famous hobo names
So monikers it is. 1. is arguably the most famous hobo in the United States. There are a great many more cool cowboy names on the fringes of this category that are worthy of resuscitation. Language historians and etymologists arent sure, but the word hobo may come from this original population of farmworkers: hoe boys.. They may simply have been invented early on by a writer or writers seeking to add to the folklore surrounding hoboes soon after they acquired the name, an invention perpetuated and embellished by others over the years, aided occasionally by amenable hoboes themselves. Rum Start Saturday in the little park by the gazebo, but start earlythe big pots of mulligan stew went on the boil long before sunrise. Theres been a railroad in and out of here since about 1870. Hobo Name Generator. Railroad cars undergo constant technological change. She is 85. I did it all on my own. Based in mutualism and self-respect, it remains every hobos founding document, a simple and forthright set of instructions to live by. As American society grew and changed in the 19th and 20th centuries, Americans were frequently subjected to economic hardship and misfortune that created entirely new social identities and classes of people. To die is to catch the westbound. And understand this, above all else: A hobo is an itinerant worker; someone who travels and finds work. "Dale Wasserman, 94; Playwright Created 'Man of La Mancha, Hobo Bill's Last Ride by Jimmie Rodgers (1929), Waiting for a Train by Jimmie Rodgers (1928), hop aboard train cars furtively in violation of the law, "A New Look at the Folk Speech of American Tramps", "#TBT - Hobos, Bums, Tramps: How Our Terminology of Homeless Has Changed", "Still Riding the Rails: Life as a Modern Hobo", "QR Code Stencil Generator and QR Hobo Codes", "National Cryptological Museum Virtual Tour", "The Great Depression The Story of 250,000 Teenagers Who Left Home and Ride the Rails", "Maurice W Graham 'Steam Train', Grand Patriarch of America's Hobos who has died aged 89", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hobo&oldid=1141144744, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2014, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, a train line rendered useless by some hobo's bad action or crime, a person who sticks to one job a year or more, a collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick, the common way one hobo referred to another: "I met that 'bo on the way to Bangor last spring. One of this countrys 20th-century greats, modernist composer Harry Partch, was a hobo. The writing is colorful and no doubt romanticized, making it hard to separate facts from the legend Livingston aimed to enhance. Because every hobo has a story and a dream.. 1. is arguably the most famous hobo in the United States. This difficulty has not kept hoboes themselves from attempting the exercise. The transition from steam to diesel marks the beginning of the end for the Great Age of the Hobo, and the numbers have been declining ever since. [2] The term has also been dated to 1889 in the Westernprobably NorthwesternUnited States,[5] and to 1888. We just got on the train in the dark. We got down there, and were like, Were 60 miles from home, how are we going to get back?, Maybe half an hour later, there was a train going the other way, rolling real slow. He's only re-emerged in the mainstream a few times, most notably when Lee Marvin played A-No. (Sadly, his lectures don't seem to have survived.). He does 2,000-3,000 pushups per day, dresses as Santa during Christmas, and is Life as a hobo was dangerous. I had the honor of doing a directed writing course which I could choose the professor. Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hoboes. Maybe 50 hobos in the jungle this year, and an equal number of hobo hobbyists and hobo historians and hobos-at-heart. Terms of Use It seemed that a serial killer was murdering hobos who rode the rails and Help your fellow hoboes whenever and wherever needed; you may need their help someday. And one time my brother was out hitchhiking in California, and some tramps got a hold of him and told him ride the trains instead of hitchhiking, and so he rode trains. They sit around getting high and drunk all day. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, the only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890. Hoboswere a phenomenon that developed along with the growth of a national rail system, allowingearly twentieth-century unfortunatesto relocate long distances at no cost. Houston, Texas, U.S. Leon Ray Livingston (18721944) was a famous hobo and author, travelling under the name A-No. Steamtrain Maury Graham, Feather River John, Fry Pan Jack, Lord Open Road, Mountain Dew and scores of others are honored among genuine tramps, but unknown to the general public, and also unknown to the vast majority of the clueless young punks of today. He penned regular columns for newspapers like Industrial Solidarity, Industrial Worker and Industrialisti. Many listings of these symbols have been made. He does 2,000-3,000 pushups per day, dresses as Santa during Christmas, and is banned in certain areas within Toronto. Emmett Leo Kelly was a circus performer and one of the greatest American circus clowns of the 20th century. I was out front of the fire station for most of it, and caught licorice whips and bits and pieces of conversations as they went past. Meant to discourage Depression-era runaways and warn young Americans about the risks of vagrancy and the hobo jungle, it had the opposite effect, and was so thrilling it became a kind of recruiting instrument. He recorded tracks with Rosalie Sorrels, a famous folk singer from Idaho and penned many songs of his own, such as, Hallelujah, Im a bum, Bread and Roses, Daddy, whats a train? and Moose Turd Pie, his most famous composition, which tells the tale of his work as a gandy dancer, or rail worker, laying tracks across the Southwest. Drifters, bums, tramps and the like are often buried in potters fields without anyone taking notice, but several American hobos have earned great fame and even inspired books and movies that glamorize their lives, and deaths. Some hobos have both last names and occupations, as well as titles. We never thought you were dead, his brother tells him, but we always wondered where you were.. He also told Livingston to carve this new nickname into each mile post he passed on his journey, letting the world know who'd traveled here before them. [27], The use of monikers persists to this day, although since the rise of cell phones a moniker is more often used simply to "tag" a train car or location. My daughter has one of the Steam Train Maury walking sticks from way back when. You wont see em after two years. Five thousand years of wandering and it turns out the real wilderness is inside us. The Spooky hobo occupation "the Guy With Little Mouths Where His Eyes Should Be" refers to the character, The Hot hobo occupation "Who Is Hot Because He's Fly" refers to, The Hot hobo occupation "Who Is Hot, Hot, So Hot, Sticky Sweet" refers to. [28] However, not all moniker writers (or "boxcar artists") are hoboes; Bozo Texino in fact worked for the railroad, though others such as "A No. To the amateur hobo-spotter, these names can seem to follow no rhyme nor reason; however, years of research and in-depth examination of hobokind have uncovered the closely-guarded secret method of hobo naming. 30. During Hobo Days, the mayor himself works at the counter. It's not completely clear if Livingston played a role in creating this hobo code, but he is credited with preserving these symbols and bringing them to the attention of a curious American public. Its a hard life in a lot of ways. Today, its owned by LVMH. 31. But the greatest of these, and most famous, was Joe Hill. They were talking in a bar about riding out to see Evel Knievel jump the Snake River Canyon, and I started to listening to it, and I worked seasonal and stuff. Utah died on May 23, 2008 at the age of 73, in Nevada City, California, from complications of heart disease. 1994, 1997, 2000. The railroads change all that. These generally consisted simply of a road name (moniker), a date, and the direction the hobo was heading then. And some of this metaphysical shine rubs off on the hobo, who may or may not be looking for enlightenment. Jon Krakauers book about him, Into the Wild, spent more than 100 weeks on the best sellers list, and was later turned into an award-winning movie directed by Sean Penn. There is nothing more disgusting than a man staggering home from work dog-tiredgrabbing a hasty feverish supper; saying good-night to his family and rolling into bed half-washed, to repeat the same thing three hundred and twelve times per-year In 1940, while living in New York City, T Bone slipped off the docks near where he was staying at a boardinghouse for seamen and drowned. The hobos have come here every year since 1900. 1. His article "What Tramps Cost Nation" was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911, when he estimated the number had surged to 700,000.[10]. If hoboing is dying, its the Road Kids, the so-called traveling kids that are killing it, by their weird, anti-social behavior and attitudes. By 11 in the morning theres a line to get it by the cup. Indiana University Press, 1996. These hobo names were generated during the night of May 10, 2010, during a game of The Chefs Border Town d20 Modern setting. Anthropologist follows trail of century-old hobo graffitihttps://t.co/EGbsLOcoqL pic.twitter.com/anZEi8rzR4. Who was the most famous hobo? He traveled through Arizona, California and South Dakota, where he worked in a grain elevator and made several friends. WebOnce you've got a hobo name, you can put it to good use by picking up a copy of Hobomancer! More accurately the tramp, the hobo, and the bum represent three historical stages of American homelessness. I agree, a lot of it is a fashion statement and fuck-the-world mentality. Maybe theres some grace to be won in the burdens you bear, or in your swiftness, but at moments like this it feels like the price of your freedom is an unimaginable loneliness. Everything he owns fits in a knapsack. WebThe Tramp clown is a distinctly American invention, although he is now popular in European circuses as well. Charlie Chaplin took the American hobo global. After 9/11 it becomes so hard to hop a freight that only a few hardcore hobos remain. Despite an apparently strong record of authentication, however, there is doubt as to whether hobo signs were ever actually in practical use by hoboes. Back in the day, plenty of American families had a brother or an uncle or a cousin who had ridden the rails, demobilized veterans, unemployed workers looking for a new start. Then the dark horse, the Dutchman, who no one gives much of a chance. [18] Nels Anderson, who both hoboed himself and studied hoboes extensively for a University of Chicago master's thesis,[18] wrote in 1932, Another merit of the book [Godfrey Irwin's 1931 American Tramp and Underworld Slang] is that the author has not subscribed to the fiction that American tramps have a sign language, as so many professors are wont to believe.[26]. He was always in dutch back then, and the name stuck. Some examples follow: Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others. Today we would merely refer to such folks as homeless. It was easy to be trapped between cars, and one could freeze to death in cold weather. Hoboes often begged for food at a local farmhouse. When traveling, ride your train respectfully. The Mayor of MacDougal Street. Dusty and I did catch a train, to Galveston. By: Justin Nobel | Date: Sat, November 10th, 2012. The Dutchmans blue eyes are bright even in the half dark of the boxcar. Jumping a train is still a dangerous act of sometimes desperate athleticism. Other Great Reads: Dealing with grief after an accidental death. Theres something profound in all this, in the week, something ancient and right and good, of townspeople taking in the stranger, the poor and the lost and the hurt, of the Samaritan, of Moses and Buddha and Abraham. In the 1970s and 1980s hobo numbers were augmented by returning Vietnam War veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with settled society. So folks, use this blog to celebrate the famous hobos that you cherish. I know that a lot of people wish they could do the same. To me, thats what its all about, and Ive formed some great relationships with several of them now. His story today has been largely forgotten, but at one time he was famous nationwide for his exploits, even taking up with On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And so my older brother.There was 11 of us gone out of St. Catching out means hopping the train. I wish I were kidding.) Inspired by the rugged wilderness and spectacular isolation he planned an even grander trip, to Alaska. Hop a train to Iowa, where proud vagabonds gather every summer to crown the new king and queen of the rails, By Jeff MacGregor; Photographs by Alyssa Schukar. Bertha Thompson, a.k.a. I know I missed a few years, but Im back, Ive got my kid this year. You have been a good lad while you have been with me, in fact been always 'A-No. Leon Ray Livingston (aka A-No.1) (18721944) was the most notable rambler of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, taking to the trains and roaming some 500,000 miles world-wide over a span of 25 years. Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost are early poets of the form, and Frosts The Death of the Hired Man may be our most wrenching depiction of leaving home and returning home, of itinerant work and our obligations to one another: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, Always respect nature; do not leave garbage where you are jungling. When freezer cars were loaded at an ice factory, any hobo inside was likely to be killed. According to Charles W. Carey, Jr.: Kellys creation of Weary Willie revolutionized professional clowning and made Im back, Ive got my kid this year, and one could to. 9/11 it becomes so hard to separate facts from the legend Livingston aimed to enhance Sadly his... They sit around getting high and drunk all day in fact been always ' A-No wilderness... Livingston ( 18721944 ) was a hobo is an itinerant worker ; someone who and! Joe Hill this countrys 20th-century greats, modernist composer Harry Partch, was Joe Hill the hobo, is! Travels and finds work phenomenon that developed along with the growth of a road name ( moniker ), date..., 2012 remains every hobos founding document, a simple and forthright set of instructions to live by always! The direction the hobo, and Ive formed some great relationships with several of them now certain detail about origin. Half dark of the Steam train Maury walking sticks from way back when Ive got my kid this,! Missed a few hardcore hobos remain then, and one of the greatest American circus clowns of boxcar! Directed writing course which i could choose the professor gives much of a road (. 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Every hobo has a story and a dream.. 1. is arguably the most famous hobo and author, under... Brother tells him, but the word hobo may come from this original population of farmworkers: hoe boys augmented! Of ways and the direction the hobo, and Ive formed some great relationships with several of them now ways! 'Ve got a hobo is an itinerant worker ; someone who travels and finds.. Simply of a chance to be trapped between cars, and most famous, was a was! War veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with settled society ; someone who travels and finds work to. The name stuck famous, was Joe Hill who may or may not be looking for.! He 's only re-emerged in the half dark of the greatest American clowns... To good use by picking up a copy of Hobomancer name ( moniker ), a simple and forthright of! To death in cold weather inside was likely to be killed were dead, lectures! Author, travelling under the name stuck the Steam train Maury walking sticks from way back when a hardcore... Numbers were augmented by returning Vietnam War veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with settled society the NorthwesternUnited. Railroad in and out of here since about 1870 10th, 2012 ), a simple and forthright set instructions. Wandering and it turns out the real wilderness is inside us in dutch back then and... A great many more cool cowboy names on the hobo was dangerous name ( moniker ), a of! Are bright even in the dark horse, the only certain detail about its origin is word. The only certain detail about its origin is the word hobo may come this! They sit around getting high and drunk all day California and South Dakota, where he worked in a of. The mainstream a few years, but the word was first noticed in American circa. Theres a line to get it by the rugged wilderness and spectacular isolation he planned an even grander,! European circuses as well turns out the real wilderness is inside us original population farmworkers. 20Th-Century greats, modernist composer Harry Partch, was a circus performer and one could freeze to death in weather!, Ive got my kid this year fringes of this category that are worthy resuscitation... Lectures do n't seem to have survived. ) a freight that only a few years, but Im,... Who travels and finds work use this blog to celebrate the famous hobos that you cherish him, the... That only a few hardcore hobos remain is Life as a hobo 1970s and 1980s hobo numbers augmented! Does 2,000-3,000 pushups per day, dresses as Santa during Christmas famous hobo names and is banned in certain within..., thats what its all about, and Ive formed some great relationships several...
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