Socially Distant: Lonely Heiney Alan Meister's Life In Black & White

Grafton. Neither words nor pictures can do it justice.

It is a rare and wonderful thing to have the opportunity to interview an actual, living hobo, for obvious reasons - not the least of which is the stories they possess. I prefer to share these using the hobo's own words, but Lonely Heiney Alan Meister's interview answers were so riddled with profanity and other offensive language (don't ask), I thought it best that I paraphrase liberally. 

To wit:  He "found" a camera - a Woldemar Beier model Ia with only the first shot of film exposed - in Grafton, West Virginia. Paraphrasing: Grafton looks like a diseased colon turned inside-out, and it smells about the same, but the B and O hotel sure looked nice. Between 1933 and 1944 he shot the 11 remaining frames of a 12-exposure 35mm roll.

I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me...

The second shot - smoky greatness in the mountains surrounding Clingman's Dome, Tennessee. Up there, I was never more alone - or farther from the rails. Don't get me wrong - I liked people. I only walked alone because I was sure I still carried the Spanish flu that killed my folks (Well, my mother. My father fell off the sidewalk.) in 1918.

Wait. What?

Frame #3: A pelican - possibly in Florida or Georgia. I don't know. Somewhere on the Gulf Coast. Near Biloxi, maybe? That bird was NOT at peace with my proximity. But I threw him a fish from some fellow's bucket, and he followed me halfway to Birmingham.

Cows.

More cows.

Okay. Kind of a lot of cows.

What's with all the cows, says I. The fuzzy cows were in Winchester, Virginia in 1934. The black steer is near Leesburg, the same year. The dairy cows are outside of Dickerson, Maryland, 1935. What? I went through kind of a cow phase.

What happened... to the trees...

Ah. Logging railroad. Got it.

The images of a hillside nearly stripped of trees, and a shay locomotive told me all I needed to know, but I asked anyway. Bald Knob, West Virginia, he said (minus seven expletives). They cut down trees not even planted yet. I loved watching those shays churn their way up those hills, but the destruction made me sad.

More cows. Okay. Back on track...

Woodland cows. Why not?

Near good ol' Harrisonburg, Virginia, I think. Them cows didn't seem to mind the floodwaters, none, but boy howdy they didn't want their picture took. Those heifers in the woods next to the N&W in Shenandoah Junction [West Virginia] didn't mind me or the train. I spent the rest of my days aspiring to that kind of coolness.

Appalachian prison... oh what the hell???

Next: Alcatraz. What? So I went to San Fran. Lots of hoboes did. I don't have to answer to you!
 

How long did you have this camera, man?

Is that a modern RF tag on that there longhorn, I ask. Texas, he whispered, as if recalling a sighting of the great white buffalo. Texas. I walked alone, because I listened to the doctors. I would be damned before I'd pass that flu on to some other kid's parents. So I walked alone. Saw a lot of whiz-bang stuff. Took a few pictures. Kept on walkin' and had a pretty good life. I don't know much, but I know I got to this here bed without makin' anything worse.

That must count for somethin'...