They're romantic hoboes, they say, and they like it that way -- at least, when it's warm
By Young Joon Lim
March 18, 2004 | SALT LAKE CITY--- Call them romantic hoboes, not bums.
They don't look much different from the homeless, with their shaggy beards, long and greasy hair, big hiking backpacks covered with stains and torn jeans with a long history. Clearly, these folks aren't dressed to walk the runway.
"Hoboes walk and beg from door to door and sleep in the street. But we're a totally different kind of hobo," says Doug Harding, clarifying that he has "no relationship with Tonya Harding."
"We are romantic hoboes," Harding says.
Romantic hoboes?
The 45-year-old says romantic hoboes travel from town to town by freight trains and when they need money, they work on a farm or construction site. Simply holding up a sign and begging doesn't qualify them as hoboes. They are truly homeless.
The community has its own lexicon. A Hobo is a person that travels to work; a Tramp is a person that travels and won't work; a Homeless Person is someone who is temporarily without a roof over his head--- and it's not by choice, according to www.cyberhobo.com.
Born in Pocatello, Idaho, Harding decided to leave home when his father, a Korean War veteran, died of lung cancer and his sister committed suicide, shooting herself in the head. Both tragedies happened 23 years ago.
"I figured out that I was going to leave this society," Harding says.
He began train hopping around the country.
"When you travel on the rail, you have to earn your nickname; hoboes don't use their real names," Harding says. His chums call him "BS, Boy Scout," which means what the vernacular suggests.
He plans another trip to Yuma, Ariz., from Salt Lake City with his new trip partner Bill. Bill declines to give his last name. They met at a Salt Lake City shelter last Christmas.
"I am not an American. I came across the Canada-U.S. border 22 years ago," Bill says. "I've never applied to be an American citizen. That's stupid."
But the 44-year-old native Canadian has a natural instinct to survive in the United States.
"When you go to a bigger city, it's very easy to buy birth certification, driver license and even a credit card with $500," Bill says. But he doesn't reveal his method, whispering: "I shouldn't tell, but Phoenix is the best place."
Bill is a train-hopping rookie.
He is not a train rider, but a hitchhiker. For 22 years, he has been cruising the West Coast of the United States many times, Bill says. Vancouver to San Diego is his favorite route. He goes by "Cana," short for a Canadian among his friends.
How could they be partners so soon after meeting?
"I got to Salt Lake City last Thanksgiving Day from Reno. A Wal-Mart truck dropped me off here. I took a trip around Utah, and I met this guy," Bill says. "We've built a good partnership together that makes me get in his shoes."
They already tested their partnership in Ogden by covering themselves with drapes, and letting the evening's orange light fill their tent.
"It's too cold [in Utah] for hoboes like us. When we crashed under a bridge in Ogden last week . . . . We thought it's time to go to the South," Bill says. Yuma, in the Yuma and Gila valleys of southwestern Arizona where Arizona, California and Mexico converge, is "the right place" for them because they'll get a line on some work there. And the weather is warm.
Sometime in March, they'll go to Montana, for the beginning of a spring tour festival.
"Warm and beautiful sunshine is like Eden," Harding says. They have "no problem [working there] as tour guides, bartenders and security agents."
Of course, their journey isn't possible without free train rides. Harding is a member of the FTRA, or the Freight Train Riders Association, which Ed Trandahl, former spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad Co., is not too fond of.
"FTRA people are no different than anyone else trying to ride the rails illegally," Trandahl told Kim Murphey of the Los Angeles Times. "This whole FTRA thing is a completely overblown deal."
Harding admits that some hazards exist.
"Hopping in a train ain't good always. One of my friends, hopping [the] opposite direction of the train in Reno, died on the scene. His limb was torn off. His head was under the train and rest of his body, oh, man," Harding stops.
According to another former Union Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney, there were 86 trespasser deaths along California's railroad tracks and Texas had the next highest number of deaths with 42 in 1999.
Risks for hoboes and rules for hoboes are simple.
"You have to keep in mind that hopping in a train happens only in sober condition," Harding says. "You never get drunk before you jump on [moving trains]. Drunken hoboes think that they are supermen, but that kills them. This is the most important rule for hoboes."
Sneaking on freight trains as a means of transportation raises a stink. Harding got caught four times and it cost him 30 days in jail each time. Criminal trespassing ends upwith $1,500 fine, he says. He had no choice but to be sent to jail.
"Every time, my body sacrificed for the money," Harding says.
John Bromley, public affairs director for Union Pacific, says in an e-mail interview that "more than 500 railroad trespassers are killed each year in the United States."
Meanwhile, some railroad marshals, who are supposed to discourage Harding from hopping in for their jobs, surprisingly, are hoboes' friends.
"To become friends with bulls [railroad cops], you got to make them trust you," Harding says. "I know a marshal who's been working for 35 years. He knows who's a bad guy or good guy."
After becoming friends with him, Harding hasn't had any trouble hopping aboard a train in Las Vegas. Marshals pretend not to see him jumping on because they know he is not a trouble maker, Harding says.
His years of experience have made him perfect.
"At the beginning of my hobo days, I went to regional libraries to look through maps," Harding says, "but now I don't need it anymore, because I've saved all the maps in my head. I look like the genuine hobo."
Bill grins with cigarette stained teeth but remains silent.
The romantic view of being a hobo says that after successfully hopping aboard a train, it's time to relax. Seeing a rainbow from the top of a freight train, moonlight with pinholes of light in the black blanket of the night sky or a breathtaking sunrise seems to make their journey even more enjoyable.
Hoboes feel like the whole world belongs to them when they see farmers wave at them from the fields of cows and sheep.
But their trips are less romantic and much harsher in reality.
"The wind sucks," Harding says. "Watching outside is boring, usually desert and mountains." Instead, he has found his alternative pleasures: Sleeping and relaxing are great "unless you forget to bring blankets, liquids, gloves and your patience."
Boring trips, sometimes, can bring luck.
"I like to get on military freight trains. It keeps me busy having military food using my can opener. I didn't steal theirs," Harding says. "I just borrowed some."
Even the savvy traveler can be a victim on the rail, however. His wallet once got stolen on the train. That thief was a hobo, too. Harding didn't send him to the police; he took the thief to a hobo bar in Washington, and his friends punished him.
"We have our own small community that solves our problems independently," Bill finally breaks his silence.
The partners don't care about their appearances and humble life, although people may regard them as vagrants.
"We don't judge people by their color, money, outfits and jobs," Bill says.
"Whether who you are, where you are from, what you do, we are just people."
"I am happy," Harding says. "Hoboes treat each other better than anybody I have ever seen. We've got our medical doctors, nurses and even lawyers who travel with. When something happens, we help each other without any judge."
Hoboes realize that people may have bad stereotypes about them.
"They need to contribute to society and stop living in their make-believe worlds never helping those in the real world, says Mike Pofelski, founder and only member of the Anti-Hoboes of America Club (A-HAC). "Hoboes are the trash of our society making their own laws and returning to reality only to beg for money or food."
Bill, however, refutes such stereotypes, saying, "People think hoboes do drugs, rob, fight, murder and so on, but their crime rate, actually, is much lower than any other big cities' rate. I bet."
Furthermore, hoboes help law enforcement officers. One hobo in Seattle contributed a finishing blow with his reports to troopers to catch Gary Leon Ridgway, who pleaded guilty to being the Green River Killer and being responsible for the deaths of 48 women in the longest serial murder investigation in U.S. history, Harding says.
Harding has been asked by marshals to contact them if he spots wanted criminals, he forgets the most wanted photos.
"Anyway, we are their good reporters," Harding says with a smile. Samoana Matagi, 27, who used to be a hobo for five days and had a financial problem, says, "Hoboes have rights. Jesus was a hobo too, what's wrong with being a hobo? You might be a hobo if you went through the same things."
It's about time to catch a Yuma train, and Harding and Bill have big dreams for this trip and the others to come.
Says Harding: "Hopefully, I don't die until I finish my travel, I don't know when I'd quit this though. I love where I go, I sleep and who I meet. When I become 60, I would like to buy a small house. That is my goal. I need not billion dollars, or a fancy sports car, or fame. When you die, you can't take them in your coffin. That's why I am not such a capitalistic man."
Bill adds: "I will be living in my small cabin in the very deep, deep mountain somewhere else 20 years later. I just want to be alive. I've got great friends here, I love my life. America is not a bad country."
They make steps to an unofficial passenger train station in Salt Lake City, holding up signs such as Harding's: "2-2-2 Cold, Yuma, Arizona's warm--- Please, Help!!! Thanks" and Bill's: "Spare Some Change 4 with Someone, No $Cents."
Bravo!
MS
MS |
