(The following column by Rafer Guzmán appeared on the Newsday website on September 27.)
NEW YORK — It sounds like a civic nightmare: A large group of hobos migrating to a city, setting up tents for a few days and staying up late into the night talking and playing music.
But one man’s public nuisance is another man’s festival, especially if that man is Don Fisher, a trustee at the Railroad Museum of Long Island. From tonight through Saturday, Fisher will help run the second annual Twin Forks Folk Music Festival and Hobo Homecoming at the museum’s Riverhead site.
Hobos – those men who rode the rails during the Great Depression looking for temporary work – still exist, according to Fisher. The ones coming to Long Island have colorful names such as Luther the Jet, Cream City Slim, Grandpa Dudley and Mad Mary, though their real names – and even their backgrounds – are often unknown.
“They’re pretty circumspect,” Fisher said. “They like to say, ‘I’m from anywhere, USA.'”
Though hobos usually are associated with the Midwest, Fisher said men from New York City often rode trains out to the Long Island farms. If the men received a warm welcome and employment, they’d leave a mark on a nearby telegraph pole to let others know the farmer was friendly. “This was part and parcel of Long Island agricultural lore back during the Depression,” Fisher said.
This weekend’s festival includes music, storytelling and photo exhibits with hobo and railroad themes. The local band Earthtones will perform an original song based on the Great Pickle Works train wreck of 1926 in Calverton.
Fisher emphasized the authenticity of the gathering – “These are real hobo performers,” he said – but he also noted that hobos have adjusted to the modern world. Many of them even have e-mail addresses, Web sites and cell phones.
“These people are grandparents, parents, they’re educated, they have jobs,” Fisher said. “But at one time this was how they lived, and they enjoyed it.”