Boxcors to blackboards: By Barbara Myers A pile of newspapers on the dirty floor of the box car stirs and sits up - it’s a new day in Hobo America. To most, they are nameless tramps, skid row bums, vagrants - portraits of despair. But to Dr. James Rooney, Associate Professor of Sociology, these homeless men are more. They are portraits of survival - teachers of adven ture. Dr. Rooney knows, he’s a self-proclaimed hobo with years of experience hopping freights and living on skid row. As he talks of his experiences from his scholarly office, a dapper man with a trimmed, greying beard, one has difficulty im agining this tea-drinking pro fessor in any other setting. But, as a native of Spokane, Washington, Dr. Rooney got his first lesson in “hobo life” when he was 16 yeas old. “I wanted to get a job in town,” he said, “but there weren’t any available. When I heard on the radio that apple thinners were needed in Wenat chee, I went down to the farm labor office and signed up. The guy explained that I’d get .85 an hour, work ten hours a day, and pay $2.00 for room and board.” Dr. Rooney said he went home, packed his bag, and arm ed with ten penny-postcards, set out to make his fortune. “It was at this point,” said Dr. Rooney, “that I met the first bunch of guys off of skid row. I quickly learned that the sterotype of the skid row alcoholic is not always ac curate. There are many guys on skid row who have regular, steady jobs. Others are seasonal workers who work for a while and then come back to live off their savings.” After supper, Rooney said, he would sit and talk to his fellow workers. “I began to realize these people were a little dif ferent from the working class neighborhood people that I grew up with. But I thought they were really interesting.” The next year , right after his graduation from high school, Rooney was “on the road again,” this time looking for adventure as a cherry picker. “There weren’t any farms in that region that offered room and board,” says the ex-hobo, “so I talked to a few of the other tramps and found that lodging was available at the local freight yard - in the empty box cars.” * > i • .1 » . \ * % Dr. Rooney said you must come prepared if you want a good night’s rest in a box car. “The floors of the cars are not always swept out foi comfort of the tramps,” said, with a shy smile, ‘ bring along a stack of newspapers - some for <: the floor and some for k yourself warm. ” He explained that thei: trick to effectively using: nespapers for insulation “You have to learn h( it,” he said, gesturing to feet. “It takes about fod of newspaper: one to gc your feet and around yc another to go around yc knees, a third to go aroi hips, and the fourth for your chest. Fold it in rig back, and aahhh, be coi table.” That wasn’t all that learned that summer. rofessor remin - ** ~ *'U * _ *, >„ f*fr ' y * “You’d be sleeping at night,” he said, “and you’d hear the rrr on the tracks. That meant the locomotive was coming. If you have trouble waking up in the morning (he chuckles), just have a locomotive bump into your bed. During that summer Rooney traveled 2500 miles around the Northwest and had 20 different jobs. “I could make money and see some of the country at the same time. It was adventure all the way around,” he said. “What more could you ask for?” By the time he was 18, Dr. Rooney felt he could go anywhere in the United States ana make it. “I knew how to go into a town where I had never been before, locate the ‘jungle’ where I could sleep for free, get sources for free food, find the HHr farm labor office, and get a job.” And by this time, he had learned the art of BBr hopping freight trains. H A Once when I was , BSh hitch hiking in Oregon t r the ’ he ‘So you lovering eeping e is a aw to do p his it sheets > over ur legs, ur ind your around jht, lay nfor- :ooney down 1 train \ yards, along' header didn’t soon li the sU brake train 1 Dr.: perien disseri atGon Spokai ""Tr-"!** row,” 1 the ‘H< beggar the mil portth days a the ren buy soi time tt guard’ friends
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers