I have always loved train travel.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved the sound of a train whistle blowing. The call for “all aboard.” The gentle rocking of the car on the rails. One of my first travel memories is of trains—a train from New York City to Montreal, sitting in the observation car, playing cards as I watched the landscape fly by. When I was a bit older, we went to Europe and slept in sleeping cars, and I thought trains were the only way to travel.
This love for trains is probably what made me fall in love with the idea of westward expansion and the great railroads of America. Something about it captured my imagination. I had heard in Europe that there was even a book published every year containing all the timetables for trains and I thought that was a pretty a special book.
I can’t remember exactly how I learned about hoboes. I feel like there were old cartoons on TV that had them, even Snoopy had a bindle, and Nancy Drew had one in a mystery. There were black and white silent films that had hoboes and reading The Grapes of Wrath in school introduced their wandering. At some point, I pieced it all together. I heard about jumping freight cars and going wherever a train was heading. I heard about jungles and hobo signs and the code and Mulligan Stew and it all seemed so romantic. When I was older, and saw the film The Journey of Natty Gann, I had this dream-like view of what a hobo was. A person who moved through the land, working. A person outside, functioning in a kind of cool shadow society. I somehow saw becoming a hobo as an option—a kind of grand alternative life choice for when things went a certain way, or when you just couldn’t march to the same beat as everyone else did. One that had honor and a code to live by. One that had travel coupled with it. One where your home was where you rested and the next day home moved on. There is something attractive about that, and once my imagination was fully captured, I knew that I would write about it one day.
Of course, I didn't think about the larger aspects of it, the migrant workings of it. The fact that the Great Depression stirred so many people to go on the move. The fact that kids left home so they wouldn’t be a burden and that you could be running away as much as running to. The things I knew about it were only on the surface and didn’t get too deep. The idea of hopping a train seemed quaint and not sad or hard in any way.
When years later, I went through a thing that was bad and it sideswiped me completely. I started reading more deeply about hoboes. I was traumatized and I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wanted to ramble until I found myself again. And that was when Soupy was born. Her hurt and trauma was a mirror for my own healing. I did not hop a train, but I could with her.
I think every person comes to a moment in their lives where they are between here and there. Where a little rambling leads to forward movement in our lives and hearts. Where we need to reaffirm who we are not who we were. Where we strengthen bonds with those who are true. Where we roam.
It can be hopping a train, hitting the road, or even opening a book. In the end,I think at some point we are all hoboes for a little a while.
I have always loved train travel.
This love for trains is probably what made me fall in love with the idea of westward expansion and the great railroads of America. Something about it captured my imagination. I had heard in Europe that there was even a book published every year containing all the timetables for trains and I thought that was a pretty a special book.
I can’t remember exactly how I learned about hoboes. I feel like there were old cartoons on TV that had them, even Snoopy had a bindle, and Nancy Drew had one in a mystery. There were black and white silent films that had hoboes and reading The Grapes of Wrath in school introduced their wandering. At some point, I pieced it all together. I heard about jumping freight cars and going wherever a train was heading. I heard about jungles and hobo signs and the code and Mulligan Stew and it all seemed so romantic. When I was older, and saw the film The Journey of Natty Gann, I had this dream-like view of what a hobo was. A person who moved through the land, working. A person outside, functioning in a kind of cool shadow society. I somehow saw becoming a hobo as an option—a kind of grand alternative life choice for when things went a certain way, or when you just couldn’t march to the same beat as everyone else did. One that had honor and a code to live by. One that had travel coupled with it. One where your home was where you rested and the next day home moved on. There is something attractive about that, and once my imagination was fully captured, I knew that I would write about it one day.
Of course, I didn't think about the larger aspects of it, the migrant workings of it. The fact that the Great Depression stirred so many people to go on the move. The fact that kids left home so they wouldn’t be a burden and that you could be running away as much as running to. The things I knew about it were only on the surface and didn’t get too deep. The idea of hopping a train seemed quaint and not sad or hard in any way.
When years later, I went through a thing that was bad and it sideswiped me completely. I started reading more deeply about hoboes. I was traumatized and I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wanted to ramble until I found myself again. And that was when Soupy was born. Her hurt and trauma was a mirror for my own healing. I did not hop a train, but I could with her.
I think every person comes to a moment in their lives where they are between here and there. Where a little rambling leads to forward movement in our lives and hearts. Where we need to reaffirm who we are not who we were. Where we strengthen bonds with those who are true. Where we roam.
It can be hopping a train, hitting the road, or even opening a book. In the end,I think at some point we are all hoboes for a little a while.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved the sound of a train whistle blowing. The call for “all aboard.” The gentle rocking of the car on the rails. One of my first travel memories is of trains—a train from New York City to Montreal, sitting in the observation car, playing cards as I watched the landscape fly by. When I was a bit older, we went to Europe and slept in sleeping cars, and I thought trains were the only way to travel.
This love for trains is probably what made me fall in love with the idea of westward expansion and the great railroads of America. Something about it captured my imagination. I had heard in Europe that there was even a book published every year containing all the timetables for trains and I thought that was a pretty a special book.
I can’t remember exactly how I learned about hoboes. I feel like there were old cartoons on TV that had them, even Snoopy had a bindle, and Nancy Drew had one in a mystery. There were black and white silent films that had hoboes and reading The Grapes of Wrath in school introduced their wandering. At some point, I pieced it all together. I heard about jumping freight cars and going wherever a train was heading. I heard about jungles and hobo signs and the code and Mulligan Stew and it all seemed so romantic. When I was older, and saw the film The Journey of Natty Gann, I had this dream-like view of what a hobo was. A person who moved through the land, working. A person outside, functioning in a kind of cool shadow society. I somehow saw becoming a hobo as an option—a kind of grand alternative life choice for when things went a certain way, or when you just couldn’t march to the same beat as everyone else did. One that had honor and a code to live by. One that had travel coupled with it. One where your home was where you rested and the next day home moved on. There is something attractive about that, and once my imagination was fully captured, I knew that I would write about it one day.
Of course, I didn't think about the larger aspects of it, the migrant workings of it. The fact that the Great Depression stirred so many people to go on the move. The fact that kids left home so they wouldn’t be a burden and that you could be running away as much as running to. The things I knew about it were only on the surface and didn’t get too deep. The idea of hopping a train seemed quaint and not sad or hard in any way.
When years later, I went through a thing that was bad and it sideswiped me completely. I started reading more deeply about hoboes. I was traumatized and I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wanted to ramble until I found myself again. And that was when Soupy was born. Her hurt and trauma was a mirror for my own healing. I did not hop a train, but I could with her.
I think every person comes to a moment in their lives where they are between here and there. Where a little rambling leads to forward movement in our lives and hearts. Where we need to reaffirm who we are not who we were. Where we strengthen bonds with those who are true. Where we roam.
It can be hopping a train, hitting the road, or even opening a book. In the end,I think at some point we are all hoboes for a little a while.