Friends recall Cream City Slim during memorial service

They may have been returning from South Dakota after making a pilgrimage with thousands of others who gather each August for the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.

More than a 100 yards away, a group of hobos had made their own pilgrimage to Britt for this week's National Hobo Convention and Hobo Days. The roar of the motorcycles could be heard in the cemetery, but the sounds within the cemetery were quieter as hobos gathered to mourn the friends they've lost. They honored and mourned hobos, who in hobo language, have caught the westbound.

"It's time to go, it's time to go," sang Rose Tattoo, a singing group that honors the hobo life. 

The group has performed together for six years. They organized a tour to attend the hobo convention and share in Friday's memorial service, group member Rik Palieri, or Totem Pole, his hobo name. They wanted to honor a longtime friend, Larry Penn, or Cream City Slim of Milwaukee.

The group sang a song written by Cream City Slim, who died in October 2014.

"He was a great songwriter," said Mark Ross, a member of Rose Tattoo. "No one could turn a phrase like him. No one could match that."

Cream City Slim wrote "working man songs. Songs for the common man. He understood what it meant to get by," said Bob Suckiel of Rose Tattoo.

Cream City Slim wrote songs as "common as the dirt and as beautiful as the sky," Suckiel said.

The songwriter was a trucker and was once a Teamster, an Oct. 9, 2014, story in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal said. The story described Penn as a well-respected folk songwriter and performer.

Some of his songs are part of a collection at the Smithsonian, Suckiel said. One of his most famous songs was recorded by Pete Seeger. It was a children's song called, "I'm a Little Cookie."

When he wrote "traveling back...we're rattling back to where our souls are free," Cream City Slim may have been writing about catching the next train out of town. Friday, as Rose Tattoo sang the song, the words seem to talk of catching the westbound train.

Cream City Slim was 87 when he performed for the final time. His final performance happened just before he entered a hospital, his friends said.

Suckiel and Ross said Cream City Slim would have appreciated Friday's tribute.

"He would have said 'I deserved it,'" Ross said with a laugh.

"He would have said that with his sly smile and a little wink," Suckiel said.