Donovan Kelly

Call me Elijah. I'm a hobo. I don't remember how old I was when I hopped my first train. In the security camera picture I look almost two and that first step looks mighty tall. That step changed my life. Made me a blue caboose hobo instead of a red caboose hobo.

Dr. Lynda, my hobo group therapist, tried to make me admit that this first step in my long railroading career was the hardest. But it wasn't. The bigger problem was finding another hobo willing to change my diapers. Hoboes can be such a fussy bunch and I hadn't yet taken to potty training. Oh, I tried it a time or two, but I just wasn't one to sit still in one place long.

Maybe that's why I started riding the rails. To get away from all the sitting still demands of grownup living.

Lucky for me a friendly hobo saw me struggling to climb aboard. Beach Bum Terry grabbed my hand and shouted to no one in particular, “That's one small step for mankind, but a giant leap for a little kid.”

Terry talked like that a lot, saying bunches of grand words to no one in particular. He used to make TV commercials before he became the successful bum he is today.

The one they call Uncle Roger thought I was climbing aboard to rob the train. He was sure I shouted, “OK, I unhitched the Wells Fargo car from the train, but I still think this would be easier if we had horses.”

Trish said Uncle Roger watched too many cowboy movies. She claimed that my first words really were, “It's the hobo life for me.” Then she said I looked at what she was drinking and asked my first real hobo question: “Where do you get those brown bag sippy cups?”

Seems like an awful lot of words for someone who wasn't quite two and had droopy wet pants. But Trish is a pretty honest bum. She never did share her brown bag sippy cup with me, but she did change my diaper a time or two. If she hadn't, my rash would probably be much worse now.

The therapist thinks that the rash is really a manifestation of my itch to travel. If so, I must have a lot of miles to go yet.