“Jumping a freight train will transform you: it offers a personal catharsis and a shift in perspective. You experience the juxtaposition between industrial power and expansive sky, between clamoring movement and monumental landscape. You discover intoxicating freedom and encounter trying hardships. Poets and thieves will offer you advice. You may be a student, a lawyer, a migrant worker, but on the rails you become a transient, a voyeur, a patriot.”
After reading this hobo paragraph I am ready to be transformed. Bring it on. I need a personal catharsis and shift in perspective. I believe you will be transformed and intoxicated and in danger of never returning to regular life. I did not say “normal” life, because I don’t believe anyone is normal, and what is normal, who decides???? Not me.
Another thought, jumping from the freight train would transform me alright, it would break my neck or a leg.
Old movies with hobo’s riding freight trains, clickety clackity sounds of wheels rolling along the tracks, traveling. Shut my mouth and be still my heart if I hear the lonesome whistle call.
The lonesome call is a melancholy sound sending me searching memories, did I ride the rails in another life?
Hitching a ride, bypassing most human contact, long silences, ongoing picnics, and discovering simplicity of life. Sleeping on a bed of quilts. Bathing in service stations, I’d have to find somewhere to take showers. Hopping off and staying in small towns for a few days. Asking door to door for food, blankets, clothes. Meeting new people. Taking a gazillion pictures. Capturing faces in black and white.
Actually, there are factors of hobo life that would be different for me today. By sheer number there is more evil loose in our world. There is nothing new under the sun, just more of it.
I wouldn’t mind hoboing around for awhile, but I need a place to call home.
The hobo legends of travel are surely romanticized in my mind.
...“I was ridin' number nine
Headin' south from Caroline
I heard that lonesome whistle blow
Got in trouble, had to roam
Left my gal an' left my home
I heard that lonesome whistle blow...”
5 comments:
If my Father were alive he'd tell you it's not what it's cracked up to be...this is a hollywood version.
My Dad was a Hobo and rode the rails and I tell you I always lived in Limbo...waiting for the phone call saying he was dead. I hated it. When he was drunk he'd paint a portrait but I knew it wasn't the truth. What he did do, was romantisize it so much that my youngest sister and a friend tried it at age 13 and ended up in the railyards in Chicago, terrified and hungry, calling home for help to get back.
I hated him for that too.
Thankfully I have forgiven him but I've never forgotten it. I also have wanderlust in my veins and followed its call several times in my life but it was on my terms and with money in my pocket and my children in tow. Those experiences couldn't be traded for all the tea in China. :) So let that lonesome whistle keep blowing Sweet Sandra...I hear it every once in a while and now I just ignore it, lol! I don't want you minus an appendage!!!
I love you immensely and have a wonderful week ahead!!!
xoxoxo
I love the idea of riding on a train, but I confess I am spoiled. I would want a room of my own to sleep in and one to enjoy a meal in.
The idea of taking in the scenery during daylight hours pleases me
very much.
I used to live close enough to hear the train whistle blow and that was very comforting.
Wow, you are on quite a journey, even though you have not jumped on the train, your spirit is so wild. I love the idea of travelling to many exotic places, but, ultimately, at this point in my life, I truly love the nest I have created at home more than anything. Happy hoboing, if that is what you decide to do!
I have traveled a lot, and now in my later years, am seemingly grounded more than ever.
But somedays I hear that lonesome whistle blow and a part of me wants to move, to step out into the unknown again, to see new and exciting places full of people I don't know.
But for now, here I sit.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friend!
Hi Sweet Sandra....I haven't been by for a while....I've been missing in action from Blogland. I loved this post about traveling aimlessly throughout our country. You know...us road warriors do some of that .... only we have our own showers. LOL LOL
The thought about simpler times though is really such a wonderful thought...alas...it will never be again in our lifetime.
xo
Jo
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