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Charles Elmer Fox - An Ardent Thumber Who Loves the Rails

© Bernd Wechner

The Iowa Press republished Charles Elmer Fox's 1989 account of his hobo life in the States not too long ago. A copy landed on my desk for review, and I have to admit, I'm more than a little enamoured of it (and tardy in reviewing it). Fundamentally the story of a hobo's life, it touches uncannily close to the heart of "road" culture, yet almost refuses to engage it.

When you think about it honestly and in its proper perspective, what mode of life could be more conducive to philosophy than a life spent on the road.

writes Charlie - though he wasn't really talking about hitch-hiking.

In fact when Charlie left home at the tender age of 15, in May of 1928, he did hitch almost 200 miles, much of it along dirt roads (what were to become national highways much later), moving from job to job, before hitting the rails the following March. He rode the rails for some 11 years, and then it seems turned back to thumbing (and walking - an integral part of the art of course) for a further 24 year until 1965.

Though he started thumbing, ended thumbing and thumbed more than he rode trains, his autobiographic collection of stories, focuses almost entirely upon life on the rails! It fascinates me how, after so much hitching, the memories seem eclipsed by the hobo's life on the rails. There are some clues as to why among his tales, and I'm sure they'll perk the interest of some avid contemporary hitchers.

Not least of all Hamish Campbell, who not so long ago, submitted a Masters dissertation on the itinerant life-style. Hamish may well have said something very similar to Charlie (c.f. above). Only where Charlie is talking about hobos, Hamish would be talking about hitch-hikers!

Charlie sees hitching as a most utilitarian affair. A way of getting around. But riding the rails embodies for him a distinct culture, a way of life. He describes most vividly the Hobo jungles he frequented, basically hobo camps in and around rail yards which bustled with life in the depression years of the '30s. There were after all some 60 to 100 thousand hoboes moving around the country then, only some 200 were left in the 70's claims Charlie.

He came down with asthma once and decided to head south to Arizona, where he's heard the air was just right for curing asthma. He "hitchhiked down there in order to stay as clean as I could, and you sure can't stay clean when you are riding trains" - almost as if hitching was a poor alternative to freight hopping, to lean on when needed. How things had changed by the 70's! Surely since then hitching would be the average vagabond's preferred option, riding the rails the poor alternative to lean on when needed.

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