiots out there derailing trains.
49:05It might get harder again to hop freights.
49:08It might get easier.
49:10But it'll always be here.
49:12There's not going to be too much of it in the future, I'm afraid, because,
49:16well, they're seeming to get pretty tough on 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, but 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,
49:50people that want to ride freights and go for the adventure.
49:53But the old bridger steam train hobos are pretty much gone.
49:57We're losing a few more every year.
50:00And my era of hobos are 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.
50:19I have a sinking feeling in my heart that the day of the hobo is about over.
50:25I think it's a fading game.
50:28There's a legacy that we'll always live on.
50:30And it will change with the different groups who are out there.
50:33But as long as there is 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.
50:45I think there will always be young men like me who are a little bit athwart civilization.
51:02I've been a loner.
51:03I've been my own man, fiercely so.
51:09Hey, now come on now, all you ramblers, all you travelers on the road.
51:19Well, the time has come to remember what you're known.
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.
51:50For the simple reason they got all the ladders cut off.
51:54And you say to yourself, well, how do they get up there?
51:57You know, but they do.
52:00And 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.
52:13All 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 said, if you've got money, I'll see that you don't walk.
52:44I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show.
52:51Get off, get off, you railroad bum.
52:56And he slammed that boxcar door.
53:06Though my pocketbook is empty and my heart is full of pain.
53:13I'm a thousand miles away from home, waiting for a train.
53:21Yodel-a-dee-do, yodel-a-dee-do, yodel-a-dee-do.