“So where did all this come about? And who are you? And why hobo’s landing? and…”
“Alright…Alright…one thing at a time. Let’s see what I can let you in on the clear all this up. I ran a blog and subsequently a podcast over yonder at enlighten-up.org. Still do, as a matter of fact. Enlighten-up is where I write and talk about Buddhist Teachings and their relevance in the 21st century. Pretty heady stuff, I guess. As I went along, I found myself blogging about so much more than Buddhism that I sometimes got the feeling I was diluting the teachings that I wanted to talk about with horse pictures and podcast meetups and cooking and books and just news in general. I really wanted to keep my discussions of the Buddhist teachings something special, but I also didn’t wanna give up my discussions of EVERYTHING ELSE, so I just decided to separate the two. So now if you wanna talk Buddhism, enlighten-up.org is still the place to go. But for most other stuff you hop a box car right over here to hobo’s landing. ”
” Ok…but who the hell are you?” “Alright…simma down now. I’m just the head hobo ’round these parts. Anything else you need to know about me, I’m sure will come up sooner or later. And if not, or ifya just can’t wait, smack that old ‘Contact Me’ button at the top of the page and ask me anything you want. I’m not real stingy with the facts”
“Ok, ok…but why hoboslanding.com?”
“Now see…there’s a good question and I’m more than happy to give you an answer. See how easy that was? There are three reasons for using the name. I was trying to think of something that kinda reflected my personality. So I thought back in my childhood and came up with a couple of things. I was a pretty smart feller when I was tiny, you know, pretty much had my wits about me, but I don’t know what happened in the past couple of decades. Anyway, I could spell pretty good a real young age. For one, I knew how to spell my last name. Couldn’t walk…couldn’t talk real good either. Here is the point of the first story. My last name was on all the store scales and appliances (I’m sure now you can guess what it is). So as we pulled through the line, I would get very excited and point at the letters and say “Dat my name H….O….B….A….R….T….HOBO.” So from then on, my family nickname was Hobo.”
“The second part of the story comes from growing up in Helena, AR. It was a small farming community on the Mississippi river and when I was young, had quite a bit of rail traffic. At that point, there was also alot of folks riding the rails. My old Pappy (which was my grandfather on my mother’s side) would take me down to the tracks to watch the trains do their things. I loved the trains. There was also a little place where the hobos would gather around an old barrel with a fire and warm up and talk and sit around. We always called this the hobo’s landing. Not a technical term or anything. Just a term my pappy came up with when I asked about it. But from then on, that place was hobo’s landing.”
“The third part of the story is probably not so interensting, As I began to read, I really enjoyed the writing of Jack Kerouac. Not only the content, but the way he wrote, like a jazz player who would just barely pause to take a breath. Anyway, my favorite was always ‘The Dharma Bums’ (not the Buddhist influence) with Japhy Ryder and cruising up and down the west coast in a box car just watching the world.”
“So…all and all, I think that Hobo’s Landing was a pretty good choice for the name. Agree or disagree, either way, I’l love to hear from some of you folks.
