The Boxcar Children and the Tiny Home Movement

When I was growing up and going to college in Western and Central Pennsylvania, it was not uncommon to see railroad boxcars occasionally dotting the landscape. I'm not talking about the little red caboose that might sit at an old, defunct railroad terminal in some small town. I'm talking about the big rectangular box cars, usually wooden, with the big sliding doors, sitting on the old rusted frame with metal wheels. And they weren't sitting on some abandoned rail line. Most of the time they were in a field, or a gully along a stream bed, or simply in the yard of some farmhouse.

I always thought about "The Boxcar Children" series of books that I read as a child from my elementary school library whenever I would pass one. Another thing that was talked about quite a bit in movies and in the classroom when I was young was the hobo movement. Another societal group living, even temporarily, in boxcars. I used to fantasize about running away and traveling the country as a hobo. With my clothing tied in a bundle at the end of a stick slung over my shoulder, I would wander around the towns of the middle states, making a fire to cook my bacon and beans in a cast iron skillet out in the middle of a field.

It's interesting to read so much about the tiny house movement, and to see so many home shows featuring shipping container houses. It's wild to think about the fact that living in a small space is suddenly the in thing to do, when years ago many of the working class poor were forced into boxcars during The Depression.

Hopefully this is a resurgence of frugal living, in a residence that takes up a smaller footprint so that more of the land can be used for gardening and the raising of small animals in a bid for sustainability. A general refocusing on living life instead of just acquiring things to fill our big houses.

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