Life was good when I was a child. My parents were pretty terrific and I had no reason to want to alter my living situation in any major way. Dinner was on the table every night. I possessed a Nintendo. Still, I entertained the idea of running away from home, as I suppose most children do.

I had read tales of adventurous youngsters taking a cue from hobos and hopping the next boxcar to start anew with nothing but a few possessions stowed in their bindle. The notion of leaving everything behind and entering a world of excitement and uncertainty was romantic and attractive to me. Equally attractive was the notion of the bindle itself.

I was, and remain, to a certain degree, obsessed with bindles. The bindle seemed to me to be the most perfect symbol of a life without care, responsibility or worry. The bindle meant freedom. Also, it was weird and kind of neat-looking, though impractical. Can anyone tell me the benefit of collecting your meager belongings into a bandana and then tying that bandana onto the end of a long stick, then hoisting that stick over your shoulder? The answer is that there are no notable benefits and that simply holding a sack containing your goods would require much less effort. Perhaps the idea is that having a long stick would come in handy in a number of hobo situations (e.g. using it as a walking stick or a weapon to fend off competing hobos). But it was the strangeness and impracticality of the bindle that captivated me.

So captivated was I, that one day when I was 6 or 7, I decided to make a run for it. I was done with my home life as I knew it and I informed my mother that I was running away. I went out to the grove behind our house to find a nice, long stick, carefully packed my bindle with mostly candy bars, a sandwich my mom made for me, and a few toys I was convinced I could not live without (A few G.I. Joes, if my memory serves. Almost certainly a Snake Eyes action figure.) and set out for my new life. I think I made it as far as the next block over before turning back, but not before consuming at least a couple candy bars and the sandwich.

That’s the first and only time I’ve actually constructed a bindle of my own, though I still think about it often.

What I’m saying is, if you ever see me walking into the distance with a bindle, just let me keep walking. Because man, I’m gone.