BATH – We lived on the lower part of Morning Street in Portland, near the Eastern Promenade. Our favorite playground was East End Beach and the tracks of the Grand Trunk Railroad.

The fascination with the railroad was that we were told numerous times not to play on or near the trains. We loved to hop a slow-moving freight train and ride it to Tukey’s Bridge. We were able to hop off the train at the bridge, for it slowed down to make the crossing.

The area next to the bridge was a combination of the city dump and a hobo camp. (This area has now been replaced by the wastewater treatment plant.) During the Depression, men rode the rails from city to city looking for work, and every city had its hobo camp.

Jumping the trains was both exciting and dangerous, for the evening paper would report, from time to time, a young boy who lost an arm or worse under the wheels of a train. Also, the trains were patrolled by the railroad detectives, who carried large clubs.

We never felt fast enough to outrun the hobos, so we never ventured near the camp. That is, until one day, my mother noted in the paper that the hobos had been rounded up by the police and were guests of the city. It seems that some of the camp occupiers were helping themselves to the milk left on the doorsteps of the local residents up on Munjoy Hill.

The empty hobo camp presented a great opportunity to have a look around. The housing units were constructed of 50-gallon oil drums filled with soil removed from the hill. The oil drums were stacked two high, with railroad ties used as roof beams. Over the ties was placed tar paper.

Stones were used to hold the roof down. The flooring was of compacted soil with drainage ditches around the perimeter of the adobe for rain protection. Inside these comfortable dwellings were a number of valuable items stored in boxes, such as burned-out radio tubes and rubber inner tubes.

Heading back to the beach, we met an audacious sailor who was rowing his dinghy around the world. He had pitched his tent in an area that is now a parking lot, near the beach facilities.

My friend and I were invited into his tent, where he demonstrated the art of making pancakes. We listened intensely as he revealed tales of rowing up the coast from New Jersey. He was now headed for Nova Scotia, and from there over to Greenland. Wow, how exciting to be rowing around the world.

Whatever became of this extreme adventurist? Well, the last we heard of the intrepid sailor, he was in jail. The Coast Guard reported that it was for his own protection.

– Special to the Telegram