Hobos In Blackface

In Grants Pass, Oregon multiple tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad cut through the center of town in an east-west direction, causing the north-south main streets of the town to be blocked when trains are going and coming.  One day in the 1940s, a long freight train was leaving for Portland when two of my friends, Larry Aschenbrenner and Krum (Kroom)Theodoroff, had a sudden inspiration to hit the rails.  They were 14 at the time and no thought other than "Hey, let's hitch a ride on the train!" by one or the other triggered the adventure.

Sprinting alongside the slow-moving train Krum was in front and grabbed the steps of a flat car and swung aboard. Larry caught the next flat car, so the two Kings of the Road waved to people as the train picked up speed.  On that warm summer day they were living large, each with his own private car, speeding through the countryside.

Grants Pass sits in a valley cut by the Rogue River and there are high mountains to the north and south of town. The train slowed as it started up the mountain and the boys began to discuss how they were going to get back home.  Neither hobo could come up with a good plan.  And then disaster struck: the train sped into a long tunnel, where diesel smoke from the engines filled the tunnel air and overwhelmed the two boys. When the train finally found the light at the end of the tunnel, both were  stretched out flat, gasping for breath and painted greasy black by the smoke.

Gagging and coughing, they were terrified to see up ahead another tunnel.  It was too much for Krum who stood up and bailed, rolling head over heels down a bank.  Larry chose to ride it out and in he went to that inky hell.

The town of Glendale is about 35 miles north of Grants Pass and the train would stop there to pick up cars of lumber. Larry was rescued and his parents were called to come for him.  The train station arranged a rail runner to go for Krum, who was bruised and blackfaced but still in one piece.

Would it surprise you to learn Larry Aschenbrenner is the son of a Methodist minister?  When we were young he was the stereotypical preacher's kid with serial acts of mischief, all harmless. Then, after graduating from the University of Oregon's School of Law,  that Methodist upbringing kicked in and Lawrence Alden Aschenbrenner devoted the rest of his life to serving the interests of those less fortunate citizens left behind by societal injustice.  At great personal risk he opened a law office to defend African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and '70s. Larry's book, Civil Rights Lawyers In The South...The Untold Story has just been published and is available on Amazon.  It's a deeply moving account of the role volunteer lawyers from the North and West played in The Civil Rights movement.