Riding the RailsAnd Eating Mulligan Stew
by Wendel Potter
My name is really pretty simple to pronounce, but it seems to be a lot harder to remember.
People who don't know me have a hard time recalling my name. Over the years, at play and in school, and even more so now on the day job, the name "Wendel" doesn't seem to carry an outstanding balance in the memory bank.
I've been called Ward, Wade, Warren, Willard, Wilfrid, Weldon, Wayne, Willis, Wallace, and even Eugene, Juan and Bob. Wendel seems to be an absolute stumper.
But the origin of Wendel is interesting. Once, when I was small, I dug out a Catholic Encyclopedia and looked up "Wendel" to see if it was a "saint's name" (it's a Catholic thing). There it was. With one "l" no less. The book said the origin was Teutonic and it meant "wanderer."
From what I've read, the Teutons were an ancient people who apparently branched off into different regions, and Teutonic can be traced to either Germanic or Celtic roots. Since Celtic can be identified with the Irish, I assume that's what my folks were thinking when they named me.
My maternal grandmother, originally Griffin and married to a Mullen, always said that I was "the Irishman in the family."
But the meaning of my name is what holds the appeal for me. Wanderer.
It makes me wonder, "what's in a name?"
There's always been a flash of wanderlust coursing through my spirit, but for the most part it never took a strong enough hold to pull me down the open highway for any great distance.
But I've traveled by proxy, reading the writings of wanderers like Mark Twain, Jack London, Louis L'Amour and Jack Kerouac, and envying all those who have struck out, alone, on the road, with nothing to fill their itineraries but the question mark of life.
As I've mentioned many times, I was born and spent the first 10 years of my life in northwest Iowa. The place of my birth was Emmetsburg, a lakeside town of about 4,000 folks. During the 1950s Emmetsburg was a thriving town that played host to two busy railroads, the Milwaukee Road and the Rock Island Line, and they intersected on the southeast edge of the city.
At that time, the Milwaukee Road still offered passenger service into Chicago and to all points east along the way. On summer evenings, I would ride my bike to the depot and watch the people board the train and try to guess their destinations. With a couple of loud whistle blasts, the train would slowly slide out of the station, then pick up speed with a clackety-clack, and I would stand sentry alongside the empty mail carts until the red light that shone from the back of the last car had become a mere pinpoint in the darkening distance.
The Rock Island Line had a couple of freight trains that rolled through each day and in the afternoons a switch engine would work the yard, dropping off cars along the siding and picking up those that needed to be transported down the line.
My friend Mike and I used to wait along the tracks, out of sight of the engineer's rear view and, after the train had coupled itself to a waiting box car, we'd grab hold of the ladders on the back of the car and pull ourselves up until we could stand on the bottom rung. Then we'd ride a block or so until the engine halted once again to switch tracks and pick up another car. In our juvenile minds, we were railroad vagabonds hitching on a southbound freight, headed to exotic destinations unknown.
We never gave a thought to the perils facing us by playing in the train yards or grabbing onto moving trains, however slow they may have been going. We'd have given plenty of thought, however, to the dangers awaiting us at home if our mothers had ever found out what we'd been up to on a hot, lazy summer afternoon.
Another railroad-side attraction was the hobo camps. One ditch along the point where the main tracks of the two railroads intersected served as a campground of sorts for the wandering tramps. It wasn't a full-blown hobo "jungle," but you'd usually find one or two grizzled hobos sitting there, in the tall grass, heating a can of something or other over an open fire.
I guess the 1950s didn't pose much of a threat to us, as well as the fact that we were a bunch of naïve kids, but we often joined these travel-worn men around their fire and listened to them tell us their tales of hoofing around the country, hopping freights in the yards of Chicago and Kansas City, and keeping their distance from "the bulls," popular hobo jargon for railroad policemen whose job it was to keep these men off the trains and out of the yards.
For decades now, the town of Britt, Iowa, which sits along the Milwaukee Road about 50 miles east of my hometown, has annually hosted the National Hobo Convention. I attended the festivities once with my parents and then again, in the early '70s, when the bug bit and I hit the road in my '64 Chevy BelAir and drove over from Nebraska, stopping in Emmetsburg to visit old friends and neighbors with the plan to continue on to Cedar Falls to spend a few days with my sister.
The convention attracted more hobo-lovers than hobos themselves, and Britt was clogged with cars and campers and thousands of tourists who had come to pay tribute to the men and women of the road who traveled in far less comfort than their admirers. There was a carnival set up on Main Street. Gallons of Mulligan Stew - the traditional hobo meal - bubbled and gurgled in cauldrons and provided a free lunch to those who wanted to be hobos for a day. The capper of the festivity was the crowning of King and Queen of the Hobos.
These men and women of the open road had hobo names as well, like Scoop Shovel Scotty, Steamtrain Maury and Boxcar Betty. They were heroes of the moment and reveled in the praise that was heaped on them by the folks of regular society.
Driving over to Iowa 30 years ago and catching the hobos act was about as much wandering as I've cared to do on my own. I've always been in awe of those travelers of the iron road and admired their courage and individuality, but the cool crispness of clean sheets, the comforts of a well-stocked kitchen cupboard, and the warm companionship of a wife and two children are more than enough to keep me home where I'm content just to read the books and dream.
Copyright 2006 Wendel Potter
|
|
