“It was kind of crazy. There was the railroad cop and he was like shining his light all over the bushes and like yelling on his loud speaker, like, come out you fools and just all this yelling, all this crap.
And then it was like nighttime and we just like kind of snuck behind him and got on it. I got on my first train in Chicago. I guess I just kind of got started, like I started going to punk rock shows, like when I was in middle school. And then I just like started figuring out like a different way where I could live where I don't have to conform to normal society.
Hobo is kind of like a term that's been misused a lot, especially recently. Like any bum could be a hobo, like where like, you know, it's like homeless people or houseless neighbors. They got all these different terms. Now, hobo originally was someone like a migrant farm worker. You would ride the trains to like a certain part of the country to go do that kind of farm work or you'd carry like a, your tool with you, like a hoe or something.
Most of hobo culture is embedded in secrecy and folklore. There's a lot of misconceptions. You know, a lot of people just assume you're on drugs. I don't know. It's just a matter of forgetting everything you were taught your whole life and I guess lowering your standards to where you're like, Okay, I could hold this cardboard, I'll sleep under this bridge, or these bushes or in this ditch, or like, I'll wake up and it's 10 degrees outside or something like that. Or just like generally I guess like most of the people out there are there because they're poor or because, it's like a poor person's hobby, I guess.
Some of the dangers are of course going to jail or getting caught or, falling off and dying or getting your legs cut off or getting frostbite or getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with no water. You don't want to get on something that's loaded because what's in there could shift and crush you. My great-grandfather rode trains and so I guess maybe it's in my blood.
The first train I ever rode was over here at Idlewild Park, the little train that goes around the pond. I guess I've kind of always liked trains. My parents, you know, they just, I guess they just want me to be happy. They think maybe I'm a little bit crazy sometimes, but I guess I'm not really trying to impress anyone … [I get to satisfy] wanderlust and adventure and see all those obscure places that you don't really get to see or go to.
You meet a lot of interesting people too. Sometimes you just wake up under a bridge and you feel extremely lonely. You know, I'll be standing next to the train tracks and, you know, I'll be watching all the graffiti go by and, you know, sometimes I'll see markings or something from people that I've known who are like no longer alive and it's kind of like cool to see what people leave behind. I kind of just live it one day at a time at this point. I just do whatever kind of falls into my lap. [This] satisfies my soul.