Hobo

Our house on 116th street was a couple of miles from the railroad yard. The trains were coming and going all the time. it is a big yard. There were passenger trains but the biggest part of the yard is freight trains with the box cars. At night I would hear the train whistles when they were moving from track to track. I would imagine far away places where those trains went.

I remember when I was about 12 years old my Mom was out in the yard stretching the curtains. In those days when you washed the curtains you stretched them while they dried. A kid that was "on the road" showed up and my Mom gave him something to eat. Her advice to him was to go home to your Mom.

When I was going into the 10th grade I was about 15 years old. I had a little problem with my father. I knew I was probably going to get beat on. I don't remember what I did. So I decided rather than go home and face him that this was the time I would go and ride a freight train. I talked it over with my friend that was the same age. He was actually a relative that lived a dozen blocks from us. We used to go camping and lots of places together. I told him I was leaving but I didn't tell anybody else. So I headed for the freight yards. I didn't know anything about catching trains or riding the rails. I had to find out in a hurry, which I did. I got into a box car and pretty soon we were off. I was off into a world that I hadn't experienced before and into the unknown. I don't remember now the early part, where we went.

I had to learn how to catch a car. At that time there were a lot of hobo's on the road because it was the tail end of the depression and a lot of people were using the rails as a way to get from one place to the other. At that time there were single men, a few single women, and families riding the rails. i was not alone. There was always somebody that could tell you what to do next. I learned how to get on a box car. You had to get on the train after they were moving because there were railroad detectives trying to keep the people off the trains. You had to get on while the train was going slow enough. There were different ways to climb on. There were ladders on the side. You had to run along and grab one of the rungs of the ladder and pull yourself up. Riding the rails can be quite dangerous. When you swing up on the ladder you could swing between the two cars and fall back on the track and under the wheels. The old hands knew how to do it. I didn't realize that and I didn't find out until some time later when I was travling that the railroad companies put out a schedule. There was a train schedule with the times and directions and tracks.

I traveled around fro a while. There were times when I hitchhiked as well. That could very interesting. That is how I started driving. I was riding with one fellow and he said, "here, take the wheel." You meet all different kinds of people.

Then there was a problem of your meals. All I had was a pocket full of change. The thing  I found the most satisfying was a bowl of chili. I could go in a restaraunt and have a bowl of chili for a dime or 15 cents. I had to stretch out what money I had. Then I would have to try to find some kind of work. The work that was most available and obvious was in the restaraunts washing dishes. I did a lot of that. I had to learn how to use a dishwasher. It takes a certain amount of caution because the water was so hot you could burn yourself. There was one restaraunt that I went in and I worked but didn't have a place to sleep. The owner let me sleep in the basement. That is what I did. I tried to find cardboard and I had aquired one blanket and I slept on the floor laying on top of cardboard and newspaper. It was the cold time of the year so this was better than being outside.

There were times that I slept in the boxcar. If you took your shoes off and laid them next to you somebody might take your shoes. So I would put my shoes together and tie the laces around them and use them as a pillow. There was more than one night where I would go to the police station and ask if I could spend the night there. These were small stations in small towns, ususally. They would let me come in and sleep in the cell and in the morning they would let me leave. There were also flop houses where they had beds. It cost 50 cents for the night. This one place the room was separated with wood petitions and wire mesh. After I was laying there for a little while something was biting me. There was one light hanging on a wire from the ceiling so I turned it on and picked up the pillow and the bed bugs were crawling all over the pillow. So I got up, put my clothes back on and I went out to the office where they had rented me the bed and I told them they had bed bugs, give me my 50 cents back. No argument. He gave me my 50 cents.