Hobo Poem

When asked what I’ll do when I grow up

I often answer "I don’t know."

But after careful thinking,

I’ve come to rest on hobo.

Hobos pay no rent, nor taxes,

And they always get to travel.

They don’t need money for the rails,

And they don’t have to shovel gravel.

Hobos live quite easily,

For they have no people to worry on.

They can walk for miles and miles,

With no care under the sun.

Never mind the people,

Staring with disbelief.

They just don’t know what a hobo has!

I know I’d go on with no grief.

For I’d have no job, no house, nor people,

Not a thing except my bindle.

I’d have no property in my name,

So I’d never worry about a swindle.

No one would have to care,

Cause I’d just be on my own.

No support from friends or family,

Just me riding - all broke and alone...

Sure it’s neat to travel,

But you know that’s got to be hard.

What hobo would look at scenery while starving?

Food's more important than staring at stars.

No money, no home, no one to care about. 

After reconsidering, I can’t say that I want a part.

That’s a hard life to live,

Just think! Those poor people’s hearts... 

I was unsure what I'd do when I grow up,

But I thought hobo was an easy way to live.

But after careful thinking,

To hobos I’ll just give.

Behind the Poem...Rich Hobo

I legit wanted to be a "rich hobo" when I grew up. Those were my biggest aspirations in 6th grade: make money, legally ride the rails. The thought was that I'll work for like 3 years to make the money somehow, then buy tickets, eat all the railway food, and see the great outdoors via train for the rest of my days. And perhaps I'll do that one day (I still think it's a fantastic retirement plan), but I've shied away from the idea as I've gotten older as most of us do.

I think it's the whole "collect enough money to sustain railway fairs, food, and medical expenses for the next 80 years" part that gets me. Doing that with a day to day job is difficult enough, much less. Hence the legitmament homelessness problem that this poem ends with. 

That said, I am going into the field of Finance, and I've heard that you can live pretty comfortably with the right job - not to mention the job is basically to manage money well, so hopefully I‘ll know how to do that. And I imagine not owning a home or your own car is less expensive. I would like to think thay when I‘m old, I’ll retire, sell my house and vehicle and such, and take 2 or 3 years to just live my life on the rails, while being able to provide to those who need it as I come across them. 

This is the first real poem I've ever written, and its nice to come back and see it after so long. I wrote it in 10th or 11th grade, and left it in my Google Drive for the next 4ish years. I'm not sure that it was a horribly unrealistic dream, but it is definitely impractical for my current position in life. I was also not thinking about having a husband or pets at the time, so that's another snag to consider. I think I'd like to keep those, so we'll just have to wait on being a rich hobo for now and do our best to help the not-so-rich ones in the meantime. 

Side Note: I learned last week that you can buy people's debt as a sort of investment strategy and then just forgive it. The idea is, if a company is having problems collecting debt, they sell it to a collector for cheap. The company gets at least some of their money back, and the debt collector gets to go collect the full debt and make back way more money than they spent buying it. Some church did this, but instead of collecting, they just forgave like $3m worth of debt. Holy crap. And individuals can act as debt collectors to. I want to buy debt and forgive it. I need to know how to do this. If you know anything about that process, please explain it to me. At least in concept, this sounds like a great way to help people and potentially keep things like being forced out of your home from happening. If this in real, feasibly way to help, I want to know more so I (as an individual, not necessarily as We Have Rhymed at this moment), can do more. 

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