Blog
The Quiet Dust
“They scraped and planted and prayed and saved. . .then the black blizzards would come and take it all away. . .and the banks moved in like vultur...
The Town Without Mercy
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In Timothy Egan’s, The Worst Hard Time, the dustbowl tragedy of the 30’s is chronicled in painstaking and heartbreaking detail. The ‘Okies...
Toward a Glowing Light
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After my last hobo missive, my friend Paul Sanchez, the marvelous New Orleans songwriter and historian, gave me the lowdown on a song called...
The Night Table (Safe Camp)
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A re-reading of Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory gives vivid descriptions of “hobo jungles.” They were actually camps, and from camp to camp...
Oh, Canaan Land
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In the Hebrew bible, Canaan is the land that gives shelter to the thieves and heretics, not unlike a hobo jungle. People keep asking me why...
A Blue-Eyed Story
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My mother is 83 years old. She will be pissed that I’ve told everyone this. She is a child of The Depression. Her mother was widowed when...
The Devil’s Handshake
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There is a remarkable, if forgotten, film from the early 70’s called ‘Emperor of the North Pole‘ , directed by Robert Aldrich. It is about th...
The Hobo’s Broken Rosary
The poetry of Kenneth Patchen often makes reference to hobo songs and tales. Patchen is one of my favorite American poets. His poem, The Origi...
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