Hobos and Me

How many people do you know who have a fascination with homeless people, or as I like to call them "hobos"? You know at least one, and I bet you didn't even know it! Yeah, okay, so the jig is up: hobos fascinate me. They've been a curiosity for me since my childhood when my dad and I (and sometimes the rest of the family as well) would feed the homeless breakfast at the church we attended at the time. I remember playing many different kinds of games with some of them. I remember card games and chess were big among them. They were all male, and they all, for the most part, were at least nice if not downright gregarious and kind. I realize that my church probably picked the ones who were the most lucid and least likely to go ape-shit and kill everyone with a spoon, but I never felt like I was in any danger (that I can remember) and I always liked going and doing that particular church-sponsored event. Thus began my fascination with hobos. It's yet another thing I "blame" my parents for.

Not too long ago, I was doing some temp work for a major medical center, and I took the train to and from it every day. The train station wasn't exactly all that close to where I was temping, but it was easily within walking distance, and so I walked. It seems that hospitals and medical centers have their fair share of hobos camped out on the sidewalks around them. When I first started walking that route, I had feared that I would constantly be begged for money. But that was far from the case. Interestingly enough, most of the hobos (there were about 4 or 5 along my walking route on any given day) didn't even acknowledge my existence. But there were one or two who, every so often, would say "Good morning" or "God bless" to me, with a smile on their face. Sometimes, they'd be the ones holding cups out to collect loose change from passersby, and sometimes they'd just be sitting on top of everything they own and watching traffic go by. In the days where I had temp work, I rarely had a waking moment where I wasn't working or going to and from work. So in those days, I actually envied the hobos. They had all the time in the world to observe the world, to take everything in. Of course, they were also probably starving like Ethiopians and hating every minute of their lives, wishing they could just take a shower or end it all. There were probably a fair number of them who were so mentally ill they thought Elvis was a giant Chinchilla and that Hillary Clinton was going to eat the babies they didn't have, and so the world at large was of little concern to them. When I was done envying their free time, I'd come to realize how lucky I was to have the one permanent job as well as temp work. Fuck, I'm going to stop now before I become one of those "be thankful for what you have" pricks, those people who think you can't envy someone for something. I can envy someone for something and I will envy someone for something whenever I want.

One of my favorite movies is about a hobo: "The Fisher King". If you haven't seen it, see it. If you have seen it, I hope you enjoyed it (though I know of one person who didn't think too much of it) as much as I had. I really have nothing more to say about this. I just thought I'd point out that I like a movie that's about a hobo.

Some friends and family and co-workers have taken to telling me that I look like a hobo these days. And I have to say that I agree with them. With my unkempt beard and wrinkled clothes, the only thing that separates me from an actual hobo is that I've got a roof over my head, and it isn't made from cardboard, either. I'd say it's from some sort of feeling of solidarity with hobos that I don't shave or perform the necessary upkeep of my beard, but that isn't why. I don't shave because I don't like to shave, and I don't keep it all nice and neat for the same reason. I wear wrinkly clothes because I don't like to iron, and I lay around but fidget a lot as well. When you're laying down and you keep moving, you're bound to get a fair amount of wrinkles. It doesn't bother me to look like a hobo. I look like one because I don't care not to look like one.

I don't think hobos are the scourge of society like some people. Yes, I realize they're not aesthetically pleasing in any sense of the word, but I've always believed that they are human like me. Fortunately, I can back up this believe with irrefutable proof. Don't believe hobos are human? Give 'em a shower and a shave and you'll see they've got the same human characteristics as you and me. Something else I believe is that if everyone in the US had health care coverage, then the homeless "problem" would significantly decrease. It should come as no surprise that many of the homeless are hobos because they are mentally ill did not receive the proper care because they couldn't afford the coverage. But that's a blog for another day (maybe even tomorrow's blog, what with health care being debated at this very moment as I write these words.)