It’s hard ta say how a guy gits started on this railroad. I’m sixty-four years old, ‘n it feels like I been out here long’s I can remember. I got no family, no one. Grew up on a farm in Minnesota.  Good soil up there. Ya hold it in yer hand ‘n squeeze it ‘n it’ll keep it’s shape. Good black soil.  Worked that soil all through the depression. Fine’ly lost the farm in ’36; couldn’ make a go of it.  People was strugglin’, havin’ a hard time a things, makin’ do any way they could. I got on the wrong end a the law ‘n went ta prison in ’37. Got give years fer armed robb’ry. Done my time ‘n hit the street in ’42. The war was goin’ on ‘n I tried enlistin’. Had a brother was killed fightin’ in France. Me ‘n him was like glue when we was kids, done ev’ry thing t’gether. He was in on that robb’ry with me in ’37 ‘n got clean away. I r’member sittin’ in prison thinkin’ what a lucky stiff he was. There I was, doin’ five ‘n he was out on the street ‘n we both done the same thing.  Turned out he wasn’t so lucky after all. If he’d a got himself caught, he’d a never gone inta the army ‘n been killed.

The Army wouldn’ have nothin’ ta do with me, on account a my record. So I started driftin’ from town ta town. I’d take a job once in awhile, doin’ farm labor, buckin’ hay, that kinda thing, nothin’ perm’nent. Farm work was somethin’ I knew. Plenty a farms hired on extra hands ta help out with things. Didn’t have the machin’ry they got now. When the work was done, I’d draw my pay ‘long with the rest a the hands, ‘n move on. Never stayed in one partic’lar place. Plenty a guys on the tramp in those days. Seemed like ev’rybody was on the move.

Passed some towns a couple hunnerd times. Seen ‘em change. Some git bigger ‘n some die.  Some towns that use’ ta be big divisions, now git passed by. Nothin’ stops ‘less they got orders.  Ya see ‘em dry up grad’jl. First mebbe a movie house gits boarded up, then the stores go, ‘n then the hotshots fly by ‘thout stoppin’. Some towns, all they is is railroad towns. Only thing keepin’ ‘em ‘live is the division. Wishram’s like that, ‘n Wildwood. Lotta towns that way.

Worked all over the Midwest: Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota. Kept ta the small towns. Wilmar was a good place. Last division on the low line b’fore ya git ta Minneap’lis. Use’ ta git work at Hanson’s Silo. Ol’ man Hanson’d always hire on a tramp. He’d come down ta the jungle, ‘n ask if any of us tramps needed work, includin’ guys that was drunk. He’d tell ‘em ta sober up ‘n he’d be back for ‘em the next mornin’. He’d drive ya on out ta his place, ‘bout ten miles outta town, ‘n put ya up in cabins. They’d feed good, ranch style. Ev’rybody’d sit at these long wooden tables, ‘n the girls’d pile food on yer plate like ya never seen, much as ya wanted, heap the food on. Them breakfasts: eggs, hotcakes, bacon, ham, sausage, anything ya could imagine they’d set out in front a ya. That stuff goes pretty good with a man’s been on the road, eatin’ can goods ‘n not eatin’ right, ‘n mebbe drinkin’ ‘n not eatin’ at all. Some guys git drinkin’ ‘n loose their appetite, might not eat nothin’ for days. Gotta build their strength up if they’s gonna be diggin’ silo foundations.

All my life I worked the groun’, Wyomin’ groun’, Nebraska groun’, Minnesota, I know ‘em all.  They’s each one diff’rent. Wheresoever I might be settin’, I’ll reach down ‘n scoop up a han’ful a soil ‘n run it through my fingers. I can tell a good soil by pickin’ it up ‘n squeezin’ it in my hand. Now that Nevada soil’s got a good bit a sand runnin’ through it. Can’t hold it’s shape, runs clean through yer fingers like it was water. Not good ‘n rich like Iowa groun’. Don’t mean it ain’t good fer  growin’ nothin’, jus’ ‘cause there’s san’ in it. Means the groun’s good fer a certain type a crop, like maybe hay. There’s some crops that’s suited fer a sandy soil. Gotta pick the right crop ta be growin’ in the type a groun’ ya got. It’s something ya git ta know from workin’ all over the country on diff’rent types a groun’. A farmer, the only groun’ he knows is his own. He might be born, live, ‘n die, all on the same piece a groun’. Stay on the same couple hunnerd acres all his life. Me, I walked, worked, ‘n slept on groun’ in most ev’ry state there is.  Seen crops pop up outta the desert san’, good crops, right outta the san’ in California. That’s somethin’ maybe a patata farmer in Wisconsin might not know about. He knows patatas alright, but he don’t know ‘bout which crops do best in san’, ‘n ‘bout irrigatin’, ‘n what needs doin’ ta keep a crop from shrivelin’ up under a desert sun.

Use’ ta be I’d give some thought ta gittin’ my own place. A place ta call my own ‘n raise a good cash crop. But’cha look at what it costs ta run a  farm now days ‘n yer better off forgittin’ ‘bout it. Farmin’s done by big machin’ry now, ‘n that stuff costs plenty. A good combine’ll run ya in the neighborhood a seventy-five thousan’ dollars. ‘N me, I ain’t had more ‘n five hunnerd on me at one time in all my life. Five hunnered don’t even put me in the runnin’. I give up thinkin’ ‘bout my own place long ago. It’s somethin’ wasn’t meant ta be. ‘N if it wasn’t meant ta be, no sense hashin’ it ‘roun’ in yer mind. Does ya no good ta think on all the things ya don’t have. Ya gotta think ‘bout what’cha got. I got my health, ‘n I ain’t been sick, doctor sick, since I was a kid. I don’t drink or smoke, ‘n I still got all my teeth. Been carryin’ a sack ‘n bedroll ‘roun’ with me for forty years. Done a lotta walkin’ ‘n my legs is still strong. I c’n still make it. I c’n lift a hunnerd pound bale a hay ‘thout wheezin’. Ain’t nothin’ for me ta pick five, six bins a apples a day. Do work a man half my age’d had trouble doin’. ‘N do it ‘thout belly achin’. I c’n make it, farm or no farm.

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