Exploration Two from Jacob Kelley

My name is Jacob Kelley, and I am twenty-four. I am an English major. I live in Marysville, Ohio and work at the Hampton Inn there. My fun fact is that I spent a year working five blocks from Washington Capital Building as an Intern at the William Penn House. The William Penn House is a hostel that hosts tourists and groups that work on social justice issues the Washington, D.C. There, I facilitated groups working on issues of peace, hunger, and homelessness in the District.  

The thing that stood out most to me about what Maury said is that hobos were a collective or community. They had a way of communicating via telephone polls. They had a lore that was contested and studied as to what the origin of their name was. They had a had a convention. When Maury attempted to join the hobos at a young age, they were even exclusive. This was interesting because I never thought of hobos as being organized. They seem to exist in a kind prescribed society rather than a loose association of people described as hobos. This seemed more like a way of life. 

According to the New York Times article "Steam Train Maury", hobo seemed like it is something to be revered. The Steinbeck quote that hobos were "the last free man" struck me as particularly interesting. I previously saw hobos as the product of economic necessity, but now they seem more like a noble sub culture. The quote from a Pulitzer prize winning author neatly summarizes my surprise and the reversal of my opinion. I also found the physical description of Maury interesting because it seemed to show him both the real deal and an actor fulfilling a roll people expected of him, that maybe he represented something larger than himself.