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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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07/2024
Michael Attentive newsletter readers already know what a hobo is: As explained in Rundbrief 11/2021, they are drifters who travel illegally across America on freight trains. In that old newsletter issue, I explained why this way of traveling fascinates me, but I put the hobby aside after the accidental death of "Stobe the Hobo." Out of the blue, an American friend recently brought a German book about hobos to my attention, which he couldn't read due to the language barrier.
I quickly bought "König der Hobos" by Fredy Gareis as a Kindle edition on American Amazon, and I must say that rarely has a book captivated me and driven me to keep reading as this one did. Gareis is supposedly a journalist from Germany who spent a few months traveling across the country with hobos in America and recorded his experiences in this book.
During this time, he befriended the hobo celebrity "Shoestring" and accompanied the hardcore vagrant on freight train trips across the vast expanses of America. Shoestring financed these trips by begging at supermarket entrances in small towns during stopovers. Without a doubt, it's a broken world! But the book is incredibly captivating and comes highly recommended for purchase!
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