Rail Jumpers
Don’t pity the hobo. This endangered American archetype, as rare today as flappers or compassionate conservatives, lives on freedom, on the fat of the land, on pies filched off widows’ windowsills, on all the old-fangled things too often absent in modern America. But hobos aren’t quite extinct. Cultural-studies departments have a mad-on for them, and every year, rangy, bearded freedom lovers chuck their student loans and hop the rails. Freight jumpers may mourn the long-gone caboose, but they have to love the diminishing number of railroad men checking for transients. Check in with all that’s new in bindlestiff life at 6 tonight at the Replay Lounge (946 Massachusetts in Lawrence, 785-749-7676) when the Hobo Film Festival rolls through with hours of documentaries about tramping, trains and mulligan stew.
