Hobo Jungle

[J. Smith]

The Shadows= Apache & Ghost Riders in the Sky. AAA+++

Could I add Duane Eddy to the list? I thought he did a pretty good version of Ghost Riders as well as themes for a couple of 50's TV Westerns.

[The Dirt]

Ee-ee-dee-ee, dee-dee-ee-dee-ee, we-um-um-a-weh (cue the drums)
Ee-ee-dee-ee, dee-dee-ee-dee-ee, we-um-um-a-weh

A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh

A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh

In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
(cue the soprano) In the jungle, the quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

Hey-hey
(cue the overlay of eeeeeeee-ee-ee-ee-ee-um-um-a-weh)
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh

Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
(cue the soprano) Near the village, the quiet village
The lion sleeps tonight

Hey-hey
(cue the trill and the overlay of 'eeeeeeee-ee-ee-ee-ee-um-um-a-weh')
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh
A-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh, a-weem-oh-weh

(cue the instrument break and the soprano...)

Hush my darling, don't fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight
(cue the soprano) Hush my darling, don't fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight

A-weem-oh-weh (cue the 'Woh-oh-oh') etc. etc....

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Ouga Chaka
Ouga Chaka
Ouga Ouga Ouga Chaka!

[sarge]

wheee-ohweeoh bumdo-do-do daway...

I wonder what drift's through the little furry felon's mind...

[webenda]

Those sleeping cats seem to have put the Hobo Jungle to sleep. Let's see if I can wake it up.

Being retired has its advantages... like I can ride my bike in the desert almost every day. This morning (Friday, 27AUG2010) I found a dead hobo washed down a normally dry stream by summer monsoon rains.

[kerr]

Morning Wayne! Bit late (or early) to reply to your last but still..

On the subject of bums and hobos, in England we called them 'tramps'. I imagine that term was once more common over here too because Chaplins character was 'the little tramp'?

Up until I was about 8 yrs old, tramps were a fairly common sight. Many of them were the result of WW2, either ex-forces men shell shocked and unable to cope or East Enders bombed out of their homes and unable to qualify for the dubious benefits of government rehousing projects which caused a tremendous amount of social problems because the people couldnt make the switch from their previous row house communities to being stuck in tower blocks where they became prisoners of the thug infested stairwells and non-functioning elevators. To name but two of the awful unplanned side effects.

Living in what was a semi-rural area, tramps could be found in the hedgerows and ditches, spinneys and other small clumps of woodland that existed before it all got gentrified into sterile 'parks' and 'recreation grounds'. Also tramps quite often got hired as night watchmen in the days when any hole in the road had its oil burning red warning lamps and a watchmans hut to keep motorists from running into the open excavations.

In London especially around the very badly rubble strewn area of the Elephant and Castle, you could see them cooking up tins of boot polish to drink the methylated spirits liberated thusly, I can still recall the smell of those campfires and Dad hustling my curious self away from trying to find out more about these unfortunates. "It was the War" was the invariable answer when one tried to find out more about their plight. The cops cracked down on them and they ended up moving out into the adjacent countryside till they got rounded up and moved on from there too.

Here in NYC I'm discovering that scene from long ago repeated once more. I have no idea how many homeless there are but there's a hell of a lot more than many people realize, of that I'm sure. Some of them seem to get by with any number of scams such as lining up all night for the free tickets to the Shakespeare in the Park plays and then scalping them to the better off citizens for whom $50 to $150 is chump change judging by how many I saw buying these tickets. My wife and I stood on line for four hours hoping to see Al Pacino in the Merchant of Venice but the tickets had all gone and we weren't about to buy them at the prices asked by the scalpers.

When I arrived in NYC via Greyhound another homeless person took it upon himself to act as my porter, I was well and truly overloaded with suitcases plus I was exhausted anyway, so I listened to his spiel and went for it, he didnt ask me for any money, got my bags loaded into a taxi which he flagged down for me ahead of a long line of people trying to get one, I gave him ten bucks which I thought little enough for the convenience but my wife was aghast when I told her and said I should have offered two.

Other homeless types position themselves by busy stores, like Barnes and Noble and open doors for you which many people ignore but I usually give them a quarter as I'm often the one carrying all the shopping. Seems like a useful service to me and if it helps a guy out, why not? Other less motivated homeless persons sit on the street with pathetic little signs (meaning sad not laughable) listing their needs or situation. There's also a sizeable proportion who seem to have just given up or flipped out and wander the streets having shouted angry conversations with imaginary friends.

I remember as a kid thinking "there but for the grace of God, go I" and here and now in NYC as an older man, I can't help wondering if I'm that much further away from falling through the gaps of the tattered safety net that is society and what it has become in the forty odd years I've been living here. It used to be that the few tramps one saw were mainly the detritus of alcoholism and drug addiction but now it seems there's fewer of those and a much larger percentage of people who for whatever reasons found themselves unable to cope, unable to find a niche sufficient to keep their heads above water.

I'm reminded of that book by the late South African priest Father Trevor Huddleston entitled 'Naught for your comfort' and I think about all the rhetoric one hears from political parties and I recall, from my history books, the Weimar Republic and sometimes I find myself wondering whether in winning the battle, we lost the war?

Those who do not learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Bikermike, You should send that entire composition to the New York Times, for the The New York Times Magazine, published for Sundays. It would fit the tone and substance of their last page perfectly, in a regular feature called "Lives". [e-mail: lives@nytimes.com .] I'm dead serious. And don't change a word. Do it. Please. Millions would love reading what you've had to say. Not only have you captured a truth, you have woven words masterfully.
Murph

[kerr]

Thankyou Murph. With some trepidation I did as you advise but I don't expect it to get accepted. Frankly I didn't think it was one of my better pieces of writing anyway but my wife insisted I act on the spur of the moment, so I did.

[rogruth]

Wayne.

Did you take it/her/him with you and feed it [?] before sending it on?

My grand mother and grand father always fed the 'bos.They would NOT feed a "bum'.
I asked how they knew the difference and they said that they could tell by their,the "bos and bums,actions.Not me.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Thankyou Murph. With some trepidation I did as you advise but I don't expect it to get accepted. Frankly I didn't think it was one of my better pieces of writing anyway but my wife insisted I act on the spur of the moment, so I did.

WOW! I thought my advice might cause some dialogue between us, but I had no idea you would act so decisively.

At the bottom of the "Lives" page, they say, "Because of the volume of e-mail, the magazine cannot respond to every submission." So, we don't know if you'll hear from them, but it sure is fun knowing they'll have a chance to read what you wrote.

Would you like to e-mail me?
Murph

[kerr]

Would you like to e-mail me?
Murph

Okay mate you asked for it! I'll email you anything you like. My email up here in the settings is wrong, don't use it, it doesn't work and I can't change it though I've written asking it be done. I guess I could use the internal messaging system to communicate.

[webenda]

Great piece of literary work on hobos Mike. If the paper doesn't publish it, they are fools.

When I moved to Tucson in 1971, I saw no bums, hobos or tramps. Tucson has a vagrancy law.

In 1973, driving to work, I kept seeing a VW Bug parked just outside the city limits. Then it was gone and I read in the newspaper that a retired school teacher lady was caught living in it and arrested for vagrancy. Instead of calling a lawyer, she called the newspaper from jail. Seems that she was travelling the country to see all the things she had ever wanted to see when she ran out of money in Tucson. She was waiting for her Social Security check to arrive at the post office General Delivery window when she was arrested. The citizens of Tucson bailed her out, paid her fine ($250,) got her car out of impound and gave her a wade of money. Her car was then parked just outside city limits again until her SS check arrived--then she boogied out of town.

Why didn't she get arrested again? She had money to prove she was not a vagrant and vagrancy laws that permitted officers to require people to demonstrate that they had good reason to be where they were, engaged in whatever conduct they were engaged in, were struck down by the Supreme Court in Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972). The Court found vagrancy statutes to be unconstitutionally vague, as they provided police officers with too much discretion regarding whom to stop and question and what standards to apply before making an arrest. The citizens of Tucson made sure the police were informed of that case.

She ended up paying the fine because she did not want stay around to fight the charge. She just wanted to get out of Tucson.

Tucson still has a vagrancy law but since arresting the school teacher they rarely arrest people for vagrancy anymore. Now, every place I go, drugstore, supermarket, any shopping center, every street corner, the bums are begging for money. If the land owner or store manager calls the cops, the police ask the bum to move on.

Tucson Police Department
Crime Reporting Codes 2010
Code Description
CODE: 2501 VAGRANCY/BEGGING
CODE: 2502 VAGRANCY/LOITERING
CODE: 2503 VAGRANCY/OTHER

[webenda]

More images...

[kerr]

Thankyou for the kind remarks.
The top left photo, is it poo or an ant or termite nest?
What kind of a rock is the picture on the bottom right? It looks like something that got a hell of a lot of heat, is it by any chance a piece of nuclear glass?
You must be a pretty tall guy if that bike is yours!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

... What kind of a rock is the picture on the bottom right? It looks like something that got a hell of a lot of heat, is it by any chance a piece of nuclear glass?

That rock caught my interest,too, Bikermike, but I thought it might be a fossil-bearing quartz (azure/rose?) rock (Do I see a flower or crinoid?) perhaps w/ stain from copper (?)