Riding The Rails
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.81 (682 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1575000377 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-04-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Whether you're a "gaycat" (novice rider) or a "dingbat" (seasoned hobo), Riding the Rails is entertaining and inspiring, recapturing a time when the country was "dying by inches.". Some left home out of desperation and went looking for work and a better life, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles on the rumor of a job waiting farther down the line. Others left out of boredom; still others with a wanderlust and romantic idea of life on the road.The restless youth of these boxcar boys and girls, many who went from "middle-class gentility to scrabble-ass poor" overnight, is recaptured in Riding the Rails. Based on the award-winning documentary, this book dispels the myths of a hobo existence and reveals the hard stories of a daring generation of American teenagers-forgotten heroes-who survived some of the hardest times in our nations' history. "There is no feeling in the world like sitting in a side-door Pullman and watching the world go by, listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels, hearing that old steam whistle blowing for crossings and towns." -George Phillips in Riding the RailsAt the height of the Great Depression, 250,000 teenage hoboes were riding the rails and roaming America
The Ride of Their Lives Uys' compilation of interviews is an eye opening read for anyone interested in how history reflects the present. As our country experiences dire economic hardship at this time, Riding the Rails reflects the best and the worst of the people and the societal atmosphere during The Great Depression. With its focus on teens, we learn of the desperate poverty that forced droves of young people to leave home during the 30's in hope of fin. "Profoundly moving" according to Richard Harrold. My interest in this book was sparked by a bit of family history. A great-uncle of mine hoboed on trains before the 1920s. Born in 1900, he was attempting to hop a train in 1919 in Chicago, but lost his grip, fell from the car, and lost a leg beneath the train. All I know about this uncle was from a newspaper clipping from 1919 when a brave reporter interviewed my great-uncle just before he died from the infection in his leg.The sto. Matthew Gunia said Gives insight to history and modern times. E.L. Uys should be commended for his efforts on this book. First, he tackles a topic that has not traditionally been looked at--teenagers who, during the Great Depression, decided for one reason or another, to leave their homes and families and illegally travel from city to city in trains. More than give a staight-through narrative as most authors do, he allows the rail riders to tell their own stories. Uys arranges the narratives
Others left out of boredom; still others with a romantic idea of life on the road. Some left out of desperation and went looking for work, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles on the rumor of a job waiting farther down the line. An estimated 250,000 men and women--many of them in their teens--turned to the trains as fast and free transportation. You were hungry, cold, miserable, with nobody to help you." They also talk about the remarkable kindness of strangers who fed and clothed the riders. Trips across the continent were no longer educational, but were quests for bread." Errol Lincoln Uys (pronounced "Ace") has collected thousands of letters written by boxcar boys and girls about their experiences, and peppers his chapters on the various aspects of hobo life with lengthy quotations, allowing the riders to speak for themselves. They talk about the danger--"You had to be careful not to stumble and fall under the wheels when you climbed on t