▣ Expanding your Character
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In this writing I'm fresh back from a writing convention with a lot of new ideas. I hope they will help others as well.
▣ Hobo Party
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MY HOBO PARTY
Some time ago a friend of mine needed help to research the great depression and hobos. He was writing a book and one of the main characters was a hobo named Pigeon George.
I did a good bit of research and found some interesting things. For example, there were soldiers who, after the Civil War ended, found themselves far from home and jumped on freight trains to get back to their part of the county. These may have been the first hobos. Also, during the great depression entire families sometimes traveled the rails going usually from the East coast to the West looking for jobs. Mostly this occurred during the nineteen thirties. I also found out that there are still hobo gatherings that happen every year.
The internet showed me some samples of hobo art and one of the things that the modern day hobos make is a hobo cup. I decided to make a hobo cup.
Many years ago I attended a hobo party which was a church event. We were instructed to bring our tin cans and a spoon and to partake of bean soup and corn bread. We sat around a camp fire and told hard luck stories because the country was in a recession at the time. It was a lot of fun. We even had talented people who did a musical version of ‘If I was a rich man’ from Fiddler on the Roof.
Now, reminded of that, thinking of the tin cans we used, I was interested in the cups that were depicted on that website.
To make a hobo cup you need a tin can. It should have a ridge around both the top and the bottom of the can. Be sure there are no sharp edges to cut yourself on. You will need copper wire and a stick about six or seven inches long. You will need wire cutters and an electric drill as well.
You take the wire, which should be around three feet long, and secure it around the op of the can and twist it tightly so it will hold fast. The long end of the wire will be used next to make the handle.
The stick has to have a hole drilled through it. You may need to drill from the top first and then from the bottom so that the holes meet.
Once you have the holes drilled in the wood, you need to bend and thread the extra wire down the hole of the handle. You will then bend the wire at the lower end of the stick and bring it to the ridge around the bottom of the can. Wrap it around the can and secure it. Cut away any excess.
I did this with about eight cans. I wanted to do at least twelve because I have twelve grandchildren, but I did not get that accomplished. That is because I had planned the party for October 15th and I needed to do other things as well; there wasn’t enough time.
I made a large pot of chilli and cornbread to go with it. I bought cider, milk, soda pop and other drinks as well as the traditional hotdogs and marshmallows to toast on the fire. We also had other picnic food to round out the meal.
We met at my place in the county. I had just purchased this land and it was quite rough. It had a house trailer on it but that was also on the rough side. However, I don’t think anyone minded and we had a lot of fun.
My son in law brought a quad runner and the kids and some adults had fun with that.
The adults carried stone and built a nice stone fire pit. We all raked leaves and the children became interested in digging with a shovel. I told them they could help me to dig a garden next spring.
Some of the men put a rope up into a large tree so the kids could swing on it. Others built a bench to overlook the fire. To do that we only need to have two four by fours that were four or five feet long. The four by fours were set into holes in the ground like posts.
Then a long board was nailed in place across them. This made a nice bench on one side of the fire pit. I didn’t have materials to make a bench on the other side but I will do that soon. It will look better balanced. I still need to treat the board that made the bench with water treatment since it was an untreated board.
We went on hikes up the mountain and my son in law helped the kids to shoot at targets with their BB gun. All of these things were well supervised.
During the hike by three year old granddaughter, Morgan, kept chanting “We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna get a big one,” over and over. I think this must have come from a book that had been read to her.
To accompany this event I made a notebook with pictures that I gleaned from the internet regarding the hobo way of life. I am told:
A hobo is someone who travels and works
A tramp is someone who travels and doesn’t work
A bum neither travels nor works
I also found examples of signs that the hobos would use to denote how receptive the people in a house might be to someone coming to their door. They had a lot of unique signs that they would leave some where near the house where they had just been to alert the next person coming through.
I also came across a time line for the great depression on the internet and printed that as well. I placed all these pictures and signs into a notebook and made it available for the kids. It included a picture of a hobo cup.
We used the hobo cups to drink things or to eat our chilli from. It worked pretty well.
We also had some hobo recipes, courtesy of the internet, but stayed so busy that we didn’t have time to try them this time. I have saved them for later.
If you have a fun loving family or a bunch of happy go lucky friends a hobo party might be just the thing to get everyone into the spirit. I’m sure you can come up with many more fun things to do. Even if you don’t, I believe it will be rewarding. It doesn’t take a lot to have fun, just good people and a creative spirit.