October 20, 2004

• Hobo Signs and Monikers

  I
  have been signing my moniker to my writings, my psychic readings, and
  anywhere graffiti is appropriate (maybe even a few inappropriate
  places) since 1972.  Ironically, it has never shown up on a
  boxcar, railroad trestle or underpass, nor on any hobo “register” on a
  railroad water tank.  The impetus to conceive of a moniker, a mark
  all my own, came from hobos I met during a brief period riding freight
  trains in late 1971, but I didn’t develop the drawing itself until
  later that winter, and I never rode the hobo rails again after
  that.  In my hitchhiking rambling across western states and to
  Alaska, I marked it on more than a few highway bridges, light poles and
  such, but mostly it has appeared on paper or as pixels on a screen.

  History
  Men snagging free rides on freight trains is a
  practice probably as old as railroads.  Many of them through the
  years have been tramps, just moving from place to place, rootless
  wanderers.  Tramps generally beg or steal to get by.  The
  term “hobo” originated from “hoe boys”, itinerant farm workers
  following the crops.  Although it wasn’t until after World War I
  that they got much public media play, the practice really burgeoned
  following the Civil War half a century earlier.  Especially in the
  South, men returned from the war to find that they had no home, no farm
  to go home to.  As the Transcontinental Railroad was coming
  together with a big celebration on the driving of the Golden Spike in
  Utah in 1869, men looking for work as hoe boys were riding the trains.

  Language
  For many, it was a brief span of time before they found new homes and
  settled down.  Many others made their home on the rails.  A
  culture developed and an argot was born, words and phrases once
  exclusive to the men who rode the rods (connecting rods under rail
  cars, secure from detection but not such a safe place to
  ride).   Many of those words have passed into common
  usage.  Words such as “bindle”, “hotshot” and “punk” are hobo
  words.  Some of the colorful phrases of hobo slang reflect
  realitites of life on the road:   “walking dandruff” are
  lice;  “scoping the drag” means to watch for an open boxcar or
  empty gondola — a place to ride — as a train slows down.

  They developed a written language, too.  The “words” are symbolic
  scrawls designed to inform others of conditions in the towns and rail
  yards.  They also reflect the realities and the hazards of the
  lifestyle.  Many of them are warnings.  There have been
  variations in the symbolic language over time, and there are regional
  differences.  Below is a sampling of a few:
  

  To find more, just do a web search for “hobo signs” or “hobo symbols.”

  Art
  Monikers are a particular type of sign.  Each person has one, and
  they are used to let others know which way you are going, what your
  destination is, etc., or just to put your “killroy was here” on the
  landscape.  A traditional rite of passage for a new ‘bo was to
  sign the register.  It meant climbing up to a water tank to carve
  or chalk your moniker there.  Chalk has always been a popular
  medium for writing signs and monikers, as has charcoal, but “registers”
  are often carved more permanently.

  
  One
  of the best-known monikers is A-No.1.  There have been subsequent
  imitators, but the original A Number One was Leon Ray Livingston (b.1872, d.1944). 
  He was portrayed by Lee Marvin in the movie, Emperor of the North
  Pole.  Livingston wrote a series of 12 “tramplife” books,
  chronicling his life as a hobo and warning young boys to stay in school
  and not go on the road.

  
  Another
  much-imitated moniker is Bozo Texino.  It’s simple and
  easy to copy.   The one above is NOT the origina’s
  work.  I recall seeing Bozo’s moniker when I was riding freights
  in
  1971.  Ironically, the originator of this one wasn’t a tramp or
  hobo, but a railroad worker, J. H. McKinley.

  

  Another railroad worker,  BuZ Blur
  or Russell Butler, developed a harder-to-fake moniker.  He has his
  imitators, too, but they just don’t really look like his work. 
  One of his distiguishing characteristics is the ever-changing line of
  text beneath the cowboy profile.  I found several images online,
  but this is the one I like best.

  

  It was thrilling to find Herby’s moniker when I was searching these
  images online, and a bit saddening to see that he’d died.  But he
  was an old guy, had been on the rails at least three decades.  I
  met Herby, rode and drank with him, and saw him draw his sombrero clad
  guy under the palm tree.  I’ve also seen a few obvious fakes of it.

  I wonder how easy or hard my moniker might be to fake.  My family
  and friends haven’t been able to do it credibly.  The ink artist
  who did Greyfox’s tattoo didn’t even get it quite right.

  If I’ve just whet your appetite here, you can learn more from North Bank Fred and the High Tech ‘bo (especially his excellent page of hobo signs).
  

  • 4:21 pm
  • 12 Comments