Steel away
By 1932, more than thirteen
million Americans
twenty-five percent of the
workforce were unemployed.
In that period of time, there
was only one way to get around,
and that was the railroad.
By box car. Wherever you'd hear a
rumor that a job was opening up,
thousands would be sitting up
on top of the car. We're talking about
professional people reduced to being
bums, hobos and lawbreakers to survive
My grand pap
used to ride the rails
he'd steel away
across their expanses
to escape the
depression of the 30's
With his fleet feet running
over the mounded gravel inclines
just missing the gaps
between the ties
skipping two or three at a time
in an acrobatic flight
not seen much today
one misstep, and an
arm or leg could be gone
His strong and calloused
hand reached out
to snag a handle or
a door lip as a grip
that when grabbed
caused him to be be
yanked forward as
his legs swung deftly
up into the open maw
of a boxcar mobile home
Sometimes another
scraggly arm would emerge
to grab his hand and
pull him in to safety
at other times a rougher
fist would extend
and disembark him
with a solid blow
and a tumble
to the grass that lay
below the trestles banks
bruised and battered
he'd wait for the next ride
to come by and set him
free from a small town
with no work to fill
his pockets or his empty gut
he traveled all over the
country that way
for several years seeking
hope and only finding
hobo camps where each
man would bring something
to add to the poor man's stew..
some tidbit stolen
or purloined from a
farmers field or hen house
found laterally to the
ties that bound him
to the iron path that took
him to the next opportunity
he loved those years
even though they were leaner
then a dessicated rat
in a mouse traps slap
ten years after it had snapped....
he made tracks that stayed
in his soul till the day he died
and I could often see
distant horizons in his eyes
as he blew smoke rings
from his non-filtered Raleigh's
and whispered of the
glory days gone by
still caught between the
locomotives and the caboose
sipping cold water from a
tin cup he filled my head
with the chilly dawn's spent
sleeping in a ventilated boxcar
or the splash of a river's
flow to clean sleep dirt
from eyes that had seen
little to dream about except
the endless breathtaking
beauty all across the land
Sometimes even now
when I hear the lonesome wail
of a train blowing it's solo song
as it passes through
I can almost see him running
alongside and catching the
last express to eternity
for an endless ride of joy
and I realize now that
when he whistled
it was so similar to that
haunting sound that a train sends out
over the sleepy villas and small towns
where all the stationary folks reside.....
"Godspeed Grandpap Ebey
I'll catch a later train
and bring some carrots
for that hobo soup
I'll see you on the
other side of the tracks....."
A hobo recipe my Granddad taught me.
Coffee Soup.
Coffee
Sugar -use lots
Saltine crackers
crumble the saltines in a large bowl
use a lot of crackers
pour in sweetend coffee
stir
in about five minutes you will have
a goopy, coffee flavored soup.
the crackers swell and absorb the coffee
it is a very filling and easy to snitch
sugar and crackerwise
from restaurant counters.
I love it...enjoy!
