GATEPOSTS These was time, years ago, when we always had a fence around our house. It was not a defensive thing in the usual sense – a barricade of sorts behind which we might crouch to fire off our muskets against invading tribes of savages or door-to-door salespersons.
I lived in a small town in Southwestern Virginia where milk cows - a part of many households – were allowed to roam freely - anywhere they wished to go. Any yard with a neat lawn and flower beds and well-shaped green, leafy bushes was an invitation to any moo-moo looking for a gastronomic adventure.
You have two gates – front and back – and you kept both of them locked securely in some fashion - a piece of heavy wire looped over the first two or three palings from the heavy gatepost, or some of us had a heavy plank fitted so the ends dropped into wooden brackets and each gated post and secured the gate itself from opening inwardly. If anyone, by stupi-chance happened to put that plank-style stock-stopper on the outside of the gate, they soon learned hat cows in quest of food can be smarter than one might think them to be.
But, I'm not sittin' here to about cows or gate ...just about gate posts – and how to read them.
Reading gate post, an art which went out of fashion when prosperity returned following that era in our national history called 'The Great Depression.” Just moments ago, I heard President George W. Bush say on a TV news snippet that our current rate of “joblessness” - a 21st Century term meaning “unemployed” - was about 4.3% ,or in the those tenths somewhere. Hallelujah! In that Depression Time unemployment ranged up to twenty-five per cent and more in some areas! As a direct result, we had a great army of “hobo” persons mostly men but some women, too – who roamed our roads and railroads, in particular, in search of any kind of work they might do to earn a bare living.
Ours was a railroad town, so we had more than our natural share of such down-on-their-luck visitors. It is difficult today to separate such people from less admirable predecessors known also, as “h oboes” but in a derogatory way which classed them as: “tramps”, “bums”, “track trotters” - often with criminal backgrounds, - both real and imaginary. They avoided work rather than searched for it.
I haven't forgotten the gate post bit. The traveling persons developed a language of their own which you could read on your gate post or mail box if you realized it was there.
Hobos, in their travels, found all types of people - some good and some, well, let's say “not so good”. To save the next hobo in line man in their line some trouble and time, some of them, a few ,perhaps, not all by any means, marked their evaluation of the resident of that particular house.
The Hobo Code was had a small stock of diagrams and it varied in different sections of the country. I learned that simple plus mark that it was a good, place for simply handout; Small circles with a line under them meant you could sleep in the barn if you asked; Cross hatch of three or four lines -”bad dog, bull or man. Watch!” Two lines with waves between them. Bad water. Plain cross – religious folks; an arrow to left or right with nickname - a buddy saying he was a-going that-a-way; a vertical line with a squiggle on it – not unlike the medical caduceus said “will help if you are sick.” And, there were others, some which I never deciphered.
I am proud to say our gate post held plus marks, a cross and one snake-on-a-stick-thing. I remember it as being a tribute to my mother's good nature, concern and respect for others less fortunate than we were at the time.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-4-06 [c676 wds]
