Hobos for a Day

8/27/26

“Hobos for a Day”

I’ve often heard close childhood friends described as being inseparable. I suppose that’s a good way to refer to me and my first cousin Rick when we were in our teens. It was uncommon to see one of us without the other in those days. We made corncob pipes, rode our bikes on long trips, shot our shotguns, hunted for ginseng, ramps, mushrooms, and sassafras roots, and did countless other things that boys like to do. But our favorite pastime was fishing. We loved to throw our hooks in the water.

Most every day in the summer, we headed to some stream, pond, the Monocacy, or the Potomac River to try to outsmart Mr. Bass. Until I got my driver’s license, we walked or biked, but once we had wheels, wow! - the number of available fishing holes seemed to become infinite. Rick once learned of a pond full of bass on a farm that had been abandoned after the house burned. We fished there for a few days until we got the ramblin’ fever and moved on.

Rick seemed to have a natural talent for fishing. He would catch one fish after another, even in some mud hole or what seemed to me to be a large puddle. On the other hand, I felt lucky if I managed to reel in a sunfish or two, after hours of tireless effort. I asked my cousin to divulge his secrets, but he just grinned and said “You ain’t got the knack.” I bought the same rod, the same reel, used the same bait, tried to copy the motion of his casting arm – all to no avail. Once, I even wore a shirt that matched his. That was going a little too far. Rick said I was embarrassing him because everybody already kept asking if we were brothers, and he wouldn’t hang out with me if I kept copying him. Oh well, it was worth a try. None of my tactics worked. I suppose Rick was right; I didn’t have the knack. But that didn’t curb my enthusiasm, as the best parts of our outings were the camaraderie and just being outdoors.

Occasionally, we got into a little mischief. Nothing that would have landed us in jail, usually just copping some apples or ears of corn, which we’d roast on a campfire along with our freshly caught fish. - What a meal! Once, a farmer took a shot at us with his shotgun, but from so far away that we and he knew there would be no harm – just a warning.

I had better start talking about how we became hobos, before you think the title of this story is some kind of ‘bait and switch’ deal.

When Rick and I were about fourteen years old, a helpful adult told me that if you placed a penny on the railroad track, it would become a long, flat strip of copper when the train’s wheel squashed it. Rick immediately thought we might be able to make a spinner lure with the copper, so he agreed that we should take a day off from fishing and try it. The first attempt failed. Not because the penny didn’t get squashed, but because we couldn’t find it afterward. We tried again, using chewing gum to affix the coin to the rail. A few minutes later, a slow-moving freight train came into view. As it approached, we scurried up the bank to wait for the penny’s demise. We noticed that the train was made up mostly of empty flatcars. The platforms of the cars were slowly passing just below the level of our feet as we stood on the embankment. We looked at each other and without saying a word, hopped on the train. At first, it was like the movies - We were the railroad bums that Jimmie Rodgers sang about. We laughed out loud and patted each other on our backs to celebrate our courage, daring, and brilliance.

But before long, the train picked up speed, it got cold, the wind was blowing, there was nothing to hold on to, there was too much noise to hear each other without screaming, and the platform of our car was bumping up and down and jerking back and forth. We stayed as close to the center as we could, but each time it bumped or jerked, we thought we were going to fall off. We went through a tunnel (I later learned it was the Point of Rocks tunnel), and I thought we were done for. But eventually, our train began to slow and our fear gradually subsided. The smiles came back as we realized that we had done it! We were real hobos.

The train finally stopped and we jumped off. We had no idea where we were or how we would get home. We certainly weren’t going to return by train. Once was enough for a lifetime. We escaped the freight yard without being detected and saw a well-dressed man walking down the street. Rick said he didn’t look like a railroad employee or a cop. I suppose he thought a railroad employee would be wearing one of those striped caps or something. The man was a little perplexed when I asked him what town we were in, but he told us we were in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Holy crap, West Virginia!

We decided the only thing to do, even though it was a cowardly act, was to call home. (In those days before cellphones, you could make a collect call on a payphone by dialing “0.”) But which parent should we call? No matter which, there was going to be trouble. Rick’s concern was that we might not be allowed to go fishing for a long time. I volunteered to call my house to break the news, as I had come up with the brilliant idea that Daddy wouldn’t be very hard on us – he might even be proud of us becoming hobos like those in the movies. I was wrong. Daddy stated my earlier thought, verbatim, “Holy crap, West Virginia!”

During the hour and a half we waited for Daddy, we tried to predict the consequences of our little ride. Rick thought maybe our parents wouldn’t be too harsh, since we were safe and sound, but after Daddy’s “holy crap” outburst, I was dubious. I wondered aloud if we were too old for a whoopin’, and after some discussion on the matter, we came to the conclusion that we probably weren’t.

By and By, Daddy arrived. After an initial “Are you boys alright?” and our assurance that we were, all three of us remained silent for the entire trip home. Daddy didn’t even have the car radio turned on. It seemed like a very long trip. We dropped Rick off at Uncle Dick and Aunt Joan’s place to receive his comeuppance and headed to the house.

I wasn’t punished severely. I was grounded for a couple of weeks and wasn’t supposed to hang out with Rick for a month – an edict we both ignored without consequence. All in all, it was a day worth remembering and one I wouldn’t take back if I could. Imagine that! We got to be hobos, if only for a day.

Tom Mindte

August 2026

School photos of Rick and me, made the year we hopped the train.

A flatcar like the one we rode on.

Point of Rocks tunnel.

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