#HOBO SIGNS FREE#

I did a lot of hitchhiking right after high school. Malone was crowned Hobo Queen in 1994, and she sports a vest stitched with a patchwork of mementos of her travels. 'New York Maggie' Malone is the daughter of a Connecticut Slim, a famous hobo from the steam train era. And every story here begins as the same story.

#HOBO SIGNS FREE#

Because talk’s free because even if you give away everything you own, or they take away everything you have, you still have your stories. A “bum” neither travels nor works.Īnd of course the whole thing runs on talk, endless talk.

A “tramp” travels, but mostly does not work. To die is to “catch the westbound.” And understand this, above all else: A “hobo” is an itinerant worker someone who travels and finds work. “Flyers” and “hotshots” and “redballs” are all fast freights. “Hundred on a plate” is a can of beans, and the jungle kitchen is run by the “Crumb Boss.” The “bulls” are the railroad police. For example, the “jungle” is just the communal hobo camp, usually near the railroad yard. Hobo slang can be intuitive, or impenetrable, but it’s always colorful. Most these days have a semipermanent address somewhere for the winter. Even then, not every hobo is completely homeless. And as the hobo fades from the American scene-except as a visual or literary cliché-there’s more and more confusion on the matter. And it’s worth mentioning here that not every homeless person is a hobo. In a society of citizen consumers, to have nothing, to own nothing, by choice, might be the most radical politics of all. As an editorial matter, know that I spoke to these folks and they spoke to me, that my bosses know what’s what and that these interviews were accurately recorded and transcribed, and that for the purposes of this story I respect every hobo’s right to anonymity. I wish I were kidding.) A few, the ones trying to outrun something, won’t even talk to me. Not every hobo wants to share his or her real name with the straights and the Square Johns, of which, with my notebook and recorder and wingtip shoes, I am decidedly one. The sun rises over train tracks leading east toward Britt, Iowa.Įvery hobo has a moniker, a nickname grounded in habit or origin or appearance, like Redbird or Frisco Jack or Bookworm. This article is a selection from the May issue of Smithsonian magazine Buy Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12 The whole place hums to life as day drains into darkness. There’s even a group of students down from South Dakota State University. But there are children and grandchildren running around here, too, and a few young hobos, gutter punks and dirty kids, and tourists and fans and citizens. Even in the firelight it’s an inventory of faded tattoos and gray ponytails, of vivid misremembrance and missing teeth, of crutches and sunburn and spotless denim, of balky hips and whiskey breath and nicotine stains. Jumping a train is still a dangerous act of sometimes desperate athleticism. Way harder to catch out since 9/11 and harder still for an aging hopper. Almost no one rides the freight to get here anymore. The big fire sits at the center of it all, and the whole jungle, maybe an acre, is ringed by tents and cars and vans and little motor homes. Across from the boxcar are the outdoor kitchen and the equipment shed and the little pavilion with the picnic tables. Connecticut Shorty and Jeff the Czech, Minnesota Jim and Mystic Will, Slim Tim and Jumpoff John, Sassy and Crash and Sunrise, Dutch and Half Track and IoWeGian, Tuck the King and Queen Minnesota Jewel, Gypsy Moon and 4 Winds and Honeypot Heather, Ricardo and K-Bar and New York Maggie Malone. Maybe 50 hobos in the jungle this year, and an equal number of hobo hobbyists and hobo historians and hobos-at-heart.

And after dinner, once the pots and pans are washed and stacked, the hobos will sit and smoke and sing a few choruses of what sounds like “Hobo’s Lullaby.” Not far away, at the foot of the boxcar, in the Sinner’s Camp, they’ll tell stories and drink beer in the lengthening shadows. This is by the railroad tracks off Diagonal Street, just over from the cemetery and a couple of blocks down Main Avenue from the center of town.

Not long ago out in Britt, Iowa, they were watching that big sun hang behind the grain elevators while the orange light from the campfire flickered up in the hobo jungle. It’s dusk in farm country, coming up on twilight, but there’s something of eternity in it. Not that sun, not the moon, not the stars. From end to end the whole sky goes rose pink, and a giant sun hovers out there like a live coal over the corn. There's a kind of late summer Midwestern sunset, maybe you’ve seen one, so beautiful and so strange it’s dislocating.

Hobo signs