The Littlest Hobo and an Old Friend

All my life there’s been a haunting song that would pop into my head now and then.  The lyrics went…

Traveling around from town to town.
Sometimes I think I’ll settle down.

But I know I’d hunger to be free.
Rovin’ is the only life for me.

A-driftin’. The world is my friend.
I’m travelin’ along the road without end.

I knew this song was associated with a black and white television show I loved as a very young child. It was about a dog that traveled from town to town.  I couldn’t watch it much, I recall, because I was the only one in the family who liked it and it competed with programs everyone else liked. (We only had one television and were only allowed to watch one show a day – which we all had to agree upon). In fact, I don’t even remember watching any particular episodes. I just have a vague memory of a dog walking alongside a highway by himself as the song plays.

For some odd reason, this tune, these lyrics and this image have always had a special place in my heart. They evoke an eerie, melancholic feeling that is sort of enjoyable just because of its familiarity. Several times throughout the years I’ve mentioned the song and show to others, but no one has ever shared my recollection of it.

Well, this last Memorial Day I was enjoying a cook out with some friends and we somehow got on the topic of old television shows. I shared my recollection of this haunting song and image, and once again no one had a clue what I was talking about. Then my friend Julie Ross –internet research hound that she is – got out her computer and said, “Let’s look it up!”  It never occurred to me that I might be able to track the show down on Goggle just on the basis of a couple of lyrics.

Within a couple of minutes Julie discovered the show was called The Littlest Hobo. It ran from 1963-65. (The series was remade in 1979, but I never watched it or even knew about it.) You can hear the original 1963 song here.

Hearing this song for the first time in 45 years hit me in a rather profound way. It felt like connecting with an old, familiar friend. It brought a sense of completeness.

As I’ve listened to the song several times and thought about it over the last several days, it’s answered several questions. Why did I love this show so much as a child?  Why did my five and six year old heart treasure this image of a wandering dog along with this tune and these lyrics so profoundly that I could recall them perfectly 45 years later?

The “me” of 45 years ago – this old friend —  found a soul mate in the littlest hobo.  At the age of five and six, when this show was running, I felt completely alone. I lived in a pretty hostile environment with a step-mother with whom I felt no bond and who was sometimes physically abusive. Perhaps because my real mother died when I was so young, I thought about death constantly and was always amazed people didn’t talk about this. I concluded that they just didn’t get it, and that I was the only one who really understood that we all come to an end. It always struck me that this single fact rendered most of the stuff “normal” people worry about pretty meaningless.

I felt things deeply, but I stuttered terribly and so couldn’t communicate what was going on inside of me. I’m not sure I would have had much of an audience even without this impairment. I spent an enormous amount of time alone in an imaginary world, conjuring up narratives that centered on airplanes, trains, soldiers, dinosaurs and angels. Most were created with the aid of only a stick and a string that I’d vigorously spin to help conjure up the desired images.

I never felt at home or connected in the real world – just like the littlest hobo. Alone, he traveled along “a road without end.”  But this dog didn’t mind, and this this is what I admired about him. He chose to drift from town to town, stumbling into one adventure after another. He came to terms with his aloneness by viewing the whole world as his friend.

He was a comrade on my lonely journey and a hero.

The old friend of 45 years ago got it partly right. We are born and die utterly alone, and we are, in a very real sense, trapped inside our own experience all the while we live. Whether we stutter or not, the core of our internal experience is utterly incommunicable. In a very real sense, we are aliens to one another. Yet, 45 years of living has taught me, thankfully, that  this is not the whole story. The other side of the story is that in love, and with great effort, we are able to touch, and at least partially enter, each other’s private worlds. Precisely in the shared experience of our aloneness, we need never be alone.

The old friend didn’t know any of this 45 years ago. But at least he had his imaginary world and a fellow comrade in the little hobo to look up to.

Reach out to someone today…

especially little kids.

Greg