Folks, Is this a MALE THING??? Is is what guys rather than gals do with their youth? Is it a REAL DIFFERENCE between the sexes in this era where we are constantly told that there are no differences?????? Is it why older guys might try to reclaim some of it (or some of what they missed) by banging drums in the woods or by hunting? Recently, in a copy of The Hobo Times (Buzz Potter's fine magazine of wanderlust) in an interview with the extrmely elderly James Michener, the close to death writer thoroughly enjoyed recalling his days of jumping freights and just going. Carl Sandburg was the same way. There are "recreational hobos" now---guys who leave the office on Friday and "catch out" and get back in time for work on Monday morning even if they have to fly home after using the credit card to pay for the flight.

Of course I know there are female hobos now---Connecticut Shorty and her sister, Gypsy Moon. In olden times there was Boxcar Bertha. But it was a male need thing---(to maybe support the family)----to get to the jobs as a migrant--to just wander--an addiction to "the road"---a way of life so one could drink. But there were the mountain men. Very few, if any, women out there going after the beaver pelts and, by the way, exploring the WEST.

Yeah, I always felt the pull to go west--to taste the ocean and to keep on going until I couldn't do it any more. To my way o' seeing it, it IS a male thing that comes from the differences caused by testosterone and estrogen---and all the wondrous and various gender shades that are seemingly within the human mosaic.

Folks (Kat), wha'd'ya think???

Art Thieme
The Prince Of Peru
(My official hobo name given me by the fine singer of hobbo songs and former HOBO KING, Luther The Jet (Luther Gette) who also has a PHD in French Literature.)