Go East, Young Man! (part 6)
looking for my roots in all the wrong places
Just after dark, and in the middle of a good sleep, the train to Iowa came in. They had work to do so I had plenty of time to find a ride, which ended up being the back of a grainer again. Beginning to feel like I was in serious contention to win the "Most Miles Ridden on the Back of a Grainer" award, I vowed to never again complain about riding in empty boxcars, something that was in short supply in these parts.
Sometime in the middle of the night we stopped in a reasonably large town, meaning it "stretched" for more than two blocks, and I figured it must be Mason City, my jumping off point [literally] to head over to Britt. I found a good spot to continue my fragmented sleep and did so.
In the morning I was able to confirm that this was Mason City after all, and since I was now only about 30 miles or so from the storied town of Britt, I decided to hitchhike. There was only one town in between, Clear Lake, where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash in 1959, so I figured I could pay my respects when I passed through. I don't remember any details of the journey out to Britt, just vague thoughts of how everyone stares at you because you're carrying a pack, and how monotonous the countryside is — rows of corn, rows of soybeans, a gentle hill, more rows of corn, more rows of soybeans...
At last, up ahead there was a large sign on the side of the road proclaiming Britt, Iowa as home of the National Hobo Convention. It even had an image of a hobo carrying a bindle over his shoulder! Wow, I thought... I'm here! I made it! Soon the euphoria faded away, and I realized that I was still in some small town in the middle of nowhere, with more than its share of hoboes and hobo impersonators... sort of like a Midwest version of an Elvis convention. Part of me wanted to get out of there right away and part of me wanted to immerse myself in this strange ritual, knowing that when the weekend was over I could go back, literally and figuratively, to my life in California, where hoboes didn't iron creases in their bandanas, the beer wasn't 3.2%, and it fucking COOLED OFF AT NIGHT.