Some of Thomas Paquette’s landscape paintings currently on display at the Erie Art Museum are based on views the Warren-area man first saw while hitchhiking and hopping freight trains across the country.
Paquette, 67, spent seven years on the road after dropping out of college. He knew that he wanted to be an artist and figured that the best way to see nature was through the open doors of a box car.
“I had read a book about hopping freight trains and I figured that it was the biggest adventure a person can do for free,” Paquette said with a soft laugh…