Alex Fleicshmann and AJ Brush are travelers. They're troubadours, hippies, hobos, street kids, what have you. They're people.
"I prefer the politically correct term of 'traveler,' but, I mean, I don't give a s---. I'm a hobo," said Brush.
"By definition," Fleicshmann pointed out, "a hobo is somebody who travels from job to job though. A tramp is somebody who asks for money."
"I guess I'm a tramp then," Brush said with a smile.
Auburn students may have noticed these two hanging around Magnolia Street last week, considering how they didn't exactly fit our mold. They played music on the street at night, and focused their efforts on moving on to the next town during the day.
The two Oregon natives have been friends since middle school, but didn't start traveling together until around six months ago. Fleicshmann, 20, started traveling the country two years ago with little more than $20 in his pocket. He's hit almost every state, except for a dozen in the mainland.
Brush, 18, was on the fence about the idea before he decided to take the plunge.
"I knew what I wanted to do as far as career goes, but I didn't want to just jump right in from graduating high school, to getting a degree, to getting a job and working at that career," Brush said. "I've always been against that whole thing. I realized that he [Alex] was all the way across the country, and it made sense. I thought well if he can do it....I mean no offense man, but like, why not? Let's see what it's like, let's try it."
Typically Brush and Fleicshmann get from place to place either by hitchhiking or hopping trains. Fleicshmann had a job lined up out of high school, and gave himself four months to travel before his job started.
His travels started off mainly around California, which led him to Santa Cruz. It was here that he met other street kids and traveling folk. He began traveling up north with them, and quickly became hooked on the life style.
Street kids, like Fleicshmann and Brush, are youths traveling around the country with not much more than the clothes on their back, a few essentials kept in a backpack and an instrument or two. There are thousands of them, an entire culture out there that most of us are unaware of.
"Any big city we go to, we run into somebody we've met in another big city doing the same thing," said Fleicshmann.
"Or if we haven't met them yet, we'll get to know them, and then meet them again later," Brush added.
After hitting Santa Cruz, Fleicshmann continued traveling around with other street kids, and eventually wound up on the East Coast. This is where the two met up with each other again.
Brush's exodus from his hometown was similar to Fleicshmann's. Hitchhiking out of Oregon, he was headed to Montana. A truck driver picked him up and told him he could take him to the border of Montana from Idaho, or to Nebraska. In an act of spontaneity, Brush chose Nebraska.
"It turned out not to be any fun though. I hauled my ass all the way to the East Coast, and ended up meeting up with him," said Brush.
After they had reunited, they spent about a month in Vermont at a Rainbow Gathering.
Rainbow Gatherings are where huge groups of travelers and street kids will meet up for months at a time. They set up temporary communities in the woods, and stay there until it's time to move on.
When the guys aren't at a Rainbow Gathering, or staying somewhere for an extended amount of time, normality becomes unpredictable.
"Usually I'll just wake up from my shelter, which is like under a bridge, or a hammock set up under a dock or something, maybe an abandoned house. I grab all my crap, go into town and see all the other street kids somewhere. We just start asking people for their leftovers and stuff, and play music to try and make some money. We do whatever we run into, it changes on a daily basis," said Brush.
That's just if they're in a city, though. If the guys are in a more rural area, they'll sleep in thickets of bushes or under trees.
"You know on the interstate where you see all that green crap?" said Brush.
"Usually we're back there," said Fleicshmann.
The goal is to be able to get up and move on without being noticed by the public, especially the unfriendly cops that have woken them up before.
It's easy to forget how massive our country is. As the guys travel from place to place, changes in culture and personality never stop to amaze them.
"It's weird to feel like a foreigner in a country that we're from, you know?," said Fleicshmann. "Like to not know what the East Coast is like, not know what the South is like. It's all extremely different. There's tons of undiscovered stuff in your country. You can go to the other side of the country and back, and feel like you're in a whole different place. It's really cool. l'm from up north so going down south, made me feel like I was in a very foreign land."
One thing the guys love especially about their culture and way of life is how grateful it makes them for every small blessing sent their way. They don't always get to eat, have a place out of the rain to sleep, have cigarettes to smoke or even another person to talk to.
While they were in Auburn, Fleicshmann and Brush set up camp in the home of an Auburn local.
"We don't have to worry about cops waking us up in the morning, rain, losing our stuff, anything like that. It's beautiful," said Fleicshmann.
Gratitude for what you have in life and helping each other out are the main ideals that these guys live by.
"When it comes down to it, just be grateful for what you got," said Brush. "And don't be afraid to lend a helping hand if you can."
Street kid lifestyle may not appeal to everyone. The traveling part of it seems exciting, but doesn't it get tiring after a while? Isn't it exhausting not to have a place to call home?
That's exactly the beauty of it. Home doesn't lie in a house you live in or having a bed to sleep in. Home is about the people you're with, and finding a place for you in the world. Fleicshmann and Brush can make a home out of just about anywhere they go.
"You're going to meet awesome people everywhere you go," said Fleicshmann. "You're going to find your place everywhere you go. If you don't, then you just leave. Find it somewhere else."
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