Riding the rails for adventure or survival

This story was originally published in the Melrose Free Press, and is reprinted here with permission.

In 1936, during the Great Depression, the U.S. Bureau of Transient Affairs estimated that an estimated 4 million men and women had been forced to leave their homes or jobs and were on the road, hitchhiking or riding the rails. Of that, 250,000 were teenagers. California finally took the drastic step of blockading its borders to stop the influx. Many were called “hoboes”. The blockade was canceled after six weeks.

Civil War soldiers were the first to be called hoboes. After the war, many got home by rail carrying “hoes” to work as migrant farm workers or building railroads in the West.

Author James Michener was a hobo in his youth. In the film documentary, “American Hobo”, Michener says, “As a kid I went with a buddy from Philadelphia to Canada and then to Florida. I don’t know if I was born with it but it started very young and I thought I’d never stop. It was the sheer excitement of seeing new places,” said Michener. (One veteran hobo called it “National Geographic Live”.)

“I once rods (under the car) from Iowa to Illinois and a more hellish experience no young fellow ever had. You thought the ride would never end. It was a descent into Hell. How these men could to it again and again bewildered me."

“Hobo jungles” was where you could have some hobo stew and camaraderie. The stew would be kept on heat for days as new ingredients were always added. Yet, with an expression close to tears, Michener says, “I’d love right now to be in one of those hobo camps.”

Another hobo on the rails in his youth was country singer Merle Haggard. Haggard recalled that, “The worst situation was to be in a car with a “flat wheel” causing you to bounce off the floor. A big risk at night was moving from one car to another over the couplings. You’d shine a flashlight on the coupling, cross over, and toss the flashlight back to next guy.”

At age 19 during the 30’s, the late Bill Jodrey of Melrose felt, like many other youth back then, that he had become a burden on his family and decided to hobo his way across the country. He left with $20 in his pocket and kept detailed notes. He wrote a book^† about the experience at age 86. Called “Diary of a Hobo”, it’s available at the Melrose Library (or from 1-888-7LIBRIS). Don Norris of Melrose provided the artwork and former Boston Globe editor, Jack Driscoll, editor-in-resident at the MIT Media Laboratory and an advisor to the Melrose Silverstringers, was the editor.

Jodrey tells how he and his two sisters used to go to the Highland station to watch the evening freight train go by -“sometimes over 100 cars”. “As I write this in the late stages of my eighth decade, I am facing up to the real reason I felt compelled to slip off into the night: I was becoming a financial drain on my family.

“I did not see into the future so my mind shut down and I took off for the open road. If I thought things were bad when I left, I soon learned just how much worse they could become. I spent four months hitchhiking and riding freight trains from Melrose, to Seattle, down the West Coast to Los Angeles and back by various routes to Boston.”

As soon as he jumped aboard his first freight train he found out that everyone had to have a “road name”. His was “Boston Slim.”
Once frustrated while hitchhiking, he was able to hitch a ride by holding up a handmade sign which read: “Pick me up or I’ll vote for Hoover.”

CIty missions were a refuge for hoboes but were tougher on kids than adults. Kids got two meals and a night’s lodging; adults six meals and two nights lodging. One town had a large sign on the outskirts: “Keep Going. We Can’t Care Take of Our Own - Chamber of Commerce.”

“Hobo Jungles” were where you lived waiting to catch a train”, writes Bill. “The hoboes were like brothers. Their stories were similar. They had run away from something, mostly a home with too little food to eat for too many people. The men had a protective attitude toward the women. I never heard of a girl who was mistreated by a hobo.”

Danger was always present riding the rails. A young boy once made the mistake of looking out the freight car door to look around just when the engine bumped the cars while making a connection and suffered a fatal broken neck. Another boy was sitting with his legs dangling out the door when the brakes were applied on a curve and the bump lifted the car just enough to topple the boy into space and down an embankment. “The victim was out of sight in a few seconds.” recalls Bill. “I try not to think of his plight, but I haven’t forgotten the incident, even after sixty-five years.”
Bill once escaped a roundup hoboes in Ohio by the railroad “Bulls” that resulted in 220 of them being marched off to the town for work in work gangs. (In the South, you could be put on a chain gang for 30 days). The sight of them being marched off made Bill realize he didn’t want to lose his freedom that way. “I knew this was not the life I wanted to lead anymore. I knew I wanted to go home and start over again.”

He finally hitchhiked back East. The last ride was from a couple from Stoneham who left him off at Franklin and Vinton streets. As he walked up the driveway of his home at 54 West Highland Ave., his father was sharpening a scythe to cut brush.
“He looked up from his work when I said, “Hi.”

“Oh, where have you been?” he answered.

“California,” I said.
He thought for a few seconds and said, “Don’t do that again, will you ?"

After further gathering his thoughts, his father looked at his clothes and shoes. “Show me the bottom of your shoes,” he said. When Bill did, his father explained. "Hasoos Cristos. No heels, and the soles are worn through. That must have been a very long walk.”

Bill never hit the rails again, working must of his years for General Electric.

In recent years, there have been “Yuppie” hoboes and “Generation X” hoboes. Writer, director and producer, Bobb Hopkins (aka Santa Fe Bo), is the founder/director of the National Hobo Association which includes members of the eccentric world of recreational hoboeing. At one time he had 500 weekend rail riders on his home computer as part of the 2,000 member association.

Ernest Borgnine, the narrator of “American Hobo”, says, “I don’t know how they do it today. Many of the ladders have been cut off, but they still get up there.”

In 1894 at their Annual Convention in Chicago, the Hoboes of America adopted a code of conduct which are good guidelines for anyone today. Some examples:
1. Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you.
2. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
3. Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hoboes.
4. Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but insure employment should you return to that town again.
5. Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for the locals treatment of other hobos.
6. When in a town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as bad, if not worse than you.
7. Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you’ve been.
8. Do not allow other hoboes to molest children, expose to authorities all molesters, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
10. Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.

For me, nothing captures the hobo’s life better than these lyrics from Big Rock Candy Mountains:

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

(If these lyrics entice you, pack your gear and I’ll meet you tonight at the freight yard in (Location deleted by editor). Don’t bring you cell phone or ipod).

^†The book by Bill Jodrey, a SilverStringer contributor, was originally published in chapters in our Melrose Mirror. Click here to see the Tales of the Open Road.

October 2, 2009

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Riding the rails for adventure or survival