Hobo Jungle

[webenda]

The weekend before Thanksgiving, 2008, Tucson, Arizona

[MurphOnMillerAve]

....(image above)
The weekend before Thanksgiving, 2008, Tucson, Arizona

Are you telling us you were one of those excellent athletes!? Wowowoweee. You are really something! My hat's off to you. It seems you made an enviable choice in moving there all those years ago. Congratulations on your wisdom.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Tramp, Murph ,and all - great stories and thanks for sharing! I had a similar out of body experience like that once at a carnival in West Virginia. I recall waking up in a little cot in a Shasta trailer parked behind the tilt-a-whirl with a bearded lady and a bunch of chickens. Just one of those things that you never forget. I can still smell the aroma of cotton candy and sausage on a stick.

Talk about saying alot and giving us a picture in a few words - you sure gave me a vision! Please, please, do tell more. Put all those details in there,forget about spelling and punctuation, and let us have the privilege of a stream-of-consciousness account of that place and day, and be sure to include your impressions and thoughts, which I am imagine you can recall vividly. OK? Will ya, huh huh, will ya' ? (I have a feeling this could be real goooooood, folks.)

[webenda]

Are you telling us you were one of those excellent athletes!? Wowowoweee.

Don't get too excited Murph, I ride for fun. The winner, David Salomon from Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, averaged 24.9 mph. I averaged 12.9 mph. That was fast enough to put me right in the middle of a field of 8636 cyclists. It is great fun to ride with "excellent athletes", but I am not one of them.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Are you telling us you were one of those excellent athletes!? Wowowoweee.

Don't get too excited Murph, I ride for fun. The winner, David Salomon from Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, averaged 24.9 mph. I averaged 12.9 mph. That was fast enough to put me right in the middle of a field of 8636 cyclists. It is great fun to ride with "excellent athletes", but I am not one of them.

Who cares about speed! You were up and mounted and moving your keester. man, I am happy for you,for your tenacity and vigor. Good for you!

[The Dirt]

I had a similar out of body experience like that once at a carnival in West Virginia. I recall waking up in a little cot in a Shasta trailer parked behind the tilt-a-whirl with a bearded lady and a bunch of chickens. Just one of those things that you never forget. I can still smell the aroma of cotton candy and sausage on a stick.

LMFAO!! Now that there's some real autobiography if I ever heard it!! Murph, I met the lad. He showed up at the Mountain Spring Inn here in Pennsylvania with a toothless tattooed one-legged dwarf. Least, she didn't have a beard. Hev can testify.


(And Murph, don't let Wayne fool ya. That's him on the tandem. )

Tramp, I don't know what happened to Willie. He's still down in Miami. I think the move South must have thrown him way off his feed. He sure disappeared.
Long as I'm remembering him, and this being the day this thread started, fully 8 years ago over in NK, a quick nod to him, JB, Stiff, Dufus, and RR Rocky. Good hobos all.


Well, thinking of doing another thing as whacked as buying the Farmall. And look where THAT one led!!
I gotta be half crazy.
I'm already a quarter-crazy, hanging with all the likes of youse!

[GP]

Tramp, Murph, and Dirt ... that's some very expressive and beautiful writing from you guys!

Hope that everyone here had a pleasant and memorable Thanksgiving Day.

GP

[webenda]

Hobo Thanksgiving at Gospel Rescue Mission, Tucson, Arizona.......................Photo by Francisco Medina

Many recently lost their jobs.
They ask, "Will the downturn will ever end?"
I say, "It always has."
They ask, "Will life be different after?"
I think of 9/11, a horrible and horrendous day, but it led to new life, vitality and respect for each other.
And I tell them, "It will be better than before."

--Rev. James Cooper, Trinity Church, NY, NY.

[Del Mar]

Some fine words and images this season. I am, as always, moved by the emotions of the Jungle and its denizens.

It might be cold downeast, but the images of Daisy and Tramp's home exuded warmth. Pies and fine china on the table, awaiting enjoyment and use. A turkey in the pan. And the essay hit me where I live. Even here on the left coast, I have a different set of emotions and purposes as the seasons change.

Our Thanksgiving Day has been a rest cure for me. The main event was last night on the eve, with friends gathering, dining, and, of all things, singing. We didn't plan it, but someone opened up the piano after dinner and began playing, a DAF (type of large tamberene), guitar, mandolin, harmonica, and drums were located and put into service, and as the evening moved on, everyone gravitated to the music. There were old hymns, extemporaneous expressions of song, and poignant moments of silence punctuated by declarations of thanksgiving between the musical episodes. I was amazed, taken to another level, and having cleaned up, went to bed for the deepest sleep I have had in some time.

Jahan, Tiffany, and Rosie volunteered for "Soup Kitchen" work today with Father Joe Caroll, so, much as I love them, I had the blessing of solitude. I took a lone, fixed gear bike ride toward the end of the afternoon. There was nobody out and about as I rode and I meandered with no particular goal or purpose. The bike moved quietly under me as if it was an extension of my body and we were born with two wheels and fixed gearing. Some homes were lit with folks enjoying the repast, in other yards kids were chasing, playing ping pong, and roughhousing, and even here in warm California, I could smell the fireplaces and hearths burning.

God bless you all for being hobos.

San

[2railjon]

My son patiently endured the festivities of Thanksgiving day quietly being reassured by me that tomorrow the Christmas tree would be erected. His patient endurance included lipsticked kisses from hairy chinned aunts, dutch-rubs on his noggin from calloused handed uncles. And taunts from elder cousins who thank goodness are let out of there confinements only a couple times a year.
But today he was rewarded with an early start of dad trudging in from the cold and rain with the almighty evergreen in tow. The true symbol to my son that the visit from Santa was destined to follow. The tree is up and decorated and dad has poured a rather well deserved brew, as the official countdown has begun!

[The Dirt]

Jon, !! Nothing like the smell of fresh real pine in the home!
LOL about Jon Jr.! He's certainly earned his excitement. Your story reminds me of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas, a short-story Tramp turned me onto. I read it to myself every Christmas. It's got all the batty relatives that you described, and it's both hilarious and deeply moving. At least for me.

San, "solitude"?? What the H is that??

Kidding aside, I know of what you speak. Being a nurse, and having to work some evening shifts and every other major holiday, when folks are ensconced in their homes, there are times when I'm driving the 20 miles home in the dead of night with nary another car on the road when, but for the lighted windows , it would be easy to think that I'm the last person on this good Earth.
But the family is always there, safely tucked, at the end of the journey, for which I am hugely blessed.


Here's my latest quandary.

We're thinking of buying a horse.



I would certainly know the first order of business: DIET WEEK!!



She's FAT!! She's a mare, 10 years old. She's been in a pen with two other horses and a bunch of heifers, and the farmer has a feeder in the middle into which is dropped one of those big round bales, so all have been free to eat whenever they like. She's more expensive than a horse that could be bought at our local animal auction, but then at an auction, it's difficult to identify a problem-horse, as you don't know the history, and it is too easy to 'sedate' a horse so that it will be docile or tractable during the auction, a definite dilemma when this horse will be a gift for my daughter to ride. This particular mare was ridden by the daughter of this couple, (he a dairy farmer friend, she a caseworker on my nursing unit, so the histroy and behavior are known and trustable), and on the day it would be brought here, Leah would be able to throw a saddle over her.
The redhead grew up on horses, her father up the lane has extra saddles and harnesses and does his own horse-shoeing, he has a barn for immediate housing until I can get a stall built down here (if it would even make sense to build one with the barn a quarter-mile away), there are two mills within 10 miles to buy feed, and by dumb luck, he has an extra gate on his corral right on the corner of our yard.

What to do, what to do....

Pretty thing, though, ain't she?

[rogruth]

Ask the father-in-law.Sounds like he has experience in these matters.

[The Dirt]

Rog, not a question of whether the horse is a good investment, but whether I'm being a retard.

[rogruth]

As I said,ask the father-in-law.

[The Dirt]

As in, how far do you go to help a daughter chase her dreams?

But never mind. Consider it 'rhetorical' in nature.