"Hoe boy" sent on "westbound to heaven" in NY Times

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 07:25 AM 1/26/2004 -0500, you wrote:

>    A hobo from Illinois gets about 22 paragraphs in the New York Times?

What's wrong with that?  Phillips wrote a book, set up a hobo museum, and
gave many interviews.  As the niece of one who "rode the rails" in the
1920s, I found the story of this hobo fascinating.  When my sister and I
were little, we even played hobo in our "camp" behind a shed, complete with
"drinking coffee from a can."  And semioticians have picked up on the fine
emic distinctions between hobos, tramps, and bums--just as the article
defined them.