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Trained Savant
Stretch in Jackson, TN
Los Angeles, CA—
Stretch has deep knowledge of trains and their schedules in these contiguous United States, all of which he has ridden in.
You could say, “Stretch, how do I get from, say, Trinidad, Colorado to Spokane, Washington?” He would say, “Well you catch such-and-such a line from this yard in Trinidad. It’s scheduled to leave at ten but is usually about 15 minutes late. Then, it’ll stop at this time in this yard. Switch to track two. Those guys are friendly, it’s usually a cab ride for me.” Which means he knows the guys on the train and they let him ride in the warm locomotive on padded seats. “Ride that to Sacramento, which you’ll know from the smell of such and such, walk to this rail yard two miles away and get on this train, which ends in Spokane.” It’s something I think one can gain only by lots of trial-and-good-lord,-Where-am-I-now? experience.
First Ride
Houston, TX —
It was my first ride in an open boxcar, a short hop from Jackson, Tennessee to Corinth, Mississippi.
I’ve watched the world go by from most of the different modes of transport. Bikes. Boats. Planes. Cars. Passenger trains. Buses. Watching the world go by from the open picture window of a boxcar’s doorway is different. It is at once both intimate with and removed from the outside world. It’s a really weird feeling. A big paradox.
Maybe it was that the night had a moon bright enough to cast shadows, or maybe it was our middling speed of 40 miles an hour, or the fact that you could fall out at any moment, but the world from the gaping mouth of that car looked fake, like a painted backdrop—but it was also always reminding you that it was real. People moving in the light cast by a Christmas tree. The tiny rectangular glare of a television. Cars speeding alongside the tracks, maybe or maybe not realizing that it feels like we’re racing.
Photographs from the South
Train yard, Jackson, TN
Train yard, Jackson, TN
How to Kill a Day
Dallas, TX —
The day was balmy for December as stretch and I rolled into Jackson, Tennessee. Seventies and sunny, which you think would have been welcome to Stretch after days of single-digit lows in Indiana, but he doesn’t like having to remove his coveralls, his fleece hoodie, his flannel and his long johns, and then having to hump them to the next train.
Stretch out of his coveralls on an unseasonably warm day
We’d skipped breakfast in Kentucky and were peckish by the time we arrived at The Old Country Store and Casey Jones Village there in Jackson. The Old Country Store and Casey Jones Village is a little strip mall tourist attraction that hosts a train museum, a false-front series of shops and a small hobo gathering each year. It’s a family-run affair headed by a devout, rotund man of impeccable southern breeding called T. Clark Shaw.
T. Clark Shaw treated the Hobo King 2008-2009 to a free country buffet (full disclosure: he treated the Hobo King’s reporter companion to a free country buffet, too: we are dirt poor graduate students, after all), where Stretch piled on the food in three trips through the line. The food, as T. Clark Shaw said, was “real Southern cooking” which as far as I can tell means things with great viscosity that are bad for you, and usually delicious.
T. Clark Shaw and Stretch in the offices of The Old Country Store
Our train wasn’t leaving until about 8:00 that night, so we lingered everywhere we went, killing time. I tried to get stretch to talk about the Freight Train Riders of America. He mostly demurred. (More on the FTRA next week when Eric and Meredith report from one of the organization’s Founders’ homes in Montana.) We took a walk with Burlington dog. We scouted places to stash my car for the night. (more…)
Stretching Legs
Houston, TX —
I found Stretch, the elected King of the Hoboes sitting on his pack in the snow with a ruddy smile on his face and a beer in his hand. He was at the rail yard in Avon, Indiana, just outside of Indianapolis. The 2008-2009 monarch wore Carhartt coveralls and was packed for the road. I had organized this meeting with the prolific tramp via a series of calls to his cell phone.
(The fact that he had a cell phone was surprising at first, seeing as he doesn’t have much of a home address, but the weirdness wore off quickly. It’s pay as you go, so no address needed. He said it makes tramping safer.)
Our destination wasn’t yet clear, but he was excited to get out of the cold he’d been sitting through for three days.
He piled his dog Burlington, his 100 lbs. of gear and his namesake 6′5″ frame all into my four door Honda Civic and pulled out the atlas. It was cold outside, about 28 degrees, so the only thing we knew for sure was that we’d head south.
I noticed the smell as soon as we closed the doors. Stretch was two-and-a-half pungent weeks out from a shower and his dog was wet. Alternately blessed and cursed by an acute sense of smell, I was relegated to mouth breathing for the six hour ride. It would have been longer, but I broke the law in the name of my nose so we could just get there.
There, we decided, was Fulton, Kentucky. Nobody has ever been to Fulton, Kentucky. Except for hoboes.
“We get them all the time,” one Fulton Police Department cop told me as he hassled us to move along. “I don’t know why. But we do.”
I know why. There are trains to catch. But none that suited my peculiar holiday-circumventing schedule and so after taking some pictures and getting removed by the cops from our first campsite, we repaired (with police permission) to a nearby abandoned Wal-Mart parking lot. The cops told us it would be “safer—you might not think it, but this is a pretty rough little town,” the lieutenant on duty told us. He had a big white moustache, weathered skin and an alarmingly authentic Western Kentucky accent, and so we believed him.
Fulton train yard; we were removed by the cops, but not ticketed
The night sky looked like rain so Stretch curled up with Burlington under the awning of the building formerly known as Wal-Mart and I knocked the back seats down in my car, stuck my legs in the trunk and crashed.
I experienced the rain as a sort of ominous slamming on the roof of my impermeable car. Stretch got more of the reality of the rain.
“The wind was blowing from five different directions,” he said the next morning. “I woke up when it started blowing up under here…my sleeping bag’s a little bit wet.”
For the record, it was soaked.
We sat and watched the sky change from rain to just clouds to clouds punctured by blue sky sucker holes. Things were looking up and we blasted down to Jackson, Tennessee to catch a train to Mississippi.
More later…
Meet the Hobo Minstrel
We had the distinct pleasure of spending the past 24 hours at the Plymouth, New Hampshire home of a gentleman beloved by many hoboes, Fran “The Hobo Minstrel” DeLorenzo. Fran is a hobo historian and a major figure in the hobo community. We learned a lot in our conversations and look forward to sharing video and photos as soon as we can get them up.
Traveling Through
We will be prowling the Southwestern United States this winter, looking to link up with hobos, tramps, taggers and other train enthusiasts. Please drop us a line if you have any tips!
Welcome!
Welcome to our multimedia exploration of the contemporary hobo. We are just getting started, so have a look around and visit us often!
Cheers,
Team Hobo