Twenty-Six

            I didn't get to the next town 'till the next day and there wasn't any trains stopping to set off or pick up anything the next day so I had a day to wait around. It didn't turn out too bad. I met up with another fellow and we was at a horse ranch nearby. We had a big three sided shed to sleep in. The whole front was open so the horses could get in and out as they wanted to and we had a job in the morning for about an hour and a half then had a good breakfast. They also fixed us a lunch to take along. They told us about a brook not too far away that they had dammed up and made a small lake for the livestock to drink at. We had a swim and got cleaned up a little.

            When the time came to go the first train didn't stop. It went by around fifty miles an hour. We didn't dare try to catch it. We thought we were stuck for another day but we found out there would be three more. The next one did stop to leave some cars loaded with grain so we was all set and I was on my way again.

            It was another day's travel before we got to El Paso, Texas. It was quite a wild town and a lot of Mexicans there. I didn't think much of it. Everyone looked unshaven and was just laying and sitting around. I didn't see many doing any work.

            We was told about going across he border into old Mexico so we looked for the crossing. It was a bridge over the Rio Grande river. People was going and coming both ways. We had to pay two cents to cross over into Cinedad Juarez, Mexico. All we could do was walk around and look at things as nobody spoke English. There was a lot of women and young girls on the street and they kept running after us and grabbing our arms and trying to pull us into their houses. We thought they were crazy. We didn't know anything. We found out later we were walking right through a Red Light District and thought they were after us because they thought we was good looking, but we found out before we got out of there. Just one of the first lessons learnt in life.

            We didn't hang around in that town too long. It seemed there was a lot of drinking everywhere. There wasn't many Americans around so we headed back for the States.

            It was good to find a HoBo Jungle after a couple of days. I was over the state line in southern Arizona headed north toward Tucson. There was a government CC Camp there and I got new clothes and food, slept over then was moving on again. Just before I got into Phoenix, Arizona there was a HoBo Jungle, a really big one. It was just like walking into a city. I got in with seven other fellows and we decided to take different streets in town then meet back at the Jungle and combine everything for dinner. I bet we had everything anyone could think of and we had the biggest boiled vegetable dinner you ever seen. Everyone was so full, nobody felt like going anywhere so we all stayed there over night.

            I never saw so much desert in my life. The next state north, which was Utah, was the name. I didn't know it at the time but I had twice as much desert ahead of me as I had already seen and I sure found it out when we got up into the Great Salt Lake desert I thought I'd die of heat. Them old freight trains seemed so slow. I sure kept thinking of cooler country back home. The little towns was small and far between and there was a few hungry days and it seemed it never rained in that country.

Twenty-Five

            As the days went by we where headed for New Mexico and it was kind of slow going. We were into the Sacramento Mountains and the engines has some hard slow work to get the trains over them. It was a dry hot country and a lot of desert. Just a few scattered one room shacks. Sometimes there was one alone with miles and miles of country all around it. I still wonder how they ever made a living. I found out some of the ones that was near the mountains was where the fellows stayed that was looking for gold in the mountain streams. They had a horse to ride and a mule they led to carry what little food they had to carry or other little things they did need. They lived mostly by a little hunting and a few traps.

            I used to think that was a great life and wished I could of tried it. I wanted to try everything back at that time as everything was so new to me. I guess while it was the first time away from home it was all one great adventure to me, like a puppy that broke loose and was having a great time.

            I remember one time I was in an empty boxcar sleeping while riding. When I woke everything was quiet and the train was stopped. I wondered where I was. i went to the door and looked out. I was all alone. The engine had stopped and sat eight or ten cars off on a siding for another train to pick up and take along in another direction. I saw a small town off in a distance so I started walking.

            I didn't eat since the day before and I was hungry and had food on my mind. I tried quite a few houses and got nothing. I began to think I'd starve in that town when the next I house I tried I was invited in. It was a negro family. They were just as nice as any of the white people and they had eat at the table with them. I asked them if there was something I could do to pay for my food. The lady said no, she had one of her family on the road looking for work and knew how it was but they did want to know all about my trip from the time I left home. One of their family lived in Canton, Ohio near where I lived but they could never afford to make the trip themselves.

            I guess I must of been there three or four hours. They did have a small garden. I do remember helping to hoe and pull some weeds in it. The woman gave me a sandwich to take along.

            I had to walk and hitchhike to the next town where the train stopped so i could get on one. I remember when that first night came. I was tired from walking and was looking for a place to lay down to sleep. I saw a small barn off in the field. It was so dark I didn't see any other buildings so I headed for it. I opened the door and it was so dark I got down on my hands and knees feeling around for some hay to lay on. I found some and lay down.

            It was about ten minutes when there was an awful racket and somebody taking off. As they went t the door I could see they were carrying some clothes. It was a fellow and girl that already was in there on some hay. I couldn't see them and they couldn't see me. I think they were as scared of whoever came in as I was when I heard them take off.

            Anyways, I didn't know how many more could be in there so I crawled out and took off myself. At that moment I wasn't thinking of sleep. I just wanted to get out of there. About an hour alter I just lay down in the field under the sky and slept for a few hours.

            Sometimes, I think of those two people and wonder if they really had to cut their stay short and leave before they really wanted to. 

Twenty-Four

            I kind of believe so far I was more interested in the HoBo Jungles and the cowboys and ranches and the way they lived and done their work. It was a new and different work and way of life. One that before I only read about and now it seemed like I was living the real thing and that's why there was so much time spent just traveling around, back and forth, while gone through the mid-western states. It seemed like where everyone went. People would tell us of something we should see before leaving the state. Sometimes it seemed like we'd never get out of the state. I think we spent a couple of weeks or more 'till we decided to move on

            The last town in Texas we headed for was El Paso, where fellows told us we could walk across the border and I did want to see the bull fights I had heard and read about, but we were a long way off and had a lot of riding to do.

            I seen a lot of oil rigs working but never stopped at one. I saw one that was burning. I thought it was burning up and no good 'till I was told they would put it out and put a cap on it.

            Sometimes, while riding, I'd be sitting on top of a boxcar. The sun was really hot and off in the distance I could just about make out a mountain with the top white with snow. It looked like they had white caps on lots of times. I wished I could of had a big handful to eat or leave melt in my mouth. It also made me think of how I put snow in a pan back home and put boiling syrup on it to make sugar and snow.

            After a couple of days the train was near San Antonio, Texas. There was two or three HoBo Jungles around that city. We spent a couple of days there, mostly around tow of the nearest ranches. There was a CC camp in town so we slept one night there, got clean cloths and food. We had to wash dishes and do some other work in exchange for the clothes and food but that was ok for a bed.

            Once in a while, at one of the ranches there, I got to try to use a lasso but it was too much rope for me to hold and I came out a zero on that one but I knew I'd try it someday again, but the chance never came again. I just wanted to keep going.

            For the next week there wasn't much doing but ride. One day I was laying on my belly on top of a boxcar on the catwalk with my arms bent, one under each side of it. I didn't mean to but I fell asleep. When I woke up I had slept for fifteen or twenty minutes. The first time it happened I was sure scared about it. I could've put one hand out and rolled right off the top of the boxcar. Nobody woke me because they done the same thing on purpose all the time. It was quite a while before I started doing it, but I did before the trip was over and didn't think too much of it.

            We were getting pretty well towards the western tip of Texas by now and crossing some hilly country. It was the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains and Sacramento Mountains. The train stopped quite often for water along the way and to add more engines. Sometimes there was three or four engines used to get over the mountains. That was some horseshoe curves. I could look straight across a small alley and see the last part of the train coming up the mountain and the front part was going the other way. It seemed funny to me at the time.

            I sit and think so many times of life and days gone by. I wish so many times I could see a certain few of the friends I grew up with, spent days in school with or during my twenties years. Certain little things we did or said, things that seemed to mean so very much at the time.

            The farms back then seemed so far apart and no fast means of travel like today. Farm life then was a hard way of life with no tools and machinery like today, which left very few times to go see any friends, how little we knew, the last time we talked or seen one or the other and walked away it would be the last time to ever see each other.

            I think when people say today, life is so lonely, it's those days, life and friends of so long ago during the years of growing up that we're really missing. It seems that everything, one at a time, was cut off, never to be seen again, especially what few real friends we had. It seems what friends we make later on in life are out to better themselves or make money off each other. No more giving, no more just a handshake or giving your word. When we come right down to it two-thirds of the people on this earth are a pain in the neck, when you compare them with the people fifty years ago. 

Twenty-Three

            Anyways we finally left Oklahoma and headed fro Texas. There was supposed to be a good HoBo Jungle near Amarillo, Texas. I was on a through freight with around thirty or forty cars. There was three engines. They had one on each end and one in the middle. It sure was a dirty hot ride and the trains was covered with HoBos. There must of been seventy-five or eighty fellows on it.

            The train pulled off to the siding one day to wait for another to train to pass from the other direction. Had an hour wait so we all got off and went a ways off to the side and sat down to wait. Soon we saw a fellow come from the caboose and come walking up along the train. We soon seen he was a detective and he stopped and just stood there. He was gonna keep us off and leave us stranded.

            So, there was word passed down through the fellows to try anyways. Soon the freight came by we were waiting for and our train started to move. We all started to run for the train. It sounded like a herd of cattle taking off.

            Anyways, he got two fellows and the rest of us got on but when the caboose came by him he had to get on himself so the two he had got away and was left there. They just waited for the next train to use the siding.

            It was hot and dusty and the smoke from the engines made it a dirty ride. The country was land with no trees for miles and miles. A few cactuses scattered around. I could sometimes see mountains off in the distance. Looked like they were thirty-five or forty miles away. Once in a while there was cowboys driving cattle. I thought they must of lived and slept out there as there was only a small one room shack once in a while. Once I did see a pair of coyotes and a lot of horned toads or lizards. There was plenty of rattlesnakes too in that hot dry country. I help to break some cactus plants. There was some water in it but the kind we had was kind of bitter and I couldn't drink much. There was a day now and then while crossing Texas and Arizona that I didn't stop or get anything to eat. The little towns was few and far between the way the trains traveled.

            There wasn't much to do except just side and ride, ride, ride. We slept in the empty box cars on the train. I never thought there were so many miles of flat level country and never believed or dreamed it could be so, so hot.

            We managed to get off a few minutes when the trains stopped for water. Once they changed train crews. They went only so far then when a train came from the other direction they changed with that crew and come back to start over again.

            When we did get to Amarillo ti was a pretty big city but no HoBo Jungle no were as there was no big stream or river near the town. We found out it was near a small town called Canyon about eight or ten miles south of the city so we caught a local freight the next day and made it ok.It was pretty good but nothing like the one we left behind.
             Anyways, we spent two days there. The people around there was nice We helped them when we could and we ended up with a lot of vegetables and bread then got together with others and made up a pretty good meal. Then we had this small river to get cleaned up and wash some clothes. Met some new fellows and different tales of the road. Then we decided to keep going south to Fort Worth, Dallas, and clear to the southern part of the state to Houston. That took a week of riding but we did find more good HoBo Jungles.