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.”
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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
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“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.
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