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Rolling Nowhere


Fox Mulder

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Guest me IS cool

Get yourself a book called BOMB THE SUBURBS, it has a good segment on the fr8 movement... I read it and it wasn't the best but you do learn some useful information... well I did anyway. :D

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I have also read freight train cars... decent stuff, even though it feels like a childrens book....

 

also I am currently reading: classic american railroads and the rail lines of southern new england and a book about sailor tattoos... all at the same time

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Rolling Nowhere is by Ted Conover, an excellent book. He even mentions one of his riding buddies doing "phantom strikes again" streaks on boxcars, some of that guys stuff is still visible on old southern pacific cars. The book came out around 1981 and is still probably the most up to date book written about factual hopping experiences.

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Guest fr8lover

im about halfway through the book and its really interesting...but i cant get it out of my head that a lot of it seems like he may have embellished in parts, as far as conversations and people go it seems like theres quite a bit of creativity going into it...who knows.

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If you want a neat book about the railroads...

 

www.deskmap.com check out the Professional Railroad Atlas of north america.. its fucking expensive, but its got a ton of good info.. and maps.. maps .. maps.. Me and some freinds pooled money to get it, and I can say its been semi worthwhile.. the best part is being able to look up the call #'s on anything and find out where its from. (what company that is)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just ordered "Rolling Nowhere"

 

Just took a trip down to my local suburban wasteland mall and ordered "Rolling Nowhere," by Ted Conover. Barnes&Noble don't carry it, but they can get it, unlike "Hopping Freight Trains in America," which I had to order from the publisher. My wife was back in the Music Section while I was perusing some books about the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. She bought a Travis Tritt CD ("Down the Road I Go") that has some pretty good cuts on it. I know that probably very few of you guys listen to country & western, and frankly, I find a lot of it pretty boring. But I do enjoy the really old stuff (Bob Wills especially--western swing) and "crossover" country. Here in Houston there is a country station that plays ten songs in a row that "Sound Like Texas"--every song has either some direct connection to Texas (Texas artist, recorded here, the subject is about Texas or SOMETHING) and they play blues, rock'n'roll and '60s and '70s tunes that "sound like Texas." They play the hell out of old Travis Tritt. One of these tunes, "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde" has some haunting ass Dobro licks. I like a couple of the other cuts too, especially a hot rock 'n' roll version of "Southbound Train.". Anybody out there like bluegrass? I love bluegrass music. I was astounded to discover bluegrass musicians in Okinawa and mainland Japan, and damn good ones, too.

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Kabar, have you read Rolling Nowhere in the past ? If not then you're gonna love it. I know it was out of print and hard to get for a while but have heard its recently become available again. Conover's other books are also very interesting, especially "NewJack" and "Coyotes". He always places himself in these forbidden and/or most undesirable situations, lives through them (luckily),and then proceeds to write extremely interesting books about them. Definitely one of my favorite authors.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My copy of "Rolling Nowhere" finally showed up, and I think it's a great book. Conover did a good job. I'm about halfway through it, and so far I'm enjoying it immensely. The only drawback is that Conover is essentially a tourist with good camouflage, but that still doesn't detract from the story. While many of the guys I knew (including myself) could have probably written a book like this, I doubt any of us could have successfully gotten published. Thanks for the suggestion---it's WELL WORTH the cover price.

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Guest wakassOATH

Re: Just ordered "Rolling Nowhere"

 

Originally posted by KaBar

Just took a trip down to my local suburban wasteland mall and ordered "Rolling Nowhere," by Ted Conover. Barnes&Noble don't carry it, but they can get it, unlike "Hopping Freight Trains in America," which I had to order from the publisher. My wife was back in the Music Section while I was perusing some books about the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. She bought a Travis Tritt CD ("Down the Road I Go") that has some pretty good cuts on it. I know that probably very few of you guys listen to country & western, and frankly, I find a lot of it pretty boring. But I do enjoy the really old stuff (Bob Wills especially--western swing) and "crossover" country. Here in Houston there is a country station that plays ten songs in a row that "Sound Like Texas"--every song has either some direct connection to Texas (Texas artist, recorded here, the subject is about Texas or SOMETHING) and they play blues, rock'n'roll and '60s and '70s tunes that "sound like Texas." They play the hell out of old Travis Tritt. One of these tunes, "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde" has some haunting ass Dobro licks. I like a couple of the other cuts too, especially a hot rock 'n' roll version of "Southbound Train.". Anybody out there like bluegrass? I love bluegrass music. I was astounded to discover bluegrass musicians in Okinawa and mainland Japan, and damn good ones, too.

 

hey kabar.. i saw on one of yer posts that you were in the marines.. did you fight in the vietnam war? man it was fuked up. im in saigon at the moment

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WackassOATH-- Yes, I am a former Marine; but no, I did not serve in Vietnam, although I am about the right age to have done so. Two of my brothers-in-law did serve in Vietnam---one as an Army helicopter door gunner and one as a Marine Corps infantry platoon and company commander. It was a very difficult time. In many respects, I think the Vietnam War had similarities to the Civil War, in that it severely divided the United States and that the division lasted a long time. I was against the war in Vietnam, but in retrospect, if I had it to do all over again, I would have volunteered to serve. I have an acquaintance with whom I attended high school, who enlisted in the Navy and became a gunner's mate on a "brown water Navy" PBR (Patrol Boat, Riverine), and who was decorated for his service. He told me privately that he and his shipmates went on patrol high as a kite most of the time. My brother-in-law who served as a door gunner said that he was a ground pounder for the first couple of months he was in-country, and hated the heat, humidity and insects so badly that he volunteered for door gunner duty, one of the most dangerous MOS's in Vietnam. The combat life expectancy of a helicopter door gunner was less than a week. He did it for a year, and came home unwounded, although I cannot say "unharmed." My other brother-in-law was a Marine lieutenant who led an infantry platoon in numerous engagements. He was wounded slightly in the head by shrapnel from an RPG rocket. He lost five young Marines killed in action and a dozen or so wounded. Of the Marines who were killed, he once told me tearfully, "My Marines will be 18, handsome and brave, forever." He mourned them and agonized over his combat decisions, worrying that it was some miscalculation on his part that resulted in their deaths.

People think of combat soldiers as calloused brutes. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My brother-in-law who was a door gunner married while stationed in Asia, and has two Asian-American sons, my nephews, who grew up in rural Washington State, in a cowboy town.

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Kinda Off Topic--My Bust

 

Marijuana was available in great abundance and very cheaply in Vietnam, in fact, the Viet Cong often were the dealers. In their opinion, it was a two-fer. They not only made a lot of money for "the cause," but they got to addict stupid American druggies to harder and harder drugs, Heroin and opium was available there very cheaply as well. Many returning G.I.'s had a habit that cost about $500 a day to maintain, here in the States. There, it cost perhaps $5 a day or less. The heroin and opium were of very high quality. Along with the drugs, prostitution was rampant. Nearly every base had it's "Dogpatch", a small settlement outside every base peopled by prostitutes, barbers, drug dealers, shoe-shine boys and so forth.

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Guest wakassOATH

yea lotsa drugs are still easy to get in vietnam..and well hookers are pretty much everywhere.

 

damn man that war was fuked up.. i went to the musiem.. like babys in jar of formaldihide(sp?) with like 2 heads and shit from the chemicals the u.s dropped on em

now i know both sides were doing fuked up shit.. but there were alot of u.s G.I in that war that should have been in a metal house

what kind of dip shit.. would gather everyone in a village.. full of women and children.. line them up next to a ditch and mow their asses down with m16s.. then procied to de capatate their heads off.. and get there photo taken with the heads of children in their hands

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What kind of person would do such a thing? A very sick person, probably someone who was high as a kite when he did it. Here's another question though. What kind of officer would permit his troops to behave in such a manner? Answer: One not in control of them. The Marines were involved in a lot fewer of these sorts of atrocities than the Army. Army troops tended to be more "out of control" than the Marines, but even that is no excuse. If you are referring to Lt. Calley and the massacre at My Lai, the troops were out for revenge for the deaths of some U.S. soldiers ambushed by Communists operating from a village nearby My Lai. Some of them tried to stop the massacre, but the men who did the shooting were so filled with a murderous rage that they threatened to kill even G.I.'s that protested. Calley got a cream puff trial and "took the fall" for higher ranking officers. It was a cover-up.

In addition to that, there were plenty of atrocities on both sides, with wounded Americans often getting blinded and castrated, etc. War is a horrible thing. Once things become revenge-filled, and people's behavior revolves around hatred, "horror" takes on an entirely new dimension. During WWII American troops routinely used flame throwers on Japanese positions that refused to surrender. Hundreds of Japanese, perhaps thousands, were sealed alive in caves on Okinawa by demolishing the entranceways to the tunnels. People can do some awful things to one another in war time. And grudges last a long time. You be careful in Vietnam, fella.

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