THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A HOBO

September 20, 1958-America is booming. Large Factories are everywhere, Businesses are prosperous, and the American people are well off. Men go to work in their suit and tie, everyone seems to have a Ford, and technology makes life easier and easier, with new wonder products making work slowly become obsolete. It is a time of Industrialization, technological, and medical advancement, and conformity. In such a time, one forgets that there are those in America who still live without such things as automobiles, and wonder kitchens. Indeed, people who choose to live without such "conveniences." These people, are the Hobos.

Not Bums, Hobos are the Modern Day "Rangers" or "Rouges" never staying in one place to long, stopping to work at a job just long enough to make enough money to move to their next Location. Never wanting much, except perhaps a hot meal from time to time, and moving by rail whenever they get the chance. It is a way of life, that not many choose to take in such a modern world. To one unknowing, the description might make them seem little more than an outlaw or outcast, but really, in the few places in which they still are able to live, they have almost unfalteringly good reputations, and many would rather trust a Hobo than the great powerful American Businessman. A Hobo won’t ask for much, and also unlike the Business-man you won’t have to bargain with him to settle upon what he wants. "Of all the people we’ve had visit this house, he [a Hobo] was possibly the most polite I’ve ever seen. All he asked for was a hot meal, we gave it to him, and he was content, didn’t want anything more," commented one home-owner. The feeling seems to run throughout the people of the small towns around the railroad tracks, where the Hobos often camp: The Hobos are good.

But why would one want to be a Hobo? Without such wonderful modern conveniences, and even "necessities," life seems it could be unnecessarily hard. That however, is not what the Hobos say. "I am free, independent, I live my own life. I don’t have to listen to due dates, angry bosses, and worry about money problems. I just live," claimed one Hobo, who called himself Iron Joe and was currently hitching a ride on a Great Northern freight. Such an attitude is what draws the Hobos. Not a lack of skill, for the most part, as they will work at short temporary jobs, but only long enough for a meal or two, or maybe a new pair of socks. No, it seems to be a desire to live free, more than anything else.

"I just go to place to place, take my time, no need to rush really, although that doesn’t seem to be the view of most people these days. All these modern wonders just seem to make more time to be busy to me. I’ll rest if I want to rest, move if I want to move, don’t have to worry about if I get fired. I can’t. I’ve seen everything, and I have the time to enjoy it all, and nobody cares what I’m like as they don’t know me, and I don’t know them. I’m not wasting life, working in a low paying job, living in the same place your entire life, that is wasting life. I don’t have many friends but I haven’t any enemies. That is what this is all about."