Yes, I'm gonna catch me a freight train and ride all night long
And tomorrow mornin' I'll be a long ways from home.
--Jimmy Witherspoon
An article in the business section of today's New York Times, discussing the advantages accruing over time to those who take a "gap year" before or during university study, cites as one example the experiences of Ted Connor.
Connor, the author of the popular and well-received Rolling Nowhere (1984), took time off from Amherst to hop freights and travel about the country as a hobo.
You get to define the terms of the risk. Could I hop a train? Handle police? Defend myself? Deal with a blizzard in October or a rainstorm while out in the open? All kinds of things had never been asked of me, and I thought that the time was right to ask myself, to test myself.
Parents, who feel somewhat queasy at the thought of their child helping to build homes in Honduras, or traveling around the world on the cheap, or simply working at a McDonald's, probably would have a heart attack if their child -- once safely ensconced in a genteel liberal arts college -- then decided to quit school for a year and give being a hobo a go.
The NYT article discusses studies that support the value of the gap year. Connor's experience lies at an extreme, perhaps, on the risk scale. But I can see the appeal.
In the years immediately before law school, I had a friend Dave who took advantage of every opportunity to hop freights. He had traveled over pretty much the entire United States, viewing the scenery from the partly opened doors of box cars. He was no hippie, although this was during the hippie era. He was a young-looking, nicely groomed, well-spoken, and polite young man. The proverbial kid next door. But he was the kind of guy who, once he discovers a pleasurable past time, reacts as do many skiers or surfers -- for a time at least, his passion defines his life.
He begged me on several occasions to join him on a trip. He finally persuaded me that I should at least dip my toe in the water. On a pleasant summer day, we wandered down to the Interbay freight yards in Seattle. I forget how he figured out which freight was going where, but we climbed aboard a train headed north to Bellingham, just this side of the Canadian border. Not that long a trip. Nothing that was apt to result in my being attacked by either fellow hobos or train dicks. So at least I hoped.
The trip was fun -- certainly more fun than driving -- and scenic. Rather than a box car, we sat on the more open and exposed -- and exhilarating -- top of a flat car. I don't recall meeting any "fellow hobos." Or a railway detective, the sort portrayed in old narratives who were not satisfied to just toss you off a moving train -- they needed to work you over a few times first.
We were, however, spotted by a railway employee at a stop along the way. He kind of rolled his eyes at us, and told us that, for the love of Mike, to at least sit at the forward end of the car, facing backward. Then, in case the train stopped suddenly, we wouldn't be launched into space. Pretty decent guy.
We ended up in Bellingham and kind of milled around the freight yard. The law detained us briefly, the law in this case being the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The agent wasn't interested in how we were traveling, he just wanted to make sure we weren't illegal refugees from the totalitarian Canadian government.
The trip was fun. It was novel. I've never regretted doing it. I never did it again.
Dave kept on hopping freights for several years. He kept notes of his experiences, and was always planning to write a book about them. He never did. A decade later I guess he was scooped by an Amherst kid named Ted Connor.
How did we get back to Seattle from Bellingham? Oh. Not by freight. By Greyhound bus, of course.
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