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The Crying Map

The Crying Map

In the exqiusite Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Ironweed, author William Kennedy introduces us to Francis Phelan, former star pitcher, and now-dis...
The Blue Wound

The Blue Wound

“Boys caught in freight yards were summarily beaten by notorious railroad bulls like Texas Slim, who ruled the yards at Longview, Texas.  Denver B...
Tiger Weeds

Tiger Weeds

In almost all of the hobo lore I’ve read, plants are a prominent theme.  Plants that are edible.  Plants that are poisonous.  Plants that get yo...
Coal City Cockfighter

Coal City Cockfighter

In the 1974 Monte Hellman film, Cockfighter, the late, great Warren Oates plays a miserable sonofabitch named Frank Mansfield who, in the film’s...
Hudson King

Hudson King

There was no shortage of hobos in New York City during The Depression.  Along the Hudson River, there were were hobo jungles almost the full len...
The Orange Beast

The Orange Beast

"A train is not a man, and a man is not a train. . .” George Milburn, The Hobo’s Hornbook Hey– To live outdoors during The Depression was to h...
Sister of the Road

Sister of the Road

Nobody knows if there was such a person as “Boxcar Bertha.” Dr. Ben Reitman wrote her “as told to” memoir in 1937 and the feeling is that she w...
The Last Ride

The Last Ride

Hey– In George Milburn’s, The Hobo’s Hornbook, a 1930 collection of hobo balladry and poems and songs, he draws a distinction between hobos and ...
The Road Hawk

The Road Hawk

Hey– In Timothy Egan’s, The Worst Hard Time, a riveting account of the horrors of the dustbowl and The Great Depression, dust storms are rendere...
The Red Road

The Red Road

Hey– I elected not to go to the art fairs in New York this week.  I actually haven’t been going to them for a while now and I don’t miss them.  ...
The Hobo King

The Hobo King

Hey– I had an odd experience the other day.  I had accepted an invitation to be a speaker at the SEA (Self-Employment in the Arts) conference out...
Poem for a Redhead

Poem for a Redhead

Hey– In a lot of hobo literature, there is not much mention of women or romance–one suspects that hobos didn’t get much pussy, being smelly and b...