My concept of hobos was taught me by tv. The first I remember was a hobo that came thru Mayberry. Opie liked him right away, but the hobo turned out to be a ne’er-do-well that was teaching bad habits to the gullible kid. Andy put a stop to it, of course. TV and movies convinced me that a true hobo carried a stick over his shoulder. At the end of the stick was a bandanna. His few small possessions were inside the pouch made by tying knots at the corners. So configured, the cloth pouch was called a bindle, and the stick the bandanna was tied to was a bindle stick, of course.
Television also taught me hobos were unshaven, wore raggedy clothes, and had shoes with big holes through the soles. They chewed on cigar butts, too. By default, hobos have no jobs and no permanent homes. But hobos do not beg. Bums and tramps do.
What’s the Difference Between Hobos, Tramps, and Bums?
I read an article claiming those who use the word hobo are insensitive
Regular readers know the word bowdlerize comes from the man who took it upon himself to remove every word, phrase, and passage that he found objectionable in the works of Henry Shakespeare. His only measuring stick was if each word was acceptable to him or offensive to him. Might as well call it what it is: censorship by strangers who believe they know what’s best for you. If you’ve read about Harry Anslinger and Prohibition in the US, you know the negative consequences for the rest of us far outweigh the personal aims of the self-described pure.
Look at it this way
If we let our lives be governed by people who are offended by personal whatevers, no matter how small or how frivolous, we’ll never be able to keep up with the book-burners and bearers of flaming torches.
Now there’s an interesting topic for investigation and study
It might be called Labels found to be objectionable by hobos, tramps, vagrants, bums. If someone wants to fund it, I’ll donate my study design education, training, methods, and principles and I’ll share authorship
The delicate flowers of our social world
They’ve used their little a.i. toys to come up with modern definitions that consider migrant workers to be hobos. This smells like one of many a.i. flaws. The algorithms were written by Young Moderns with short attention spans. The tool finds travel and right away looks for more travel. It finds that migrant workers travel, making them hobos. This is the level at which most of the stuff most of us see is produced.
The tool’s conclusion was vetted by more Young Moderns using tools they don’t understand
We can thank those knuckleheads for deciding that hobos and migrant workers mean the same thing.
I asked one AISA <what’s a better way of saying hobo?>
The Artifical Intelligence Search Agent delivered this: “A homeless wanderer who may beg or steal for a living, a tramp or a vagabond.” One of two sources the tool used was nationalhomeless.org. I took a quick poke at the interweb and found there is also a National Hobo Association, founded by those interested in taking up the hobo lifestyle as a hobby. The association has no website and is mentioned only on Wikipedia. So hobos call themselves hobos, at least those in this club. That’s good enough for me.
Location, location, location
Hobo camps are scruffy surroundings are small encampments near the rails freight trains use. Hobos hop on open railroad cars and ride until they get to their destinations.
There were a couple of movies that featured bums
The first one I saw was My Man Godfrey, made in 1936. Godfrey was no hobo, because he didn’t travel. He lived in a dump that was on the edge of New York City’s East River. It was fiction, a movie, so it was quite clean for a dump. Most of the trash was empty tin cans that made a lot of noise when rattled around.
A kooky society dame (period correct) took a liking to him, cleaned him up, bought him a new suit.
When he was no longer scruffy, his manners, poise, and way of speaking identified him as a down-on-his-luck educated person from an upper class background. The cook said he was tidy. The time period was the depths of the American Depression. Carole Lombard took William Powell into the family home, made him their butler, and the comedy was off and running. It’s a good story and the actors are great, especially Gail Patrick.
Sullivan’s Travels was made in 1941
A famous Hollywood film director is tired of making comedies. He wants to make a slice-of-life film about the harsh life of people out of work during the depression. He couldn’t be a real hobo or a tramp because he wasn’t looking for work. He had to assume the role of a hobo, which included costuming. So he put on some old raggedy clothes and took to the road.
Lucky for him, Veronica Lake came along to add beauty and romance
Together they bummed around from adventure to adventure, not going anywhere in particular, just “out there” somewhere vague.
Bums don’t work
So they beg for money, an action we know as panhandling. The word panhandle was originally applied to a narrow extension of land from a larger territory. In the United States, the most obvious panhandle is three counties that stick out directly west from Oklahoma. They were added on as a part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, back when the U.S. had only 23 states and frontier borders changed frequently.
The Hobo Egg
Nobody we know “invented” it. My research found there are dozens of names for the same thing. My favorite is the One-Eyed Egyptian Sandwich.
Hobo eggs cook the bread and the egg together
Some hobos carried small frying pans, chosen for their light weight. The small frying area had room for toasting a piece of bread or frying an egg, but only one a time. Then someone tore a small round hole in the bread, just the right size for a raw egg. Both cooked at the same time, and both were equally hot.
No one knows where panhandler came from, either
But all agree there is an outstretched arm involved. I never saw anyone panhandling with a pan, except maybe the collection taken up during some church services. The beggars I’ve seen around the world and on television are either holding out their extended hand, open palm up, for you to drop money in, or holding a tin cup with an outstretched arm. I’d vote for the cup because you can attract attention while rattling loose coins in a tin cup.
My name is David Allan Van Nostrand and I wrote this article, along with more than 500 others on this site alone. Ever since I was a kid with an insatiable curiosity and a knack for learning, I’ve observed, analyzed, and made sense of hundreds of different subjects and topics. Today, in addition to writing, I help organizations solve difficult problems requiring imaginative solutions. What can I take a closer look at for you?
Bonus
King of the Road is the title awarded by the brethren of the hobo lifestyle each year at the National Hobo Convention. King of the Road honors the one who is best schooled and educated in the lifestyle of the hobo. Roger Miller wrote and recorded his hit song, King of the Road. The lyrics describe a hobo’s life and the song won 5 Grammy Awards in 1966.
“Third boxcar, midnight train, Destination Bangor, Maine. Old worn out suit and shoes, I don’t pay no union dues. I smoke old stogies I have found, Short, but not too big around, I’m a maaaan of means, by no means, King of the Road.”
