Stockyards and Hobos – Growing Up in Dublin, Texas

In front of our house was a pasture, where my Father kept a couple of cows, and usually a few pigs. Next to the pasture was a stockyard used to keep the Rodeo stock prior to them being used in the Dublin Rodeo, and after the rodeo for them to be shipped out via the Railroad, which was next to the stockyard and the pasture. Dublin was the World Championship Rodeo Home and Headquarters from 1939 – 1959.

The fence surrounding the stockyard were round ten to twelve feet high, with heavy post every 12 feet or so. Between these post running horizontally were four to five 2 X 10 inch 12 foot long boards. Now on the very top and between each post was another 2 X 10 inch twelve foot board laying flat, so it could be walked on.

Well now you got an idea of the fence we would walk on from the corner of our Dad’s pasture to the end of the fence by the railroad docks where they would load the cattle. As luck would have it from time to time and over the years some of these boards on top would come loose and fall off. This left two inch width of the top bracing board for us to walk on. Most of the time we would accomplish this with easy just putting one foot in front of the other and balancing ourselves with our arms.

Of course when the Rodeo would come to town the stockyard would have quiet a few animals in these pens. They always would put the big brahma bulls in the pen next to Dad’s pasture. These animals are big and must weigh around a ton. They are used for Bull Riding Contest in the Rodeo. Well we would spend some time checking these bulls out and they would be snorting and swishing the flies and insects away with their tails. They looked harmless enough, just another cow so to speak, but we had been to rodeos and had seen them in action and they would buck just as high as any horse and if the cowboy came off his ride the bull would get after him. The cowboy would normally be rescued by the Rodeo Clowns teasing and pestering the bull to get its attention off the Bull Rider. It is a dangerous sport.

Well one day the Rodeo was in town , and the bulls were in the stockyard pens, and we were walking the fence. My Brother Ralph was a little over a board length ahead of me. Ralph had both just crossed over a narrow strip balancing himself ever so carefully. It was my turn to do so I took my first step and shifted my foot a bit to get it in the right position for balance and to start across too. I took it easy, step by step watching the board as I crossed using my arms to balance. I made it after a few anxious moments, reaching the flat board of the next section. I looked up to see how far Ralph had got ahead of me, but there was no Ralph.

I looked left and right on the ground below. On the side of the stockyard and a section or so ahead laid the biggest black brahma bull, I had ever seen, he was snorting and slinging his head around, and slabber and snot would fly into the air, nasty. The dust was stirred up as he got to his feet. Looking up and along the fence and there Ralph was climbing back up on top of the flat horizontal board of the section above the Bull.

I looked at him and asked if he was all right and he did not say a thing. We both smiled nervously at one another and then we laughed and continued our walk on down the top of the fence.

When we would get to the end of the stockyard and next to the railroad tracks, we would climb down the fence and then go to one of our club houses, as we would call it. It was under the dock, which the cattle would go up when they were being herded into the cattle cars for shipment. We took all kinds of stuff down there. Toys, a couple of old blankets, tin container boxes with lids, We used the tins to keep the cigarettes in along with a few cigars, the kind like Clint Eastwood smokes in the movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. From time to time hobos would pass by or we would find them rapped up in our club house. They were pretty cool nothing was ever missing. I guess they figured it was some ones place and that they were just guest, or maybe it was sort of hobo code of ethics that they didn’t. Anyway when we found them there we would sit around and talk with them and share smokes and stories. They were all right, to me.

But some people have evil streaks running through them. One time they were putting in a extra side tracks so rail cars could sit by the loading dock and other trains could pass. Well one day a train was passing and we were down by the stockyard and these tracks and a train came by moving slowly. When the train passed our club house we saw a couple hobos at the door of one of the boxcars passing by. They were waving and smiling. We waved back. Then the boxcar passed the workers working on this side track and they were all standing there with their hands behind their backs. Just as i thought this was a bit odd. They all threw clods and rocks at these hobos standing in the door opening of the boxcar. This was so sad and made me mad but I realized there was not much I could do about it. But it was one of the first times I saw how cruel mankind can be toward one another.
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Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and that it brought back few memories of you childhood days, no matter what state you hail from.

© Texas Tortilla Factory 2006 – Mike Vauthier