New Hobo King Bums Around

--Frisco Jack, a tramp from “someplace in Pennsylvania,” won the king’s crown at the Britt (Iowa) Hobo Convention, and seven-time hobo queen Long Looker Mic of Iowa added an eighth victory after being out of office since 1982. Last year’s king, Fry Pan Jack, decided not to run again. Contestants tell or sing their nominating speeches and spectators pick the new rulers by acclamation. The crowd, estimated at 20,000, ate Britt out of Mulligan stew, a traditional hobo dish made from anything the cook has around. City officials handed out “hobo bucks”--good for groceries or a hot meal at a local restaurant--and pitched a leaky tent for shelter from the weather. But the amenities weren’t enough to persuade the new king to hang around. Told he should stay a few hours for photographs and interviews, Frisco Jack told his hosts: “I don’t stay two hours anywhere.”

--Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter joined the tourists and Washingtonians having lunch at a popular capital cafeteria five blocks from the White House. They were on their way back to Georgia with a busload of volunteers who spent the week rehabilitating an apartment building in New York City. A number of diners stopped by their table to greet them, and after the meal, Mrs. Carter thanked the kitchen workers for the lunch. At the end of the serving line, the Carters were greeted by a portrait of a smiling President Reagan.

--Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie and Tom Paxton headlined the first Newport Folk Festival since 1969, which drew about 5,000 persons to the seaside Rhode Island town. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, wandering troubadour and longtime friend of the late Woody Guthrie, drove in from Alaska to open the show. “I drove five days and five nights to get here, with no sleep from Oregon, just to come to one gig, and I wasn’t doing it for the money,” he said. “I’m going on the energy of an image that I remember from the past.” The past includes a 1964 civil rights march led by Baez and country-Western star Johnny Cash. The march, from a self-service laundry to the center of town, was delayed while Baez took her clothes out of a dryer. The new setting, a seaside fort built during the War of 1812, was far different from the old Festival Field hillside where the event was last held 16 years ago, before rowdies sent the Newport Jazz Festival packing for New York City and ended the companion Folk Festival. “This is beautiful,” Elliott said. “People parachuting through the sky, some of the world’s most beautiful sailboats. . . . Thank the Lord for providing the lighting, the backdrop and the weather.”