Exploration 2

The profiled person I admired the most was Maury "Steam Train" Graham. This person stuck out to me most because the story he shared typically isn't looked at as a positive thing, but rather a negative. He shared a story about his life a hobo, but not a bum. After reading his message, he completely changed my outlook on a hobo. Before, I didn't know there was a distinction between a hobo and bum, but there certainly is. A hobo is basically a non lazy homeless person trying to find work, while a bum is a lazy homeless person trying to bum off everyone. Maury explained how the name "hobo" came to be and the standard that comes with being a "hobo". It's rather interesting. In the short narrative, Maury shared his story traveling out west looking for a better life and the railroad tracks basically being his home. He was proud of the life he lived and didn't want anything different.
That's also because he was alive during the Great Depression era and saw life as what it should be.

What surprised me the most about the story, was simply the story itself. I was shocked to learn while reading, that this was a sons experience with his alcoholic father. Sanders went into extensive detail about him and his fathers interactions and talked about his fathers addiction to his work and his alcohol problem. This really bothered Sanders, he would say things like, “I use the past tense not because he never quit drinking but because he quit living” (138). He felt that alcohol was ruining his fathers life and alcohol was a necessity over his own sons life life. He never said it directly, but it seamed like Sanders felt as if his dad carried more about his drinking and work than him. Anyone knows that this isn't a healthy way of living. This short story made me appreciate my father more and thankful that I wasn't born into a similar situation like Sanders.

A research questions that I came up with was "What is present day segregation like in the south?"