Posted on by Phil Strawn

The Kindness of Strangers: My Encounter with a Hobo


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I wrote this story in 2021. It’s a real-life encounter near my Grandmother’s farm in Santa Anna, Texas: I was seven years old.

I was told not to go near the railroad tracks or the bridge over them; Hobo’s lived there. My Grandmother warned me daily of the consequences, which were all bad. Scary men, vagrants with no home and no family, they were just there, alone, living their life as best they could. I was seven years old and unafraid.

The dirt road along the tracks took me past Mrs. Ellis’s shack of a home. She didn’t live much better than the Hobo’s, but she had a home, a warm dry bed, chickens, and a dog, so she was poor but stable. She waved as I walked by, and then, as I got a few yards past, she took off to my grandmother’s farmhouse to tattle on me. I knew I was in trouble even before I got to the bridge. I considered turning back, but no, I needed to see this through.

As I got closer to the bridge, I could see there was a lone figure sitting on a bucket next to a campfire. I was puzzled because Granny always said there were dozens of those evil men under the bridge. Now, there was only one, and he appeared to be old and not much of a threat, sitting on his bucket cooking a can of something in the campfire. I approached him but with caution and a bit of fear. The Hobo waved me over. He was an old black man with hair as white as south Texas cotton. His clothes, mostly rags, hung on his frail frame; he resembled the scarecrow in my Papa’s garden. Next to him was a Calico cat, curled up in an old felt hat, purring and licking its paw. In the fire was a can of pork and beans cooking on a flat rock and bubbling like a witch’s brew. I sat crossed-legged on the dirt next to him.

” Does your Granny know you are here?” he asked.

” No sir, she don’t know, and I’m in a heap of trouble.” said I.

He smiled at me and said, ” It’ll all be good, your Granny knows old Bebe. I used to do odd jobs for her and your Papa and she paid me good and always fed me her heavenly biscuits and gravy. She is a wonderful lady, your Granny.” I couldn’t disagree with that, so I smiled back.

He took a worn-out spoon, heaped a large serving of beans into a dirty tin cup, and handed it to me. I was hungry. We ate our dinner together without talking. He gave the cat a spoonful of his beans. It was then that I noticed he had given me most of the can, and left little for himself. This old Hobo is living under a bridge with hardly any food and nothing of value to his name, except maybe the Calico cat, which he shared with a stranger, possibly his one meal of the day. In the mind of a seven-year-old, this seemed normal.

Bebe told me a little about his life and how he came to be a Hobo. I shared what little life experience I had accumulated up to that point. We laughed a little, and then he said I had better head back to the farm. We shook hands; I scratched the cat and walked down the road towards a switching I knew was coming.

My Granny took my explanation well. There was no switching my butt this time and no dressing down. As I walked through the screen door and headed for the barnyard, she said, “Sometimes the folks who have the least share the most. Remember that.” I have.


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21 Replies to “The Kindness of Strangers: My Encounter with a Hobo”

  3. When I was a young kid I lived in a tiny village in a remote area. About once a year a man would appear – what you call a hobo we knew as a tramp. He would settle on the bank of the stream. Same place every year. He used to light a fire and cook something he’d been given by a villager. We kids would go to the stream after school and chat to him. One year there was an old pair of boots sitting in the stream. He’d been given another pair of boots by a local farmer. He must have had a route he travelled through the year and called at places where he was a familiar figure. One year he didn’t appear. We assumed he’d died. I now know that many of these tramps had been through WW2 or even WW1 too and were suffering from PTSD. Your post reminded me of him. Thanks.

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    1. My Grandfather suffered from PTSD, but in 1950s no one knew of such maladies. He fought in the trenches in France, WW1. We have a fellow in our town that shows up often and hangs around the town square for a while, then leaves and is back in a month or so on his three wheeled bicycle.

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    1. Thank you, Terry. I saw him another time a few months after that and then never again. My Grandmother liked the old guy, Grandfather was a bit leery of him, but still gave him work if there was something he could help with.

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  5. When I was a young kid an old guy used to turn up in our village every few months. What we call a tramp, you call a hobo. He’d settle down by the stream and light a fire. We children used to go and chat to him after school. Then he would be gone, tramping around the country alone, stopping in his usual places. One year he didn’t turn up. We assumed he’d died. I now know that many of these characters were suffering from PTSD after WW1 or 2. You brought this memory back. Thanks.

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    1. Thank you, John. A true recount, not a tall tale. I never saw the old fellow again, and eventually the Hobo’s stopped visiting the bridge. If the same encounter happened today, it might have a different outcome. At seven, I was pretty brave and only feared Rattlesnakes, Mountain Boomers, Chupacabras, and my grandmothers switch, cut from a Mesquite Tree.

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