Hobo cross (pictures).

[TMG51]

As I often seek out off-the-beaten-path areas to squat in muh' vanhouse, I also occasionally run into signs of hobo occupation.

This one was a bit different and I elected to document it. While exploring a wooded area by a river, I found this:

It's a calling card landmark left, I infer, from one hobo to another. The sign reads, "Penny remember me. Bones I made the cross for George. I am still homeless just across the pond. My first camp. Hope all is good for you. Love you both, come see me if you can. Sorry so sloppy. God bless."

A few other messages... "We will miss you 420 Jordan R"

"Miss you bro!! Love Gary... [illegible and includes a swastika]"

...aaand if you're curious, the primary message was written on the back of a box of CHICKEN FLAVORED CRACKERS. That's fine hobo cuisine, ladies and gentlemen.

I can't imagine where this person got all the crosses / angels / etc. There were more small figures obscured in the grass.

 

[Ballenxj]

Those look like grave markings to me. Are you sure somebody isn't buried there?
Cool find, and thanks for sharing.

 

[Wabbit]

Very neato!

 

[eDJ_]

In my area there are all kinds of roadside Crosses like that.   Generally where someone has died in a car wreck. 
They are decorated on each anniversary and are all over the roads.    Hopefully people don't slow down to
try and read any of the messages lest they get rear ended at 55 to 70 miles an hour.

Another thing that happens here that "some" people think is wonderful....is people stop in their lane of travel
when they see an oncoming funeral procession.   There was a Tractor Trailer once from about 5 states away that didn't know the "local" customs and people with kids had stopped. (in the bend of a road where the trucker couldn't see them)  Unfortunately all were killed and some of those in the funeral procession as the truck went through it and on to the other side of the road.  

But people here still persist in observing this practice.   There are even reports of people in the funeral processions pulling out into the oncoming lane if they see someone not stopping.   I guess to run them off the road if they don't stop. 

It really worries me when I see those who have left this area to live in other states writing letters to the news papers explaining how other states don't seem to follow this practice and how they are saddened by it.   But what really flips me out is if I come to a bunch of stopped cars with a funeral procession coming and I'm the last car.....that would get rear ended by a semi.

 

[John61CT]

Yep I think if you dig you'd find George.

Don't.

 

[TMG51]

George may or may not be under there, but either way it struck me as a cool hobo reference point.

And to be clear this is not anywhere near a road. I know the sort of roadside crosses you're talking about. This is well off the beaten path.

 

[jimindenver]

cool find

 

[INTJohn]

I've found graves similar while wandering around exploring in the desert too:

 

[INTJohn]

Here's another:



This one says T.T.  Our Friend Thumpy

 

[Ballenxj]

And to be clear this is not anywhere near a road. I know the sort of roadside crosses you're talking about. This is well off the beaten path.

Makes it all the more cool and mysterious.
I remember a friend and I were out exploring out of the way places once and found an entire graveyard that was well off the road and hidden from passersby. This was in rural Southern Utah with an old but nice iron fence around it, and if I remember correctly had less than twenty graves?
Don't know if I could find it again.

 

[bullfrog]

My grandfather worked for the C&O railroad and had a barn/garage out back with beds and a wash tub. My grandmother cooked breakfast every morning for anyone who was there. The large tree at the front of the drive had hundreds of hobo carvings all the way up its trunk, wish I would have gotten a picture of it.

 

[Ballenxj]

There are letters to the editor every now and then by outraged newcomers to the area that can't spare a few minutes of their time to show a little respect for the deceased. Heck, some even get torqued when people they don't know wave at them!!

This is one of my pet peeves! People that are too lazy to get their butts out of bed a few minutes early, then leave for their destination a few minute early as well. But no, they have to wait until the last fuzzy second, and all of a sudden it's everybody elses fault they are running late.

 

[eDJ_]

I understand what you are saying about showing respect.  I always remove my cap and hold it over my heart as I drive on by.   I've seen a lot of letters in the news papers usually from Truck Drivers and occasionally from State Troopers advising that it is illegal to stop on the road in traffic and create a hazard that may lead to wrecks and or lost lives of innocent people. 

At one time here the high way workers had orders to remove these "shrines" citing that they were distractions to drivers.   Since the deceased was interned in a cemetary,  why the need for a shrine at the roadside ? 

But people will be do these things without thinking of the consequences as causing other families to lose their loved ones.

 

[Dgorila1]

In my area there are all kinds of roadside Crosses like that.   Generally where someone has died in a car wreck. 
They are decorated on each anniversary and are all over the roads.    Hopefully people don't slow down to
try and read any of the messages lest they get rear ended at 55 to 70 miles an hour.

Another thing that happens here that "some" people think is wonderful....is people stop in their lane of travel
when they see an oncoming funeral procession.   There was a Tractor Trailer once from about 5 states away that didn't know the "local" customs and people with kids had stopped. (in the bend of a road where the trucker couldn't see them)  Unfortunately all were killed and some of those in the funeral procession as the truck went through it and on to the other side of the road.  

But people here still persist in observing this practice.   There are even reports of people in the funeral processions pulling out into the oncoming lane if they see someone not stopping.   I guess to run them off the road if they don't stop. 

It really worries me when I see those who have left this area to live in other states writing letters to the news papers explaining how other states don't seem to follow this practice and how they are saddened by it.   But what really flips me out is if I come to a bunch of stopped cars with a funeral procession coming and I'm the last car.....that would get rear ended by a semi.

I live in a busy urban area and the whole "have to give way for a funeral procession" bugs me to no end. Some of these can be over a mile long and cause all kinds of traffic issues and accidents. Personally I want the state to change the law to eliminate this practice, it's just too dangerous to the general public. There's no reason that the people traveling from the chapel to the cemetery need to all travel in a pack. Just tell them to be at the cemetery at whatever time so everyone can get there safely....the deceased isn't going anywhere in a hurry!

 

[BobBski]

Thanks for sharing, very cool

 

[John61CT]

I live in a busy urban area and the whole "have to give way for a funeral procession" bugs me to no end. Some of these can be over a mile long and cause all kinds of traffic issues and accidents. Personally I want the state to change the law to eliminate this practice, it's just too dangerous to the general public. There's no reason that the people traveling from the chapel to the cemetery need to all travel in a pack. Just tell them to be at the cemetery at whatever time so everyone can get there safely....the deceased isn't going anywhere in a hurry!

The procession is part of the ceremony.

I guess in a **very** dense busy area having activity pause as a respectful nod to the deceased gets "expensive" in aggregate wasted time, but personally I wish I lived in a society that didn't put economics and efficiency right at the top of the values pyramid.

 

[eDJ_]

The last letter to the editor on this subject by an Ohio State Trooper that I read stated that yielding to an oncoming funeral procession was a throw back to narrow roads where people would pull off on the berm of the road to provide an unobstructed right of way.  It was a practical observance of the law in that time.  But when  people are on a State Highway where the Funeral Procession has a clear lane of the road to travel in those on the  opposite oncoming lane do not need to stop in the middle of the road or pull off to the berm to provide right of way.  

By stopping in a lane and blocking traffic behind them they are guilty of obstructing the right of way in their own lane....even if they are observing a funeral procession approaching them.   If their action backs up traffic and someone gets rear ended, hurt, or dies as a result they may be seen guilty at some level of "manslaughter". 

I keep looking to see some National TV Show like 60 minutes,  Nova,  Front Line, or others do an investigative report for the public interest on this subject.   Each State has different laws regarding this subject. 

All of this reminds me of little kids wanting to have a funeral for a dead bird or mouse that one of them found,  only it's grown ups who should know better and worse they are doing it in moving traffic.

I asked one funeral director of a near by mortuary about his thoughts on this.  He told me that as they are working with the bereaved they don't say anything.....but when asked they tell people that the Hearse only has a "yellow flashing light".....not a "blue flashing light"  so it isn't an emergency that anyone in the on coming lane has to render right of way to.   The yellow flashing light is only for caution.  Also the purple and white pennant flags are to be displayed on cars that will be part of the procession, as they are required by law.

When people go out and build these roadside shrines on the Interstate Highways and other State Highways they are building something personal on a regulated right of way whether they realize it or not.   It isn't their property to install something like that on.   I can only hope people won't stop in the middle of the Interstate
to read the signs and poems etc placed there with 70 mph traffic coming up behind them.   I can only imagine
what a 14 ton Freight Liner traveling at that speed would do to such a car.

 

[Bud Smiley]

That's so cool. I really like finding things like the cross. There's always a story behind it and we'll never know what it was.

 

[eDJ_]

I figured that when a State Patrolman takes it upon himself to write one that there must be some reason.

Try this then.   The life you save may be your own.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/car-accidents-caused-by-negligence-29537.html

 

[GotSmart]

Here in Missouri, the custom seems to be to pull over on roads where it is safe.  If there is no room to pull over, people turn on headlights and slow down.  

I observed one procession that was for a fallen LEO/Firefighter and it was several miles long. 

People build shrines, but weedeat the grass around them.  The highway workers can see them and do not remove them unless directed.