Hobo Jungle

[Mitch]

Tramp, you have my deepest sympathy. Godspeed to your mom.

[rogruth]

Tramp and Daisy,

I am sure that you both have many fond memories of a beautiful and learned lady.

My condolences.

[2railjon]

Tramp, I'm honored by your request. I would like to raise a very special tin cup towards this evenings star filled skies in the passing of your Mother. May she rest in peace. Jonathan

[hev52]

Fireflies/lightningbugs.One of the few things I miss about the North.

Caught me a Lightning Bug for ya Roger.......................................

[Del Mar]

Tramp and D.,

Thank you for sharing such a personal and moving passage. There are so many touchstones that relate to you, your art, Down East, and Marshall. There is one hobo who made it to the horizon. Perhaps to re-unite with many more. Please accept Jahan's and my condolences and empathy.

I showed a packet of your prints that you sent to me in 2004 to one of my daughters (Roza) this evening, and told her of Marshall and Sly in the Jungle over there, the Waterman, descriptions of holidays and beverage tallies. a house somewhere Down East, a 60s Chevrolet, hydrangeas, and the importance of having Labatt's beer fresh. And the intensity of the life and the art. We read though the description of your mom's life and she said (with no disrespect intended by the cliche'), "I can see where he's coming from".

San

[The Dirt]

Gad. The heart sinks like a stone.

I'm not sure how many years it's been. 7? or more. Met Tramp on the Jungle at OGR Thanksgiving of 2000, and started trading conversation via the campfire or the cable. Then the gifts started coming, unbidden, first a stunning drawing of a train and a hand, then an exquisite baseball print, and poetry the likes of which I'd never seen before. After a year (or was it two) a chance arose, and did he invite me or did I intrude? Some days were set aside for me to visit.

15 straight hours on the road to meet a person I barely knew, and then only through the little that he was willing to divulge. It was my own 'Field of Dreams', perhaps the craziest thing I'd ever done, in a lifetime carefully spent in avoiding risk, (such was my baggage and my circumstances).
He proved to be a most gracious host. I was stunned anew at the magnitude of his talent and his accomplishments, and the museum that is his home, and I alas spent the two days stupidly intimidated. But I did get one thing. He who was so historically reluctant to have his image taken allowed me a photograph to show the redhead when I got home.

It was a lucky shot, and was to my satisfaction. Somehow I procured his Mom's address, and for Mother's Day the following year, I sent her a framed copy of the photograph. Expecting nothing in return, I got a two page handwritten letter From Elisabeth Green, thanking me for my time and efforts. I have that letter still, such was the graciousness expressed within.

I had a desire ever since to find a chance to meet the lady, shoo her son out of the house, and spend an afternoon alone with her. I had made a picture in my mind of her welcoming gentility, and we would sit in wooden chairs beneath a sun-laden window at a round kitchen table with coffee or tea in hand, and I'd listen to her tales of tribulations with the two crazy men in her life, a hard-drinking racecar-driving story-telling husband, and the supremely-gifted son who abandons college to disappear into the lonely night on freight trains back and forth across the immense American West.

Perhaps I was the crazy one. She could have been a whiskey-slugging moll with a truck-driver's mouth who'd as soon have filled my *** with a load of buckshot, but I felt pretty sure, from her written words, of what I would have found.

But ain't it always the case? Life and responsibilities and inertia and denial all intervene, and sadly I proved I was satisfied to know the lady through the Christmas and Thanksgiving stories that I thought would go on for decades hence, and I never did the next crazy thing and make time for a return trip Downeast, and now the chance is gone, just plain gone, dried up and rolled away.

But from a beautiful tribute in the Waldo County Village Soup, I guess I wasn't too far off about the lady. I believe I would have found a welcome respite, and come home the richer and wiser for my troubles.

It's a bitch-on-wheels losing a Mom, or at least it was for me. I know it's not a truism, but there's bond between mother and offspring that no man nor childless-woman can comprehend, born of biology for sure, but of nine months of all of a mother's hopes and dreams, and her child's safest of havens, nine months of blood and rhythm and heartbeat and perfect comfort. I would lay down my life for my children, but I can't even touch the ferocity of the redhead's love.
But I loved my Mother, and 95% of what I am and have become, I owe to her. Her death was the most primal wrenching in my soul that I have ever felt.
Tramp, if you wrote that tribute in the paper, you grok what I'm saying.

There can be another despair, when the second parent has died, and one is left with the stark realization that, in a very strange way, you are now alone in the world, and no longer will there exist a 'fall-back' plan if one's life crumbles apart, where if you ever had to go there, you'd always be welcomed. It can be a weird and desperate feeling.

I read the news at work, and when I pulled up at the house under a full moon at midnight, my 10 y.o. daughter's voice welcomed me home from her darkened window, the only one yet awake. She came downstairs, said your Mom was very pretty, but took the news a bit hard and teary herself, as it reminded her of her deceased rabbit and hamster, but she asked me to tell you that's she's sorry for you, and made me promise to write that down.

Maybe I missed a cue in the few short days of that unprecedented firefly display, in their frenzy of knowing that their time was short, and down to mere hours. Pardon the rambling, (which will be one more thing in my life that I will regret in the morning), but from me, Tramp and Daisy, my deepest sympathy. Your Mom was very proud of you. I have it on paper.



Leah had it right, she was a beautiful woman. Your dad was crazy like a fox!
Rest in peace, Elisabeth.

I'm not a learnéd person, don't let me mislead anyone. I just happened to see this piece of a poem in the Sunday paper, and (however fortuitous) it seems to fit...

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

[Tramp]

My mother passed away on Friday evening as I was reading her a poem. The sun like a miracle actually shone for a few minutes as she was dying, filling the yellow room with flickering light. This after three weeks of rain and mist. I settled her arms over her chest, placed a dozen roses along one arm, an Underberg in her fingers after rubbing a couple drops on her lips. I poured out the glass of Scotch that was still half full on the bedside table. God bless her.

Thank all you hobos for your kind words. I wish my mom could've read them. Pete, give Leah an extra thank you from me.

[rogruth]

Hev,

Thanks for the lightning bugs.



Dirt,

The more I read of your stuff,the more I think you are some famous author who hangs out here and plays with trains and us.

[The Dirt]

My mother passed away on Friday evening as I was reading her a poem.

Tramp, what a great gift your mother was given: at home, with family at hand, and your close attention at her bedside.
I was very happy to hear that. Appreciate your sharing of such a private moment.

[The Dirt]

It won't be so lucky for me.

I can see it now...
...late stages of dementia, (when I can no longer remember my tongue's responsibilities ), duct-taped to a wheelchair, screaming at the top of my lungs at 60 MPH halfway down Mile-Long Hill, the redhead already turned toward home and dusting off her hands...

[GP]

Tramp,

So sorry to hear about your Mother passing away last week.

Our Mothers always have a special spot in our hearts.

My Mother died 26 years ago and I still think of her everyday.

Gary

[2railjon]

Hard to believe this was 38 years ago.............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg

[MartyE]

Tramp and Daisy

My thoughts go out to you. She sounds like she lived a wonderful and full life. I'll sound the whistle for her today and keep her in my thoughts. If it's any solace, it appears to me that she raised a fine son.

[The Dirt]

Is it just me?

This is a picture of St. Cyril's in Danville Pa.
I took the picture from the hospital in which I work.



It includes a convent- The "Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius", and here's their website...

http://www.sscm.org/

Now I don't know if it was subliminal, or if the architects just had themselves one good laugh behind the scenes, but I just find it so ironic that a residence for nuns...



...would have such a blatant phallic representation up front and center!

[rogruth]

Oh Dirt!You will suffer many plagues.