It was the summer of 1962. Jay Kenny, Joe Cotham, Duncan Penman, and i had just graduated from high school. We left El Cajon in my 1951 Ford convertible to make some money picking fruit in Central California. Duncan had researched about agricultural labor and knew that we needed to sign up for work at a regional Farm Bureau. After a night camping out in a small park, we reached the Farm Bureau office in Morgan Hill. The staff were very helpful getting us registered and directing us to show up at an apricot orchard at 6 AM the following morning. We spent another night under the stars.
We were four of about forty pickers who showed up in the chilly morning. We weren’t the only English-speaking people there but we were definitely in the minority. The farmer who owned the orchard paid by “piece work,” meaning that some of his workers would keep track of the weight of each basket of apricots we picked. At the end of the day we would receive so many cents per pound. Another English-speaking fellow confided in me that it was more profitable to work in pairs. One would climb a ladder into the apricot tree, pick the ‘cots, and toss them to his partner standing under the tree with a basket. I unsuccessfully tried to get one of the other three to work in this way. Instead, each wanted the ‘whole’ experience.
After more than an hour of registering workers and explaining our tasks, i finally climbed a ladder into an apricot tree while toting my basket. I only found two dozen apricots in that whole tree that were as ripe as the farmer wanted. Half an hour later the whole operation was called off. The recent cool weather had delayed the ripening of the ‘cots. It seemed pretty stupid that such a mistake was made. We had to wait around while the guy in charge drove off to phone the Farm Bureau. Half an hour later he returned with the news that all of us were to be paid for our trouble; $1.35 each.
We rode in the Ford back to the Farm Bureau for another assignment. They had nothing to offer us.
I told my companions about my cousin Marlene’s husband, Jot Brown, who had a work crew that specialized in lath and plaster work. It seemed worth checking out so i gave Marlene a phone call. She doubted that her husband needed more workers but he was unavailable; he was out at a worksite. She encouraged us to drive up to Castro Valley and meet with him and we’d all have dinner together. We piled into the convertible and headed to their home in Castro Valley. In my state of fatigue, i almost caused an accident on the highway between Dublin and Castro Valley. I was stuck in the slow lane and looking for a break in the line of cars to the left of us using the side rear-view mirror. As soon as a break appeared in the mirror, i pulled to the left. If my brain had been working, i would have known that the last car before the break was now on my immediate left. The other driver had to swerve to the left onto the shoulder to prevent a collision as he laid on his horn. Yikes, i swerved back into my own lane, waking my three sleeping buddies. Fortunately, we arrived intact.
The chat over dinner with Jot Brown was thoroughly disappointing. He would not put us to work. He had no helpful suggestions and could not or would not refer us to a colleague for employment. Total bummer. The long drive was for nothing.
We tossed out sleeping bags on Marlene and Jog’s floor for the night and left Castro Valley the next morning in a funk.
Duncan asked for us to stop at a payphone. He made a call or three and then returned to the car. The Farm Bureau in Modesto suggested we take part in the tomato harvest in the Central Valley. They gave Duncan directions to a farm in the Central Valley. We hopped back in the Ford and headed to Merced.
After another night camping out, we drove miles on dirt roads, turning this way and that way and backtracking between fields that reached to the horizon. We were slightly late by the time we found the correct tomato field. The foreman did not appear too happy when confronted by white guys arriving late and with no picking experience. He mildly chewed us out for being late before he told us the color of tomatoes we were to pick – almost turning from green to red but without any red showing yet. The tomatoes were destined for the East Coast and they would ripen on the way there.
We knew enough to wear hats and light long-sleeve shirts to protect ourselves from the sun but it wasn’t long before the sun began to just crudely bake us. This was stoop labor at its worst. I expected, and got, a sore back shuffling from one plant to the next down a row that seemed half a mile long. What i did not expect was that tomato plant sap would coat the hairs on the back of my hands and on my forearms and convert each one of those hairs into a stiff needle. Reaching into a plant to pick a tomato meant brushing those stiff hairs against stems and leaves resulting in the experience of countless needle pricks.
The foreman groused at me because some of the tomatoes i picked were too ripe. I sure as hell couldn’t tell the subtle difference between the ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ tomatoes but as the day wore on, i got better at selecting the ones he wanted us to pick.
One side benefit was that we were welcome to take as many ripe tomatoes as we wished since they were only going to be left to rot in the field. You’d think that eating tomatoes during our breaks would be the last thing we’d want to do, but these were vine-ripened and wonderfully delicious. I gorged myself with the best-tasting tomatoes i had ever encountered.
We worked from 6AM to 6PM with two fifteen-minutes breaks and half an hour for lunch. By quitting time we were four miserable teenagers. Our backs ached and we had failed to sufficiently protect our ears and hands from sunlight so they were burnt red. Worse by far, the backs of our hands and forearms were raw from being poked by hair that had been transformed into stiff needles by the tomato plant sap.
We lined up and each of us was given $10 for our work. I was delighted.
We retreated to one of the wash stations provided for the pickers and proceeded to remove the worst of the dirt. It was agony trying to wash away the sap but we quickly discovered that soap and water had no effect. Each and every hair remained stiff with dried sap. I went to the car and came back with Coleman camp fuel. It did the trick dissolving the sap, but it was especially painful on my raw skin. After i used the camp fuel on my left arm, i stopped and washed off the fuel with soap and water. There had to be a better method. I walked over to another group of pickers. None of them spoke English and i certainly didn’t speak Spanish, so it took a minute for me to communicate that i wondered how they cleaned the sap off their hands. One of the pickers jumped up and walked over to a nearby tomato plant. He picked a green tomato and squeezed its juice onto my hands. The juice immediately dissolved the hardened sap coating skin and hair, It also felt somewhat soothing to my tortured skin. Soon all four of us were rid of this particular curse.
The possibility of earning $10 for every day throughout the remainder of our summer was a siren song enticing me to ignore the physical discomforts. It would make for a tougher me. Not so for my three companions. They refused to consider another miserable day picking tomatoes.
The following morning none of us could agree on anything. We groused. We swore at one another. I verbally jumped on Jay for repeatedly telling me, “You’re shitting me!”
Somehow i was alone in my salmon pink Ford convertible. Did i kick them out? Did they just decide to leave? My mind was fried. Regardless, i was on my own. Picking tomatoes was too daunting a Sisyphean task without my companions so i pondered alternatives. The World’s Fair in Seattle came out at the top of my list of things to experience. I calculated the cost of gas for the trip and found i could not afford to drive. However, i could pack up my essential items and hitchhike.
I pulled into a gas station in Merced, filled the tank with regular leaded gasoline, and talked with the owner. He invited me to park my car on his lot and assured me it wouldn’t be vandalized. I offered to pay for the service but he refused to take my money. I took the beat-up leather jacket i’d found in a Goodwill store, a change of clothes, several pair of underwear, the sleeping bag, a flashlight, a beat-up Army canteen sheathed in canvas, a few pieces of Westphalian Pumpernickel, the last bit of dried Italian salami, and a small butcher knife to cut it with. After sorting my stuff, i rolled up the sleeping bag, packed everything else into a satchel, locked the Ford, took my place on the boulevard curb, and stuck out my thumb.
My first ride was with a pair of characters out of The Grapes of Wrath by the names of Charlie and Jim. They wore worn-out overalls and grime was worn into their skin. They drove a beat-up ancient Dodge sedan. Rather, it was once a sedan. The rear seat and trunk lid had been removed and the entire upper rear of the car had been cut off. It was a crude do-it-yourself pickup truck. The roof ended just behind the front bench seat and a vertical barrier of wood planks separated the front seat from the rear storage area. There were gaps between the planks that made it possible for me to see a confusion of cooking pots, tools, clothes and cardboard boxes. A large heavy oilcloth tarp extended from the top of the wood barrier to the rear bumper.
Charlie and Jim welcomed me in with peppy greetings. Since there was no room to put my satchel and bedroll anywhere else, i stowed the bedroll on the front floor and took my place next to Jim, cramming my legs astride the bedroll and holding the satchel on my lap. The passenger-side door was missing its paneling and it took me a couple of hard slams to get the door latch to catch. Charlie and Jim were filled with the joys of living and friendship. As Charlie pulled out onto Highway 99, he prodded me to tell them all about myself. I’d barely got a few words in when the Dodge launched into a vicious shimmy. Charlie let out a war whoop, gave the steering wheel a hard turn to the right and let go of it. The car pitched crazily left, right, left, right as the steering wheel spun this way and that. Obviously, this vehicle no longer had functional shock absorbers and, more worrisome, no longer had a functional driver. Curiously, the shimmying stopped and Charlie grabbed the wheel to stop our mad pitching and swerving.
“Sorry,” he said as he pushed on the gas pedal to regain cruising speed. “That’s the only way i can get it to stop that shimmy.”
On up Highway 99 we continued in this rattletrap belching blue smoke. Twice more i was terrified by Charlie’s war whoop and the car’s deranged pitching. Charlie artfully kept it on the pavement but could not always keep it in the same lane.
To my relief, Charlie and Jim were only going as far as Turlock. He kindly left me off at the freeway entrance on the north of Turlock. My second ride came after a half-hour wait in the sun. It was with a friendly well-dressed gentleman in a well-behaved car. The two of us struck up a pleasant conversation. He was on his way to Sacramento on business. I told him about our experiences driving up from Southern California and picking ‘cots and tomatoes.
“Oh, yeah. I did my share of picking in the summer when i was your age. Hard work but satisfying. Where in Southern California are you from?” he asked.
“San Diego,” i answered.
Hearing that, he immediately shot me a glance, put on the brakes, and pulled over to the side of the freeway. “You get off here.”
Totally puzzled, i wordlessly complied, closed the door, and he sped off. What the hell was that all about?
Now i was worried about getting busted for hitchhiking on the freeway. Fortunately, the very next car stopped for me. The driver explained that he saw the car suddenly brake and drop me off. He did not want me to get in trouble for something that i had no control over. Whew. This kind fellow took me all the way to Sacramento.
Getting out of Sacramento took forever. Hundreds and hundreds of cars passed me by without a so much as a look. When a man offered me a ride to Roseville, which was not directly on my way to Seattle but still a bit farther north, i gladly accepted the ride. By the time he dropped me on Roseville Road, it was already dark. I walked a mile or so along the road before i found a protected area where i laid out my sleeping bag, made a sandwich of salami and bread, and slept under the stars.
I woke early. Looking around, i saw that Roseville Road ran along a huge railroad yard. Farther up the road were some businesses so i headed that way in search of a market to buy something to eat. No market but there was a bakery. I bought a couple of rolls and munched on them as i held out my thumb for a ride.
After a while, a fellow emerged from the bakery still wearing his apron and introduced himself. He was on break and wanted to chat. He offered me a donut from a bag he was holding.
“Where are you headed?”
“I’m going to Seattle for the World’s Fair.”
He chuckled. “You’re gonna have a long hard time hitchhiking up there. Why don’t you take the freights instead?”
“You mean freight trains? People do that? I mean people did that in the Great Depression. But today?”
He laughed. “Sure. I used to ride freights all over. Even down into Mexico. Guess i was what you call a hobo. Finally got tired of riding the rails and got this here bakery job.”
“Well, so how do you catch a freight train?”
He gave me pointers on riding the rails and how to stay out of trouble. He also gave me the bag of baked goods and explained they were a day old and were just going to get tossed out.
“Gotta get back to work. My break is over. You’ll be fine riding freights. Nice meeting you.” He shook my hand and walked back into the bakery.
I had not ever considered riding the rails or even fantasized what the experience might bring. But this ex-hobo bakery cook had convinced me to ride the rails to the World’s Fair in Seattle.
Fearfully, i crossed the road, sneaked into the railyard, located a boxcar with an open door on the northbound train the baker had pointed out to me, and discovered that i could not even get into it; the floor level was too high. I was able to put my elbows on the door sill but getting in was a puzzle yet to be solved. After several trial attempts, it worked to jump up to where i could plant my hands on the door sill and use my momentum to do a push up as i threw my left leg onto the door sill and sort of roll into the boxcar. I jumped back to the ground and practiced the move a second time. Only then did i jump down, toss my satchel and rolled-up sleeping bag into the car, and again clambered aboard, worried that a railyard policeman – called a “bull” in the parlance of freight riding – might have seen me. I was amazed at the space inside a boxcar. It’s cavernous!
Anxiously i waited for the train to leave; afraid that at any minute a bull would find and arrest me. Long minutes later, couplings banged as slack between cars was taken up – first from the front of the train and then as rapidly as toppling dominoes and growing louder until ‘my’ boxcar boomed as it was jerked forward. We were moving. The banging continued toward the rear of the train until it suddenly stopped about a mile from where it started. As my car left the boundaries of the yard i saw a dozen or more men walking up to the slow-moving boxcars, effortlessly leap aboard, and disappear from view. To my relief, none chose my boxcar.
Riding the freights was truly a novel experience. Passenger trains use suspensions engineered to insulate riders from vibrations and noise. Boxcars transmit the tiny defects at every rail joint and every miniscule change in rail direction to its solid floor. Walking over to the large open doorway on the lurching, vibrating floor felt as though the speeding boxcar was about to angrily hurl me out through the gaping void. Furthermore, the empty volume of a boxcar acts as a gargantuan soundbox, amplifying and resonating until you cannot hear your own voice. The noise level in an empty boxcar of a speeding freight train is truly prodigious and, curiously, soporific. Half an hour after the train left the railyard, i could not stay awake. I settled down with my head on my sleeping bag and gave into the sleep-inducing reverberations as the train headed north from Roseville up California’s Central Valley in mid summer of 1962.
I awoke an indeterminate time later soaking in sweat. The temperature in the boxcar was uncomfortably hot. I took several deep swallows of tepid water from the canteen before getting to my feet and walking to the open sliding door to take advantage of cooler air from the outside. The door had, however, slid nearly closed from the undamped vibrations of solid steel wheels on imperfect steel rails. It was open just far enough for me to slip my hands through the gap to push it back open. The tips of my fingers registered cooler air outside. I pushed. I pulled. I tried every position i could think of but the door continued creeping toward complete closure. Eventually i had to pull my hands free since the massive door was about to trap my hands and crush their bones as it slid into its sleeve in the doorframe. By this time, the temperature in the boxcar had become yet hotter and my discomfort rose with it
||**
I was helpless to keep the door from vibrating shut and with it went the last bit of illumination. I followed the inside walls of the boxcar with the fingers of my right hand until i stumbled into my sleeping bag and satchel against the end wall of the boxcar. I then rummaged around until i found my flashlight. The dim light it produced heightened my spirits. It was then i realized i had been too focused on the door that creeped closed; there was an identical door across from it that opened in the opposite direction!
I quickly went to the other door but it too would not open. This seemed odd since if vibrations tended to move the ‘evil’ door toward the front of the train, the other door would also logically be creeping toward the front which would cause it to open rather than close. I reasoned that perhaps it was held shut by a latch. Indeed, with not much effort i could make that door slip farther closed into its frame sleeve by a couple of finger widths by pushing against its rear edge. When i stood back, the door creeped back to its former position and stopped. Clearly there was an exterior latch preventing its opening.
There was nothing to do but wait for the train to stop and then tap out S.O.S. on the walls with something hard, like the heel of one of my boots. That should bring someone. I lay down on my sleeping bag, drank from the canteen, and dozed off.
I woke up with a dry mouth and feeling desperately thirsty. Damn it’s hot and, except for a little light around the edges of the doors, completely dark. It’s so hot i feel like i’ve got a fever. I drank the last of the water in the canteen, unbuttoned my shirt, and laid it over my satchel. The evaporating sweat on my chest felt great. I dozed off again.
I woke up gagging on the searing hot air. I felt all hot and itchy and i had a pounding headache. I scratched a bit; it didn’t help. Scratching rarely does. My boots and jeans felt awfully uncomfortable so i pulled on my right boot to get it off but it was stuck. Ditto with the left. With a lot of effort, i tackled the right boot again, finally pulled it off my foot, and tossed it and the sock aside. As i tried to force off the left boot, my left arm cramped painfully. Crap. Well at least i can get my jeans partly off. I had a hard time undoing the buckle since my fingers were swollen but i managed to undo everything and push my jeans and underpants down. My cramped left arm hurt too much to use it but with some effort i got my right leg free of clothes.
Now i noticed that the sleeping bag was burning me. As i rolled off of it my other arm spasmed. Damn it hurts. The pain makes me nauseous. As my saliva flowed, i leaned over and heaved out my stomach contents. Donuts and Danishes i guessed, but it was too dark to see. Too dizzy to care.
The roaring in my ears is louder than the noise in the boxcar. Or maybe not. I can’t tell which is which.
The dizzyness and roaring crescendoed and i’m barfing again. My stomach spasmed painfully. The air in my nose is burning. Both arms are cramping and they start flailing around all by themselves. Too painful. The dizzyness and the roaring and the nausea and the pain join together. I rose up into quietness. Floating near the roof of the boxcar, i could see me below. No longer was there total darkness. The other me was lying there brightly illuminated, half clothed, inert. I left.
**||
I realized that if the gap closed completely, i would lose a place to try leveraging the door open again, but there was nothing nearby to use as a doorstop and the door was seconds away from vibrating shut. I pulled my billfold out of my left rear pocket and jammed it into the gap down at the floor level. Immediately it was wedged tight between the door and the door jamb. I searched for a better place on the door to apply my efforts. The boxcar was now nearly pitch black inside so my investigations were mostly by touch. I felt along the inside of the door, pushing and pulling on the door’s structural reinforcements but was totally unable to budge this steel barrier.
A quick check of the gap showed that my billfold was pretty well crushed but it had stopped the door’s progress at a finger’s width from closing. Sweat ran from my forehead into my eyes and dripped from the point of my nose. I stumbled around in near complete darkness until i located my sleeping bag and satchel against the end wall of the boxcar. I rummaged around until i found my flashlight. The dim light it produced heightened my spirits. I pulled out my canteen and drank. It was then i realized i had been too focused on the door that was creeping closed; there was an identical door across from it that opened in the opposite direction.
I quickly went to the other door but it too would not open. This seemed odd since if vibrations tended to move the ‘evil’ door – paradoxically – toward the front of the train, the other door would also logically be creeping toward the front which would cause it to open rather than close. I reasoned that perhaps it was held shut by a latch. Indeed, with not much effort i could make that door slip farther closed into its frame sleeve by a couple of finger widths by pushing against its rear edge. When i stood back, the door creeped back to its former position and stopped. Clearly there was an exterior latch preventing its opening.
I had a horrible thought and quickly inspected the gap in the ‘evil’ door. I could see the arm of the latch outside the gap and realized that had i slept a few minutes longer or had i not stuck my billfold in place, i would be locked into this huge oven.
The temperature continued to rise; i could not take a deep breath without gagging on the searing-hot air. With only the tiny gap, i doubted i would still be alive by dusk.
I searched my confines with the flashlight for something to help me pry open the door. Fortunately, there were a few broken wooden planks lying near the front of the boxcar that had probably been part of a palette. I selected one that had split diagonally along an edge. I inserted the sharp end of the plank as far as it would go into the gap and tried leveraging the gap wider. The sharp end merely snapped off. I stared at the broken pieces for a while until i realized my mind was getting foggy and i was no longer sweating.
Distressed, i returned to the scattered planks, found a short piece, and returned to wedge the sharper end into the gap. I pounded on it with the flat of a second board. The wedge fell out and onto my feet. I put it back and tried again. No progress. I removed one of my boots and used it to pound on the wedge but to no avail. I pulled my wedge out and put it much lower in the gap. I turned around and kicked backwards like a mule with the heel of the boot i still wore. Almost imperceptibly, the wedge forced back the massive door but moments after i stopped kicking, the wedge worked itself back out of the vibrating door and fell to the floor.
I now realized that if i continued to force the door open to the thickness of this plank-wedge, my billfold and its precious contents of money and IDs would likely fall out of our speeding boxcar. I needed something about the same thickness of my crushed billfold. I had seen some cardboard lying somewhere in the boxcar. I could use it for a spacer that was thinner than a plank of wood. I had to locate the cardboard without my flashlight since the batteries were now dead. I plodded about my small universe. Cursing my partially befuddled mind, i finally found the cardboard at the opposite end where i thought it was. Back at the gap, i again mule-kicked my wedge and turned around to jam a folded piece of cardboard into the gap. I reached down to extract my billfold but it was still held tight. I folded cardboard into a slightly thicker spacer and mule-kicked the wedge again with sweat flying off my face. This time when i turned around, i was able to jam in the spacer and pull my billfold loose. A tiny but hopeful bit of progress.
After more pounding and kicking, the wedge progressed until its full width fit into the gap. I took another piece and jammed it into the gap at the floor level.
I tried to suck in the cooler outside air but the metal surrounding the gap burned my lips. Uncaring, the train sped through endless flat farmland with mountains standing quietly far off. The inside air was now painful to breathe. I went back to my belongings and drank the last of the water.
All i wanted to do at this point was sit and rest but unless i managed to open the door farther, i was likely to succumb to hyperthermia. I ignored my growing wooziness, raging headache, and fatigue and returned to my efforts.
I jammed a longer piece of palette plank into the gap and pulled on it to leverage the door back. The wood simply bent and broke. I inserted two planks one above the other. As i pulled on the ends of the boards, the door moved back a bit. I tried to put another piece of plank next to the one at the floor but the gap was not wide enough and the door creeped back. I had to add a spacer of folded cardboard next to my one plank spacer. Now the gap was a bit too wide for further progress using my double levers so i had to add thicknesses of cardboard to their fulcrum. And so an iterative process was created: cardboard; plank; plank and cardboard; plank and plank; plank and plank and cardboard; ad nauseum.
I could hear a new sound joining the cacophonous reverberations of the boxcar; my ears were loudly ringing. I kept telling myself that cleverness and perseverance would prevail; that i was smart enough and dogged enough to get out of this predicament.
I repeatedly ratcheted the door slightly more open and eventually was able to jam my loose boot into the gap to hold the door at bay. Because i had to add more thicknesses to my lever of scrap wood, the lever got harder to manage but the increased flow of air coming through the gap raised my hopes.
By creating a new fulcrum of scrap wood and other adjustments as the gap widened, i was finally, after several attempts, able to force my left leg into the gap with my left ear against the hot steel door. Standing with my back against the door jamb and the door tight against my chest, i slipped one hand between my neck and the door and my other hand over my head and shoved. Nothing. I took a big breath, screamed and as i screamed shoved with all my strength against this adversary. Nothing.
I went back to using my levers until i exacted a slightly wider gap from this recalcitrant deadly door. This time when i put myself into the gap, i was able to also use some leg strength. Nothing. I screamed again and shoved and the door gave slightly. Panting, i repositioned myself, screamed and shoved again. Slowly and then more quickly, the door retreated. With every ounce of determination and waning strength, i was just barely able to march it wide open. As soon as i let go, it began inching closed. I grabbed one of the cardboard spacers and kicked it under the leading edge of the door. Since the entire door was supported on wheels above the door opening, the cardboard wedge seemed to work well as a doorstop. I also laid a couple of planks lengthwise in the opening but there was nothing to hold them in place; they just vibrated out the doorway and fell to the ground that was speeding past.
I stood and enjoyed the blast of air through the open door. Even if it was scorching to the cows and farmers we passed, it was heavenly to me.
I put my boot back on and rested sitting up. Exhausted, fiercely thirsty, but alive and likely to survive a while longer. I did not dare go to sleep since i did not trust my cardboard doorstop.
Sometime later, the train began to slow. I waited until we came to a complete stop. I hopped out and looked about for a brook or pond, first on one side of the train and then with trepidation i eyed the couplings between boxcars. If the train began moving, the couplings would lurch with enough force to remove a hand or a foot. Fearfully, i climbed over the couplings to the other side. No water was to be seen on that side either.
It occurred to me that if i could unlatch the ‘other door’, it would stay open as the train sped along. I would then be willing to lie down and sleep. In a few seconds i managed to unlatch the other door and pull it open. It moved on its wheels so much easier than the door that tried to kill me. I clambered back into my boxcar and moved my sleeping bag near the middle of the boxcar for maximum airflow. The train started moving but backwards. Seemed curious but after a few hundred meters it stopped again. Some minutes later it started forward, gained speed and we were again on our way.
Within minutes i was fast asleep with my head on my sleeping bag.
I awoke as the train slowly came to a stop. We had been climbing out of the Central Valley and the air was hot but comfortable. My ears rang loudly and my mouth was totally dry. I looked out to the gorgeous sight of a mountain stream a hundred yards downhill. I grabbed the empty army canteen, leapt out the door, and hurried on wobbly legs down through the grassy meadow. I immersed my face in the stream and sucked up the cold water. My worries about dehydration evaporated as i continued to suck water directly from that life-saving stream.
I held the canteen against the shallow bottom to fill it with water. The banging of car couplings indicated the train was starting to move. I saw that it was only backing up so i finished topping off the canteen and sat down to rest at the edge of the stream. I calmly watched the train move backwards. Curiously, it continued to accelerate.
Oh crap! The train’s continued acceleration means it’s going forward! I had jumped out the opposite side of the train from where i thought. I must have woken while it was backing up. The train was leaving with all my belongings!
I grabbed the canteen, got to my feet, and ran up the slope toward the departing train. I clipped the canteen to my belt as i ran. Traversing the meadow, it felt as though i were experiencing a nightmare where my legs only slowly propelled me through air as thick as syrup. I finally reached the train and with horrific visions of slipping and falling under the steel wheels, i ran alongside, jumped up, and clasped the ladder on a passing boxcar.
I climbed the ladder to the roof of the boxcar and gingerly walked in a crouch forward to the front of that car. There was a ladder from the edge of the roof down to the coupling and another ladder on the next car up to its roof. I traversed this scary passage over the shifting couplings with a racing heart. I did this several more times as i advanced forward on the train. Wondering whether i was back home to my boxcar, i crawled on my belly to the side of the boxcar and peered over the edge as the train sped through the forested landscape. Nope. This boxcar’s door is locked shut. My boxcar was still further forward. I continued forward searching for my home. When i reached my boxcar i sat down to rest on the top of it; on the top of a speeding freight train; the stuff of legends.
Dust kept hitting my unprotected eyes when i looked forward from my perch so i had to accept facing backwards to view the beautiful scenery i was passing through. A whistle from the engine, some three-quarters of a mile ahead, caught my attention. A tunnel? I turned to look forward and squinted to try protecting my eyes. Yup, a tunnel. Oh-oh! Was i going to get scraped off the roof? I did not have time to get to the end of the car and climb down toward the coupling to safety so i just flattened myself onto the roof and hoped, really hoped, for the best. There was plenty of clearance; it was actually kinda fun going through the tunnel.
From my earlier scrape with hyperthermia, i now got cooler and cooler on top of my boxcar as afternoon gave way to dusk and the tracks rose into the mountains. Frustratingly, my leather jacket was just out of reach below me in the car. The coolness triggered my need to pee, something that i hadn’t done since boarding the train this morning. I chose to climb down the ladder at the end of the boxcar and stand on one of the massive couplings while relieving myself. This was tricky since all the while my left hand had a death grip on a ladder rung and the coupling randomly lurched about. Successful, i climbed back onto the roof and huddled against the evening chill. Long minutes stretched into an uncertain end to my roof-riding.
After shivering for some time, the train stopped. I quickly climbed down the ladder in the dark, hopped to the ground, clambered into my boxcar, climbed into my sleeping bag, and munched on the last of the bakery items; worn out, perhaps no wiser, but alive.
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