At twenty I was freight hopping to Omak to find my lost cousin Holly, closest in my family to me. My friend and fellow hippie, Bruce from the Big Yellow House, had found someone, who had found her somewhere, and together the two of us had caught the Fern Turn from Bellingham in an open freight car to the Everett Switchyard.
Off the train we nighttime walked the track, careful not to step on the switches as all good hoboes know to avoid. The darkness was loud with rail traffic and the counterpoint of industry trucking, such as was there back then. Smoking factories and highway smog set upon the night, component pieces of Father Industry's plan.
But about breakfast; we walked under a highway bridge that covered the rails several lines wide. In the darkness there were well fed voices and a fire only wanderers would build. The scene was the five of them that had broken into a dairy truck which you could see, door still ajar, in the 5 a.m. just light distance. Their booty was orange juice and milk in school cartons and boiled eggs at the bottom of an ancient coffee can in the ashes of their fire. We were invited into the circle, as the traveling code insists. We ate stolen breakfast, told our tale of the cousin quest and were told stories back that live now only as glows of the emotions they extolled. And there in the dirt and the grime amongst the noblest of the homeless, we were anchored for a moment in the company of friends.
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