St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 24

24 Wednesday, March 15, 1972 ST. CLOUD DAILY TIMES town along the tracks has a mis sion. We almost never go hun Midnight Ghost Still Carries Its Hobos gry. You just walk into town, look for the sign that says' Jesus and walk in the door, By ROBERT A. JONES from colleges in the San Fran You'll get a free meal, a bed names like Shorty, Red, and Rio while they wait for the Midnight (C) 1972, The Los Angeles was in 1935," said Shorty, whose real name is Al Landuff.

"I was a kid in Wyoming. walls seem protective, almost friendly. As it moves out of the yard the Midnight ghost begins limes SAN JOSE, Calif. Every to sway with the rythm and dignity of a ship at sea. Ghost.

"The first time I grabbed the Ghost I almost got killed. Didn't know what I was doing. An old tramp walked over to where I Thought I'd catch a freight just to see what it was like. Like you boys, I guess. But I never and a shower." And sometimes they work, following tfie harvest that begins with citrus fruit in Arizona and ends with apples in Washington.

It is piecework, and a good man can make $20 a day or more. Of course work is not really Steve Weeks sat on a packing "jungles" where the evenings are spent passing wine bottles around and open fire, but the hobos there are old men. Some of them first hit the road during the depression and never went home. As a breed, they are dying. But in recent months there have been new faces in the old crowd.

Daring one weekend this month in the yards here, one crate, staring out the open box stopped. It gets in your blood." concede that few arrests are ever made, the possible penalty for hitching a ride on a train is 30 days in jail and a $50 fine. Because of the dangers, the possibility of arrest, th frequent cold nights spent undei overpasses, catching a fas. freight is unlikely to challenge hitchhiking as the favored trav el of the young. But there also are those lik Ned Halle who remain un daunted.

"I can't explain it," he says. "Most of the time you're miserable while you're doing it, btf when you get back you want to go again. Educated or not, I guess some of us will always be hobos basically, waiting for a freight to take us some place we've never been before." cisco Bay area, riding the rails where formerly they would have hitchhiked. "Hitchhiking is a bore," said Jim Framson, 20. "I come out here to be with these old guys, to let it soak in.

Ten years from now they'll be gone. I want to say I knew them." Compared to hitching, the number of young people catching trains is small. Usually they stood and said, 'Son. never Shorty and the other two car door. The Califorina hills were lit with the blue light of a full moon.

When the train rounded a bend, the big catch the rear of a car. Catch the Like Then he swung up and showed me how." the point with hobos. "Mostly we travel," said Shorty, "and night the Midnight Ghost rolls out of the rail yards here. And every night there are men waiting for its big diesels to crank up so they can jump from the shadows, grab the guardrails and swing into the empty boxcars. Mostly they are the survivors of a generation that is slowly fading.

The railroad yards along California's coast still contain many According to Rio, who said he searchlight could be seen far ahead waving back and fourth left Chicago 40 years ago and jungle contained eight men, and hobos in the car had traveled the Pacific Coast for more than 20 years, and the traveling had taken its toll. All three were missing most of their teeth, and two were missing various fingers. Rio walked with a limp. Red coughed a lot. "But it really was not so over the hills.

has not spent two weeks in the are young men attracted more by the romance than by the half were under 22. same place since, there' is only one way to catch a moving In the the strictest sense, they Someone opened a bottle of we drink. You can be a drunk on the road, and it's not like being a drunk at home. You're just passing through, and no one minds Of course, hopping freights is illegal. Although train officials comfort of a fast freight.

Few girls have tried it, although one were not a new generation of train. cheap wine, and it slowly passed around the boxcar. "The first time I rode a train hobos. All four young men were Berkley coed claims to have rid den from San Francisco to Chi "You grab the guardrail on the front of the car, run like hell bad," said Shorty. "Every little until you and the train are going cago via Santa Fe, N.

M. And there are some practical ob the same speed, then swing up. stacles. This Funny World9 Rio also described the" prop Compared to hitchhiking, hop er way to spot the right train ping a freight is a highly skilled affair, says Ned Halle, a se while it Is being "made up in the yards, and how to tell in what city each "section" of the nior at Brown University. You have to know and under tram will be dropped off.

stand a lot about a railroad to other thing," he said, "Never get where you're going." nail a freight when -you're vine thing is railroads are drunk." en. from another era. It's gilded In San Jose, Jim Framson and his group sat with the older age type stuff. There's nothing like a loaded freight barreling along at 60. And those guys who hobos until one of them finally she come." live in the jungles, they'll tell The Midnight Ghost is no or you stories like you never dinary train.

It became famous heard." the days of Jack Kerouac. Al "When I was young I used to sit by the tracks and watch len Ginrberg and other leading menbe.s of the beat generation as the fastest train into Los Angeles. It is pulled by four desiel those trains with their wonder ful names roll by: The Super units and its 100 or so cars can reach 75 miles an hour in the Chief; The Rock Island Line; The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. I always wanted to go with those trains. I'll never forget it," said Jim Framson.

flat stretches. As the Ghost slows down ap proaching the yards here, it is So, occasionally these days, a frightening machine. Framson and his friends sit The great searchlight sweeps through the long hours of the night in the San Jose yords, the track back and forth as if watching. Diesel smoke pours from the stacks and covers the yards in gray. It seems alive.

talking to men with one-part SUCH IS THE DEDICATION of Bobby Fischer, left, that he even takes his chess board Into swiinmLnr pools. He's practicing here with another American chess expert, Larry Evans. But once inside an empty box car, the fear disappears. The 0 indh Open 7:30 To 4:00 Weekdays Friday Nites 'Til 9 P.M. 520 8th Ave.

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