I Am Hobo

[Joanne98]

As our culture wades deeper into an ever-deepening plume of darkness, Congressman Heller, Republican from Nevada, tells us that those who cannot find work are hobos. Obeying authority I cover my face with soot, choose the darkest, tattered rags I can find in my small closet and sail off remaining unemployed. I am Hobo. I am legend in Congressman Heller’s mind and, I suspect, the minds of millions of others who worship at the feet of denial.

I am one happy truant from the corporate universe. Two plus years ago, I was fired by a multi-billion dollar international law firm whose sun never sets. No hobos worked there. I had gone to HR to ask about claiming disability for a physical condition that had almost immobilized me. I explained I was having trouble walking, breathing, but other than that I was an Olympic athlete. Three days later I was fired. This was in April 2008, before the big crash. They had started eliminating employees in January of that year and later I was informed that they had a “bloodbath” at the firm, thereby creating thousands of hobos. Must not cut into Partners’ profits. That is against the law of nature. No soot on those faces.

I recovered, but being out of the job market for such a long period of time basically eliminated me from consideration. My story is common. Our Hobo society grows exponentially as the sun sets on our spirit. The first time I went for an interview during my newly created poverty, I walked through Pennsylvania Station in New York City and noticed there were more ghosts than people. The uninvited were Hobos unable to make the trip in their former occupations. The texture of the atmosphere had changed. Going to work was never easy, but now competing with the phantom of the disappeared were the terrorized eyes of the employed. When they exhaled, the sky would fill with shadows. The only thing that prevented night at high noon was that few people dared to exhale lest they catch the attention of their managers. Being a Hobo does have one advantage. You learn to breathe through the grime.

I want to reassure the good Congressman from Nevada that you serve your constituents well. Never mind that your state has the highest unemployment rate in the country. You are fearless, brave. How do you ease this tragedy? You make the ring tighter and ensure that those who aren’t in remain out. It takes guts to name a problem! And you have guts in abundance. I saw your picture. No unemployment insurance for you. And if you can’t have it, then why should anyone else. So keep on keeping on, secure in the knowledge you are preventing the lazy, uncouth, threadbare women, men and children from sipping from the shiny, clean well of taxpayer funds.

http://www.usatrends.info/jack-schimmelman-i-am-hobo/4001

[asdjrocky]

1. This is very good work. nt

[femrap]

2. My grandmother always

fed the hobos. We lived on a farm and he would sit at the table with us. I thought he was an exotic world traveler.

Goddess, have things changed.

I hate f*cking corporations and their political minions.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. My gradmother's mantra to all her grandkids was

" Be sure you have money set aside for a rainy day.
And you can't trust the government to help out when you need it".

She raised her 8 kids, including my mother, during the depression, which left both of them scarred for life
about money. Even when she was in her 80's, living in a paid for house, with a retirement/insurance income that was enough to pay the bills with just a bit left over, she always felt insecure.

Grandma was a humorless harridan in many respects.
I learned that debt was a bad thing, I learned to buy almost everything on sale, and for cash.

Today I bless her departed soul for the lessons she repeatedly, relentlessly, pounded home to us.
Which I pounded home to my sons.

[femrap]

6. I would ask

my grandfather about the Depression and he refused to talk about it.

My grandmother's thrifty ways were passed on to me. I love a bargain. I could never understand why a person would buy a car on credit...I used to say, 'Hell, that econ-o-car is going to end up costing you the same as a BMW after all the interest costs.' I drove a beat-up Pinto for years...all the BMWs got out of my way! lol

She always told me to be independent and self-reliant. We both loved our freedom.

[jwirr]

3. I once had a documentary video about the Hobos which claimed

that most of them were teenagers who left home because the family could no longer afford to feed them. It was a great video and I wish I could find it back so I could buy it again.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Was it called "Long Gone"?

First-time documentary filmmaker Jack Cahill still remembers learning hobo sign language from his third grade teacher. What seemed superfluous at the time, Cahill put to good use during his seven years hopping freight trains with collaborator David Eberhardt to film the documentary Long Gone, which chronicles the lifestyle of modern hobos.

Shot in cinema verite style, the film neither romanticizes the freedom of the tramps, as they prefer to call themselves, nor sensationalizes the substance abuse and violence that typified media coverage of hobos during the nineties. Instead, it offers an insider’s glimpse of that world through the eyes of seven tramps, and hints at the wanderlust of the filmmakers.

http://www.independent-magazine.org/node/139

[jwirr]

8. No, mine was totally about the original hobos - interviews with them

today, original photos and their deep love of FDR. Maybe my daughter has it stuck away somewhere - I'll have to look.

[southernyankeebelle]

7. Hobos unite. Go to every state house in the state you live and protest.

Then vote democrat.

[handmade34]

9. some great lines

"Being a Hobo does have one advantage. You learn to breathe through the grime (MY WORDS-along with other survial techniques)... one day when this storm has embodied its full fury a tidal wave will rush in and wash away our fear, leaving us free. Eyes steady, we will stare through the opaque minds of Congress, hear empty echoes, and finally exhale. Hobos have a way of surviving. We live in shadow, but we see, clearly guided by the exquisite spark that is each and every soul’s birthright"

"Hobos Unite! We have nothing to lose but our soot!"

I remember a conversation I had once with an obnoxious bill collector back in my much bleaker days. I told him, "I don't care, do what you want, there is nothing you can take from me!" There is some freedom in having nothing, nothing to fear because they can't take anything else away from you.

Absolutely: Hobos unite! It is the only thing that will save us.