I don't know where, but probably here on HN, I read a very long version of the same story. The wikipedia version was surprisingly short. I remember reading it and feeling a lot of emotions. I think this is the version:
but it seems too new... I'm sure it was more than a year ago I read about it...
EDIT: that's definitely not the one. The one I read was by an author who had had a life-long obsession with the Leatherman and wanted to retrace his steps, on his own, and he had a family. It was a haunting piece.
EDIT 2: actually, looks like it is the article. I didn't scan far enough. I guess March 2025 feels a really long time ago.
It mentions in his Wikipedia article that he had money although the source was unknown. The issue with vagrancy throughout history is not the vagrancy itself primarily, but the problems of theft and anti-social behaviors that go with it. Since this person had money, didn't steal, and seemed to mostly leave people alone, they weren't a problem and got an exemption because they were well known.
A very different man, but the book 'The Autobiography of a Super Tramp' is a fascinating read from the hayday of the tramp - about one manes tramping across the UK and USA
As long as you don’t litter and cause forest fires nobody cares if you live in the bush/caves. Hell, if you have a birth certificate you can get free health care here while living in the bush!
I wonder what it says about me or my life that my first thought was that it sounded absolutely wonderful. I had a good stretch of time between jobs (fortunately voluntarily) a while back and ever since I have had a completely different outlook on life that is, sadly, not quite compatible with modern life.
During my time unemployed my pace of life was more like it is when you are on a camping/hiking trip with a group of scouts: a lot of the time spent on routine things like fetching water, lighting fires and prepping food. I would spend hours each day on prepping the dinner from scratch (beginning with walking to fetch the relevant supplies). Now when I am back to work, I have to choose if I want to spend time with my family or going with the gym, because there is not time to do both.
I do not want to be homeless or get rid of my family, but it sure would be amazing to "be able to" (of course I have a choice: I can just resign) just spend time spending time.
I lived a pretty high life in Los Angeles for 15 years, and when the time came for me to move to Europe (I'm Australian), I had two weeks where I was basically homeless before the flight home - lease expired on the apartment, circumstances with couch-surfing were not ideal - so I tried two weeks living hard, to see what it was like, as I was also going to have a 6 month hiatus before Europe, back home in the Australian outback, which is a different definition of rough - so I thought, what the heck, why not see what its like. I'd lived in a bubble in LA for so long, the bubble had burst, so why not just try it for a couple of weeks and see how far I got .. I kitted myself out with a sleeping bag and a tent and all the rudimentary camping basics, and headed out of my cushy Los Feliz neighborhood, onto the streets.
It was the hardest thing I'd ever done to myself. My gear was stolen within days, I got beat up and nearly stuck with dirty heroin needles at least 3 times, almost arrested twice, and yeah .. it just generally sucked. I was not prepared for the hardship.
6 months in the Australian desert after that experience definitely made me appreciate the Australian desert a lot more than I had previously, and I will never, ever try this experiment in an American city again.
Its not the street that'll get to you. Its the street life. If I were the only homeless bum in the area, I would've done better I think - but it was all too easy to filter out to skid row after having been chased out of pretty much every 'sanctity' spot I could find, under bridges and in the Griffith Park area - whether by cops or by other homeless people. It was pretty stupid of me, in hindsight. I really didn't need to do it, I was just trying to push my boundaries before heading into the Kimberley region to eat snakes and lizards. That was, by comparison, a far better experience than the reptiles of LA. Would not recommend.
It may be romanic because you have not yet understood the real life
consequences of the "lifestyle".
The problems, health risks, and stress it brings with it.
> a lot of the time spent on routine things like fetching water, lighting fires and prepping food. I would spend hours each day on prepping the dinner from scratch
I think about this a lot when it comes to AI automation for coding.
Yes, it's nice if an AI can speed up the sort of semi-mindless parts of programming. But I strongly suspect that I need those spans of time for my mind to do the background processing necessary for the actual intellectually challenging parts of the job.
I've written two books and anyone who has done that will telling that writing is exhausting. It's an act that is almost purely intellectual with very little menial labor. And it is so utterly draining that it's hard to do for more than a couple of hours a day.
I don't relish programming turning into that. I like the easy refactoring and bug fixing tasks because they provide a respite between periods of very deep thinking while still keeping me mostly focused on the overall problem domain. I suspect I would be an overall worse engineer if I lost those.
Surely you're taking a lunch break now that you're back to work, and that is enough time to hit the gym and scarf down some nutrients afterwards, leaving after work for family time. It only takes 15-20 minutes of activity per day to maintain fitness.
> ... and ever since I have had a completely different outlook on life that is, sadly, not quite compatible with modern life.
I hear you. For about two years I got to live in a rural area, on the sea side, 45 minutes drive from the closest highway. 5000 people villages was a 15 minutes drive.
Chopping wood to then heat the house, having animals pass in front of me while I'd be reading HN under the porch before going to bed.
Walking just for the sake of walking from the house to the sea and then back.
Heny Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
That and the quote about cities being about mystification.
(3 minutes elapsed)
Ah, found it (first read it for someone posted here on HN btw):
Thomas Merton's Raids On The Unspeakable: "I am alien to the noises of cities, of people, to the greed of machinery that does not sleep, the hum of power that eats up the night. Where rain, sunlight and darkness are contemned, I cannot sleep. I do not trust anything that has been fabricated to replace the climate of woods or prairies. I can have no confidence in places where the air is first fouled and then cleansed, where the water is first made deadly and then made safe with other poisons. There is nothing in the world of buildings that is not fabricated, and if a tree gets in among the apartment houses by mistake it is taught to grow chemically. It is given a precise reason for existing. They put a sign on it saying it is for health, beauty, perspective; that it is for peace, for prosperity; that it was planted by the mayor’s daughter. All of this is mystification. The city itself lives on its own myth. Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world. They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing it from renewing itself and man."
Thankfully I still go to that place where I used to live, several times a year. Sky is so clear I can many stars.
Once my kid shall turn 18, I plan to go back live there.
I don't think us humans were meant to be stacked in cities and high-rises like ants. It's just like communism: great theory but wrong species.
> I have to choose if I want to spend time with my family or going with the gym
Wife does her gym at home: proper stuff in gym gear. Mostly just simple exercises: no crazy gear besides a few weights. No driving to the gym so twice the time saved. No need to shower at the gym or seat all sweaty in the car.
Gives me an idea of an ultra endurance event... Think "Ironman" of walking. Let's say participants would have two weeks to complete the 587 km course or some part of it and whoever finished first is the Leatherman.
Do you have to walk? I get that power walking exists as a sport. But no way to easily disqualify people from running instead of walking. Plenty of ultras exist though this would be a cool theme.
Fun fact: you can visit his cave in Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, Westchester county. Interesting place. Not many people around. You can sit in the cave and try to imagine the life he lived.
42 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 63.8 ms ] threadInteresting character for sure, this leatherman.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/magazine/old-leatherman-w...
but it seems too new... I'm sure it was more than a year ago I read about it...
EDIT: that's definitely not the one. The one I read was by an author who had had a life-long obsession with the Leatherman and wanted to retrace his steps, on his own, and he had a family. It was a haunting piece.
EDIT 2: actually, looks like it is the article. I didn't scan far enough. I guess March 2025 feels a really long time ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/podcasts/the-daily/old-le...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_a_Super...
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1646104/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/magazine/old-leatherman-w...
During my time unemployed my pace of life was more like it is when you are on a camping/hiking trip with a group of scouts: a lot of the time spent on routine things like fetching water, lighting fires and prepping food. I would spend hours each day on prepping the dinner from scratch (beginning with walking to fetch the relevant supplies). Now when I am back to work, I have to choose if I want to spend time with my family or going with the gym, because there is not time to do both.
I do not want to be homeless or get rid of my family, but it sure would be amazing to "be able to" (of course I have a choice: I can just resign) just spend time spending time.
It was the hardest thing I'd ever done to myself. My gear was stolen within days, I got beat up and nearly stuck with dirty heroin needles at least 3 times, almost arrested twice, and yeah .. it just generally sucked. I was not prepared for the hardship.
6 months in the Australian desert after that experience definitely made me appreciate the Australian desert a lot more than I had previously, and I will never, ever try this experiment in an American city again.
Its not the street that'll get to you. Its the street life. If I were the only homeless bum in the area, I would've done better I think - but it was all too easy to filter out to skid row after having been chased out of pretty much every 'sanctity' spot I could find, under bridges and in the Griffith Park area - whether by cops or by other homeless people. It was pretty stupid of me, in hindsight. I really didn't need to do it, I was just trying to push my boundaries before heading into the Kimberley region to eat snakes and lizards. That was, by comparison, a far better experience than the reptiles of LA. Would not recommend.
I think about this a lot when it comes to AI automation for coding.
Yes, it's nice if an AI can speed up the sort of semi-mindless parts of programming. But I strongly suspect that I need those spans of time for my mind to do the background processing necessary for the actual intellectually challenging parts of the job.
I've written two books and anyone who has done that will telling that writing is exhausting. It's an act that is almost purely intellectual with very little menial labor. And it is so utterly draining that it's hard to do for more than a couple of hours a day.
I don't relish programming turning into that. I like the easy refactoring and bug fixing tasks because they provide a respite between periods of very deep thinking while still keeping me mostly focused on the overall problem domain. I suspect I would be an overall worse engineer if I lost those.
I hear you. For about two years I got to live in a rural area, on the sea side, 45 minutes drive from the closest highway. 5000 people villages was a 15 minutes drive.
Chopping wood to then heat the house, having animals pass in front of me while I'd be reading HN under the porch before going to bed.
Walking just for the sake of walking from the house to the sea and then back.
Heny Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Full quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2690-i-went-to-the-woods-be...
That and the quote about cities being about mystification.
(3 minutes elapsed)
Ah, found it (first read it for someone posted here on HN btw):
Thomas Merton's Raids On The Unspeakable: "I am alien to the noises of cities, of people, to the greed of machinery that does not sleep, the hum of power that eats up the night. Where rain, sunlight and darkness are contemned, I cannot sleep. I do not trust anything that has been fabricated to replace the climate of woods or prairies. I can have no confidence in places where the air is first fouled and then cleansed, where the water is first made deadly and then made safe with other poisons. There is nothing in the world of buildings that is not fabricated, and if a tree gets in among the apartment houses by mistake it is taught to grow chemically. It is given a precise reason for existing. They put a sign on it saying it is for health, beauty, perspective; that it is for peace, for prosperity; that it was planted by the mayor’s daughter. All of this is mystification. The city itself lives on its own myth. Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world. They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing it from renewing itself and man."
Thankfully I still go to that place where I used to live, several times a year. Sky is so clear I can many stars.
Once my kid shall turn 18, I plan to go back live there.
I don't think us humans were meant to be stacked in cities and high-rises like ants. It's just like communism: great theory but wrong species.
> I have to choose if I want to spend time with my family or going with the gym
Wife does her gym at home: proper stuff in gym gear. Mostly just simple exercises: no crazy gear besides a few weights. No driving to the gym so twice the time saved. No need to shower at the gym or seat all sweaty in the car.
She does 20 or 30 minutes each day.
Seeing his picture and then reading this I fully expect that he's still walking the route as a zombie and always has been a zombie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_ultra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism
Crazy things like people walking 1 mile every hour for 1000 hours, grabbing bits of sleep within those hours.