[Bogey78O]

Keep in mind that back then you always had to work. If you didn’t have a home/job and you wanted a family, you moved to the woods and worked the land (hunted, farmed, trapped...) just enough to eke out a living for your family. If you weren’t married you’d tramp around the country looking for work and board.

It was a rugged lifestyle but it was dignified work.

Now we’ve turned them into straight up bums.

[boop]

Yeah I forget how the hierarchy went. But I thought that "Hobos" were considered almost honorable, because they'd work for a meal and not steal. IIRC the lowest class were the true "bums" who didn't want to work at all and were crooks.

Hobos looked down severely on bums.

BTW, my wife gets mad at me when I call them bums. I asked her: "We've been seeing the same guy at the same intersection for almost 6 years now. If that's not a bum I don't know what it is." And I was only half-joking when I said wouldn't it be something if we saw a second bum on the opposite corner? it would be like seeing a double rainbow.

Sure enough, the rare "double bum".