From “Hobo.com,” an interesting article about What is a Hobo? Also, there’s this “hobo code” from some 1894 convention of hoboes. I like the first rule the best:

Decide your own life, don’t let another person run or rule you.

More about that annual Hobo Convention. Apparently it happens every August in a town called Britt, Iowa. This article says there was a Supreme Court Justice who was a former hobo. Doesn’t say during what time period. Apparently Burl Ives was also a hobo. Weird.

Here’s some review of a documentary about hoboes, called “Catching Out“.

Anyway, yeah, being a straight-up rail-riding hobo is really interesting, but not for me. I vaguely knew a kid from college who dropped out one day and started riding the rails. He came back to one of my classes and talked about all this stuff like how if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can just get sliced in half trying to hop the trains. Or how there are tunnels underground for miles and miles where the trainsmoke can easily kill you. Plus he talked about like hobo gangs and turf wars and stuff, where if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, they would just kill you, no questions asked. Besides that, he had some great stories though… but of course, I can only remember the bad stuff.