"Bindle"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jan 8 00:31:19 UTC 2010


Heard this term used for the first time since the '50's, in the phrase,

"... _bindles_  (small, cough-drop-sized packages) of black-tar [heroin]"

on the trash-TV cop show, The First 48.


Back in the day, _bindle_ "a hobo's bagged belongings"  _bindlestick_
"the broomstick or something similar used to carry the bindle over
one's shoulder" _ bindlestiff_ "a hobo."


These could have different meanings for others. I know them only from
reading the funnies and from funnybooks. "Bindlestiff" was also the
title of a coverstory by James Blish, in Astounding(?) SF in the late
'40's or early '50's.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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