The Hobo Of I-95

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"The Hobo of I-95"

by: Wes Robert Ward

This is the story of Harry the Hobo. It's not a good story or a happy story, it's just a story about a Hobo who lived under the underpass of I-95. Sad story, but a religious one in some way or another. It's not an ordinary story or an Irish one like many that are more interesting to read, no this is an American story. One with hardship and a life of homelessness.

Harry the Hobo preferred underpasses to live under. Well more than one underpass from St. Augustine to Miami down in Florida, but he enjoyed sleeping under the underpass because it was cool during the summer heat and the traffic noise put him to sleep in his cardboard box.

During the Winter it was rougher and the cold harsh wind blowing through the small underpass tunnel due to the traffic was so much like being on Mount Everest in a tent. Imagine yourself bundled up inside a huge cardboard box with the ice cold wind hitting the sides of the cardboard box, if you're lucky you won't have many holes in that cardboard box but there are not so many that lucky on the street.

In Winter, times such as these age you twice as fast, in Spring, it feels like you thaw out, in Summer, you sweat and burn, and in Fall you get ready to start it all over again thinking another year of misery coming up but you ease and bare it with a tired look on your face.

People knew him very well as Harry the Hobo, he was a Caucasian man with a grizzled old gray beard, raggedy clothes, and he kind of reminded some as Rip Van Winkle, the man who slept 20 years only to wake up in a world he didn't know any more. Harold Hornswoggle was his real name and he was about 68 years old at the time of his last farewell under the underpass of Fort Lauderdale I-95.

Harry was a very likeable character and he would be kind to anybody and he'd ask for nothing in return. Sometimes when he had money from doing some odd job, people would think like any homeless man he'd go and get himself a bottle of booze and just drink himself to death like so many on the street.

No, not Harry. Harry was what a few would call a special case. Harry's habit when he had money would be 'The Waffle House'. Yep, he'd go on down to the nearest Waffle House early in the morning and get himself a simple breakfast with a hot cup of coffee. And everybody loved ole Harry at the Waffle House. Harry used to say, "Why bother with the girls at Hooters when the waitress at the counter of the Waffle House was prettier." Well, with that usually said Harry would get a free cup of coffee. Yep, Harry was a smooth talker, kind of like the James Bond of Bum Town, USA.

As the days wore on and times would change it became illegal to sleep under the underpass and Harry would get in trouble a lot. Yes, even Harry got arrested a few times for doing it. Sure he faced jail time but with prisons so packed authorities would eventually release him out into the wilderness again like a bear that became a nuisance only to be tagged and released.

One time a policeman once asked him as he searched him, "Do you have something on you that we need to know? Because if we find it on you without letting us know then it won't look good in court."

And Harry said, "All I got is my cardboard box and Bible. You can have my home, but you'll have to rip the other out of my cold dead hand."

Harry the Hobo lived this life since he was a young man, lived homeless for over 40 years. From one city to another, like the Emperor of the North, a famous fictional bum who traveled by train and fought the conductor tooth and nail just to get a free ride, but with Harry he was more like Houdini, no one noticed him.

Through hard times and harsher ones as well. He once had a good life but it came crashing down one dismal day and he lost everything from wife, family, and home. He tried and tried and tried more than once to redeem himself to resurrect what once was a successful man, but again this isn't a good story or a happy one\u2026 just a realistic story that could be sad in some eyes not all. It depends if you've been where Harry has been, if not then you must walk in his shoes with holes in them and every rock that enters you will feel every day of his life.

He lived his life and died under the underpass of I-95 near Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the age of 68 on a cold Winter's day after Christmas.

His last meal was at a soup kitchen nearby, and it wasn't a big meal like many have but a simple meal. When they offered him turkey or ham with all the helpings which he usually took every year he just asked that evening for bread and gravy so there would be enough left for the old bag lady who came in behind him for he was suppose to get the last good meal. He said she'll need a full stomach to push that grocery cart buggy full of her memories and other belongings.

When found by police the next morning, dead for many hours with rigamortis already set in, he was laying in his cardboard box on his back holding his Bible in hand. And on top of the Bible was an old photo of the wife and family he lost many many years ago. His death certificate would say, 'Died from exposure and pneumonia.'

Like I said this isn't just a story of a Hobo, it's a story of being homeless but still having hope and faith and even salvation with only one thing you could hold onto after losing everything you had or owned\u2026 and that are the words, page by page of the Bible. Whether it's new or old or been through the gutter soaked or dried up like an old prune.

Know that not all homeless are hopeless, just know that hope lives within all of us\u2026 rich, middle class, or poor. Clean or unclean, we are all the same. We all bleed the same blood and when we all leave this life to cross into the great beyond where we are all cleansed in what was mind and body but became spirit. Just like birth we pass through as if baptized into heaven. There is no homeless situation up in the clouds because God has a home for us all, rent free with not a worry in our hearts.

Harry the Hobo as many knew him, I mean Harold Hornswoggle was cremated by the city of Fort Lauderdale authorities. It was easier that way and to discard if no one claimed the ashes. Usually went to Potter's Field, an imaginary cemetery for the unwanted but many do not know where some of those lost souls go. In sad regards, a dumpster is the last place to rest in peace.

But who claimed Harry's ashes you say? Who would claim a Hobo's ashes for no apparent reason? A filthy degenerate no one would want to touch? Or what some would think because there are some that are heartless but many are not. Those that call those degenerates are degenerates themselves, and I for one would rather break bread with a Bum than have a meal with a Moron. For Harry had no one, not one living relative. All the family he ever had was in heaven waiting with open arms.

The waitress of the local Waffle House claimed his ashes who was notified by the policeman who wrote his report over a hot cup of joe that morning as she was brewing hot coffee, one Peggy Simpson and she said to Harry as she held his cremated remains in a Folgers coffee can urn, "Honey, I'm taking you to my family cemetery and spreading your ashes with my departed family on top of my Father's grave. For being a nice man to me in life, for treating me with respect, and being kind to others, you are apart of my family from now on."

And with that Harold Hornswoggle was put to rest in a warmer more welcoming restful place than a noisy underpass under I-95.

The End.