MAM, CAN YOU SPARE A MEAL

I thought I would republish some pieces I wrote several years ago. They have nothing to do with current events, the reelection of President Obama, the Patraeus mess or whatever today's latest scandal is. They are just memories from my younger years--much younger years. I hope you enjoy them as I continue to post them.

This particular post is hoboes as I remember them.
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During the Great Depression of the 1930s, thousands of homeless, jobless men took to the road to find work or simply to run away from their surroundings. Great numbers of hoboes rode on trains, primarily freight trains, without any thought of payment for their passage. They road on top of trains, inside boxcars and under the trains on the rods—part of the suspension system of the train. They were subjected to abuses from fellow hoboes and from the railroad police whose job it was to insure that passengers paid their way. Hoboes were beaten, robbed, thrown from trains and often killed. Hoboes suffered the vagaries of the weather and tried to keep moving from colder climates to warmer climates without freezing or baking.

Many were honest men, simply trying to find a better life. There were always rumors of work in another place often distant from where they were at any moment. With no money, they hitched a ride on the railroads when they could.

My father, (and for some short time my mother), my maternal grandfather and my uncle all worked for a small ore hauling line in Northeast Oklahoma before, during and after the Great Depression. So for many years, we lived close to the railroad tracks. In addition to the North Eastern Oklahoma Railroad, the ore hauling line, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (or the St. Louis and San Francisco [the Frisco] Railroad) and the Kansas, Oklahoma, and Gulf Railroad ran through my hometown. And, since these lines went from colder places to warmer places, hoboes frequented them. I seem to recall there also was a small “Hobo Jungle” or camp just on the northern outskirts of town on a small creek called Tar Creek. Hoboes would lay over here waiting for their next ride. It was not unusual to find them knocking on door of houses close to the railroad seeking a handout. Many would offer to do some menial labor in exchange for a meal. Since many folks had wood or coal burning stoves, tasks such as splitting kindling and filling the wood box were common. My grandparents had a coal-burning stove for years and kindling splitting was a chore often exchanged for a meal. Nobody had much in those days; even those folks who were working made little money and did many things to stretch their pay. But my grandmother and grandfather both came from families of small means when they were growing and so they tended to share what little they had with those they perceived were worse off than they.

Standard hobo fare in my grandmother’s kitchen was a bowl of pinto beans, generally cooked with a little salt pork along with cornbread or biscuits, homemade butter, buttermilk, sweet milk, sweetened iced tea or coffee depending on which was available. Some sliced Bermuda onion or green onions might be on the menu also along with sliced tomatoes when in season. What the hoboes didn’t know was that this was sometimes standard fare for all of us! But we had some variety since in the summer my mother or my grandmother would cook up “a mess of green beans” with some salt pork or smoked ham hock and new potatoes. You may ask what “a mess of green beans” is—well then it consisted of fresh green beans that had been picked and snapped and then cooked all day long until they were very well done. Hot cornbread, homemade butter, a cold glass of buttermilk, sweet milk or sweetened ice tea and you had a king’s feast! You can still find green beans cooked that way, particularly in small southern cafes, and when I find them those halcyon days return, all the sweeter for having been away so long.

I know there are still hoboes, but somehow I don’t think they are the same kind of folks that I remember from so long ago. I will not make any judgments regarding present day hoboes, but I do remember (somewhat romantically I confess) the Knights of the Road some 70+ years ago. I remember them as humble men, down and out on their luck, trying to get to better place. I am sure there were those who were on the run for some crime they had committed and there were those who committed crimes against their fellow hoboes, but the ones I met were good men, just trying to keep body and soul together.