Riding the Rails
I'm writing this blog more for my children's sake than for the general public. I regret that I never listened to my mom and other adults when they told stories about their childhood. I feel my children are making the same mistake; they don't want to hear my stories of the "old days." Therefore, I will save my memories until my children reach an age when they do appreciate my stories. But, at 62 years of age, my memories of my childhood and youth are becoming dimmer and dimmer, so now is the time to put my memories down on paper to preserve them until a time when my children and grandchildren are interested in reading about my life. This will be the first of several. Some, I may publish; others will be just for my children's eyes.
In the spring of 1977, I was only 24 years old. My life was footloose and fancy-free. Life was one adventure after another. It was at the height of my "Hobo Joe" years, my boozing and raising hell years. I didn't give a shit about anyone or anything. Rules, I genuinely believe, are meant for other people. I thought I was invincible, and I figured I was smart enough to escape any predicament I found myself in. I was the most irresponsible, worthless young man that ever walked the Rez.
It was the summer my brother and I hitchhiked and rode the rails (freight cars) to California. My brother was living in Ukiah, California, and had come home for an extended visit. (My brother was my first cousin. According to our Dakota custom, first cousins are looked upon as siblings also.) He was planning on catching a bus back to Ukiah when I jokingly told him I wanted to go with him. A couple of months earlier, I had been fired from Sioux Manufacturing for about the fifth time and was doing nothing but partying every day.
Alcohol was the drug of choice back then, and most of my family, relatives, and friends all consumed gallons of it; we drank it whether it was wine, beer, or whiskey. Alcoholism was so ingrained in our lives back then that you could say it was a big part of our culture. We observed it as young children and started indulging in it when we were 14-15 years of age, if not sooner. It was also the time when family and relatives stuck together, and most Dakota (ndn) practiced the value of generosity. So, it was easy to get booze; whoever had it shared it with their friends and relatives.
He immediately agreed when I told my brother I wanted to go with him. He said, "If you want to come, we can hitchhike, and we can use the money I was planning on buying a bus ticket to eat with." Since I was only joking, I was hesitant initially. Still, I was not doing anything anyway, so I eventually agreed to go with him. We put together a couple of pitiful knapsacks consisting of a few clothes and blankets.
We all jumped into my cousin's car on Friday and headed to the Iron Ring powwow. I can't remember how we got to Bismarck; but once we arrived there, we went to a cousin's home who told us if we waited until Friday when she was going to the Iron Ring powwow on Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, she would give us a ride that far. We spent the next two days at her home partying. Once we arrived at Iron Ring, we spent the weekend drinking with relatives from Fort Peck, most of whom we had never met. On Monday, our cousin returned to Bismarck, and our distant cousin invited us to his house for some soup. Fort Peck held their powwow in the small Rez town where he lived. After we finished eating, he took us a couple of miles down the road and let us off to resume hitchhiking our way to Northern California.
As a result of Dakota society's strong kinship system, wherever a Dakota travels in Dakota country, they will always run into a relative who most likely will help them out in some way.
After a couple of rides, we made it to Havre, Montana. We walked through Havre and stood on the edge of town with our thumbs out. It started darkening, so we decided to walk back into Havre and spend the night. We soon ran into some ndn who lived in Havre, and upon learning we were going to California, they told us that freight trains leave from Havre every day, and we should consider catching one. We went to the freight yard to inquire about the freight trains. After visiting with one of the freight yard workers, who was very friendly, we found out a freight train was indeed leaving at 12:20 the next day. He called it a "straight shot," for it was going all the way to Seattle without stopping.
We walked back downtown and soon found more ndn who invited us to a party. After several days of drinking, I was so hungover that I didn't care to drink anymore. I told my brother, if you want to go with them, I will sleep by the freight yard, and you can come and get me in the morning. The next morning, I heard him calling my name, so I sat up, and he took me to the house where he had partied the night before. A typical extended ndn family was living there. They offered us something to eat, and as most ndn tend to do, they treated us visitors very special. At noon, we said goodbye and returned to the freight yard, where a worker pointed out the freight train we hoped to hop on.
We jumped on a car which was a flatbed that had containers on it. The containers were modified to be pulled by a semi-truck. We made our beds between the tires and settled for the long ride. The ride to Seattle was uneventful except for a couple of events. The first event was when we entered a tunnel around six in the evening. Train tunnels have no lights, so it was pitch black. By this time, I was extremely hungover, my nerves were shot, and I was beginning to ask myself, "What in the hell have I gotten myself into?" The ride through the pitch-black tunnel appeared to go on forever, so long, that my already raw nerves induced me to conjure up all kinds of scary scenarios. Thank goodness the ride ended before I lost it.
The second event was when we stopped in a small mountain town. The train worker we questioned said the train would be there for about 20 minutes. We would have enough time to use the bathroom and fill our water jug, or so we thought. We had not yet returned to the car we were riding on when the train began to pull out. My knapsack was lighter than my brother's, so I quickly caught up with the moving car and jumped on. I looked back, and just when he was going to jump on the car, my brother's boot hit a stake, and he went end over end. He jumped up and began running again, but the train picked up speed. I didn't think he was going to make it. I was almost going to throw my stuff off the freight car and jump off. I certainly didn't want to become separated from him when in a burst of speed, he caught up with the car and jumped and I helped pull him on.
We rolled into Seattle the next day around the afternoon and quickly caught a freight headed south to Portland, Oregon. In Portland, we jumped on another freight train, but about 70 miles south, the darn train stopped in the middle of nowhere. After waiting for an hour, we thought it would be best if we started hitchhiking. So, we jumped off the train and began walking.
At this point, we had heard that some workers at the freight yards were known as "Bulls," and their job was to throw off any bum catching a freight train. Apparently, some enjoyed their job. However, all the freight yard workers we met were friendly and gave us helpful information about freight trains.
My memory has dimmed about this part of our journey, but I remember an overpass where another hitchhiker was standing on the top talking about God. In the middle of nowhere was this long-haired white dude preaching on the interstate, and we just happened to be hitchhiking by. To make it worse, it started raining, so we hurried to get under the overpass, and we wondered if we would have to share the shelter with the witko (crazy) person preaching on the top of the overpass. Fortunately, he must have found refuge elsewhere because he didn't join us under the overpass.
The other incident I remember was an old hippy in an old car picking us up in the evening. He offered some hits off his weed once we started down the road. It was potent stuff, and I soon couldn't tell if we were going up or down the mountains. We pulled into Grants Pass, Oregon, and he let us off. Grants Pass, we were disconcerted to learn, was called the Big Foot capital of the world. The thought of running into Bigfoot scared us since we were trying to hitch a ride on the outskirts of a town with darkness fast approaching, known for its Bigfoot sightings. We didn't catch a ride, so we walked a few yards into the bush, made our beds, and prepared to spend the night. I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Bigfoot. "It will just be our luck that Bigfoot will come stomping through the bush," I wondered as I lay there trying to sleep.
Thank God Bigfoot didn't show up, and the next morning, we resumed our journey. The next ride, I recall, was when a van or small bus loaded with plants and odds and ends picked us up. About four or five "strange" people were in it, but they moved some junk around and made room for us. They were kind-hearted people, and we were grateful for the ride. The bus but delayed at the Oregon and California border due to the border guards' concern with some of the plants they were transporting, so we jumped off and started thumbing again.
I must mention that most of the people who gave us a ride were a little strange or poor, except for a trucker who picked us up when we were standing in the rain. Generally, ordinary people don't give hitchhikers rides; it was always people who were unique in some way. At least, that was my impression.
Another ride I recall was with a carload of Caucasian males. By then, we had gotten relatively good at instantaneously judging whether it was safe to get into a car. They seemed okay, so we got in. I remember this ride because they had a jug of whiskey that they shared with us until they dropped us off right at the Red Wood National Forest entrance. Reinvigorated by the whiskey, a diplomatic way to put it, we decided to walk the scenic route through the Redwood Forest. Today, my eyes still recall the wonder and beauty of those magnificent and impressive trees.
After a few miles, we became tired and went back up to the main road and resumed sticking out our thumbs. After an hour or so of standing there and not getting a ride, my brother said, "We should split up. We are getting close [to Ukiah], so we no longer need to stay together. We will catch a ride quicker if we are alone." I agreed, and he gave me a dime and the phone number of his girlfriend's mother's home. I think he had something like 35ยข left. He told me which exit to take and gave me directions to a phone booth from that exit. "They know we're coming, so call this number, and someone will come and pick you up," he told me.
I walked several yards up the mountain and sat down out of sight. I was worried about timber rattlesnakes. If bitten, I wondered if I would survive a timber rattlesnake's bite. Sure enough, within 20 minutes, a car stopped and picked my brother up. Encouraged, I walked back down and took my place beside the interstate. Within 10 minutes, an old truck with a load of Redwood burls stopped and told me to jump on the back with the burls. A burl is a deformity that grows on trees. In the case of Redwoods, these burls are enormous. They are prized because they make beautiful furniture. After the truck started, I noticed another hitchhiker sitting on top of the burls. Skinny as a rail and wild-looking, he started mumbling about Indians he had met. "Another crazy white person," I thought. I made sure I kept my distance from him. As we passed through one of the numerous small towns in northern California, I recalled seeing my brother walking down the street. I had caught up to him and passed him up.
We were about 45 miles from Ukiah when the truck broke down. The driver made it into the next town, and I jumped off, walked through town, and once in the country, I started to thumb again. I wasn't having any luck, so I began to look around for a place to sleep. I noticed a massive road sign up ahead, and I decided to go there and seek shelter for the night. Before I got there, a van pulled up and offered me a ride. A woman a little older than me told me she was going to San Francisco, which meant she was going through Ukiah. "Good, I made it," I thought, relieved.
As we visited, I wondered why a lone female would pick up a hitchhiker. Not that I minded, but it was unusual, and several days of hitchhiking had made me extremely wary, so anything out of the ordinary made me suspicious. I soon felt a nudge on my elbow, and when I looked back, I saw a huge German Shepherd standing behind my seat, and I knew why she wasn't scared to pick up a hitchhiker.
When we reached Ukiah, I directed her to which exit to drop me off, and I followed my brother's directions. Sure enough, I came to the phone booth he told me about earlier. I dialed the number he gave me; when a female voice answered, I dropped my dime in the phone's slot and asked the person who answered if she was the mother of my brother's girlfriend. The voice said, "No, she wasn't," I panicked. "Sh-t, what am I going to do now?" I quickly thought. But, before I hung up, the voice said, "Don't hang up. Are you Hobo Joe?" When I said I was, she said she was a cousin of my brother's girlfriend and knew we were coming. Amazingly, I had dialed her number by mistake. I was so relieved. She gave me directions to a bar where ndn hung out. "They will let you use the phone there," she told me.
I found the bar she told me about, went inside, and asked to use the phone. As I dialed, an older man sitting at the bar asked if I was my brother's cousin. I told him who I was, and he introduced himself as the uncle of my brother's girlfriend. He, too, had heard we were coming. "Don't bother calling (the mother); she is probably sleeping. I will get you a room where I stay," he told me.
He paid for a room at the hotel he was staying at and fed me a meal of surf fish. Surf fish are tiny, a little bigger than sardines. He had a dozen or so, and I ate every single one, heads, fins, and tails. While eating, he told me about his days riding the rails. I think he felt some kinship with me because we were both hobos. However, listening to his stories of riding the rails as a young man, I knew he was the real deal, a real hobo; my experience couldn't match his. The next morning, my brother's girlfriend came after me. We went after my brother, who had spent the night in the town where I had seen him walking on the streets.
I spent the summer in Ukiah before I came home in the fall. At first, I lived in a tarp shelter I put up in his girlfriend's mother's backyard until my brother and his girlfriend rented a cabin in the mountain. One day, we went swimming, and his kids caught a giant catfish trapped in a tire at the lake's edge. I took the catfish home with me, skinned it, cleaned it, wrapped it in tin foil, and roasted it in the fireplace in the backyard. It was the most delicious fish I have ever tasted, before and since. I was hired at a Masonite factory and bought a car which I promptly wrecked. I helped the girlfriend's family pick grapes one Saturday morning. The Mexicans they hired to help fill up their boxes so rapidly and literally ran with them to the collection point, and there I was, barely picking one box to their several.
I quit after only picking a couple of boxes. "I already had a job," I said to myself, "Enough of this shit," and quit. I almost got in a fight with a Mexican in a bar over a pool game because he pissed me off for whatever reason. It turned out he couldn't understand English. After we moved to the cabin in the mountains, I started working the 3 -11 shift. My ride only went so far up the mountain, so I had to walk the last few miles in pitch blackness, which was spooky. One night, I stayed at the bar and played pool instead of going home. I noticed a gorgeous woman in one of the booths. She had albinism, white hair, pale skin color, and one hell of a figure. It didn't matter that the man at her side was her husband; I couldn't stop staring at her. I was smitten. I managed to strike up a conversation with them, and they invited me home after the bar closed. I went with them, and we drank beer for a couple of hours, but when they offered me a chance to sleep on their couch, my senses returned, and I told them I was going to sleep outside, which I did. The next morning, they gave me a ride back to the cabin. When I got back to the cabin, I stood in the doorway for a minute and . . . just like that, I decided to come home. I packed my clothes, walked to town, bought a bus ticket, and 48 hours later, I was getting off the bus in Jamestown. And this ended one of the most unusual summers of my life.
While walking around the Portland freight yard, a young kid approached us and questioned us about how it was to "ride the rails." It didn't matter what we told him. He thought it was an incredible life. He wishfully said something like, "I wish I could do what you guys are doing." He didn't know I would have traded places with him in a second. We were hungry, dirty, broke, with blisters on our feet, and uncertain if we would make it to Ukiah. There is nothing romantic about riding the rails. I only did it once, and I made damn sure I never did it again.
