Posted by Mike Shaffer on June 25, 2000 at 00:04:53:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Family Values posted by James Elliott on June 24, 2000 at 21:39:53:

Sure that's all a gimme, but its still pretty amazing for anyone to have attempted it. I doubt there were many 15 year olds at that time scouring the countryside looking for work, sleeping in lumberyards or train yards, hitching rides on trains or tramping on a steamer to some godforsaken part of the world. It may have been one heckuvan education, but not one many would have signed on for at any age. Your point is well taken because a lot of kids were dropping out of school back then, and as you fellas said helping out. Louis hit the road to he knew not where, sleeping where he could, and eating or drinking when he could with no real idea of what tomorrow might bring or when his next meal might be. Kids that dropped out to help out still had a support system. LL's was so far away that there was no net. A lot of this comes out in his writings, and sometimes when the hero is scaling that shear rock face, I wonder if that isn't how Louis must have felt on many a cold and lonely night.

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