Traveler's Rest - A Memoir

By: @Lymmerik

The following is an excerpt from my memoir, Traveler's Rest - Home is Where the Tracks End*

The clickety-clack of the freight train behind me, made me wish for my younger days jumping freight. The clickety-clack along this stretch of tracks slows significantly as the end of the line is five miles west of here around a sharp left corner, into that brilliant sun ball.

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I wasn't there five minutes, in the same spot that I used to camp by this slow-running creek, before the 5:15 freight train came rumbling through. I was with my son, who turns twenty-one tomorrow. He has been out jumping freight since he was seventeen. I am turning 70 tomorrow; incidentally we have the same birth date, so I thought I'd bring him here and share my first jump; my first stop here in Traveler's Rest, where the tracks end.

"I'm glad you came to see me, Jessie." I admitted.

"Me too, pops!"

"I want to tell you about my very first jump from a moving freight train." I said. "The reason we are here right now is that it was on this very day, at this very time, forty-nine years ago that I jumped from a boxcar right here by this creek." I had to raise my voice as the train slowed; it shuttered and thundered as the freight cars slowed, each bumping into the other from behind.

"Okay, pops. I remember my first time; I was too afraid to jump." Jessie admitted.

"So was I! I had been on the train for ten hours. I was literally vibrating in rhythm with the clacking of the train wheels on the track..." As we watched the sun setting behind a stand of leafless trees, I continued...

A hobo named Tom-Ed was in the freight-car that I'd hopped into. He was sleeping in the shadow of the boxcar's front corner. I had no idea that anyone else did what I just did. I was running from a girl's daddy that I had knocked up. He wasn't very happy with me, to say the least.

It was about seven AM when I jumped into that freight-car. I couldn't see Tom-Ed. Hours went by and I was thinking of jumping, when I heard a gruff voice advising me not to because the train was moving too fast. I almost jumped anyway!
It was another hour down the tracks until the train would be slowing down for Travelers Rest. He struck up a conversation and shared a bag of Taco Doritos with me.

He told me to wait until the train went through the tunnel, count to a hundred, then jump. He said that there is a creek and some people there camping; so I waited. Tom-Ed said that he was going to hop off there too.

He said, "You look like a greenhorn and you might need some help."

We talked about hopping trains for the next hour until we got through the tunnel.


"Jump Kid!" Tom-Ed yelled.

He scared me so bad that I jumped before I could stop myself, he was right behind me. I hit the gravel tainted dirt along the tracks and rolled down the embankment. Tom Ed rolled once and he was up on his feet. The train was soon out of earshot.

Tom-Ed didn't even have time to introduce me to the three guys and one gal when someone said,

"Is that another train?"

It was indeed! It was going so fast that it wouldn't make it around the corner up ahead. But that was a problem; there was not another train scheduled after the 5:15. We heard the conductor engage the brakes, the squeal of the wheels on the tracks, and then a bang so loud that I thought I was going to crap my pants!
Suddenly, one of the hobos yelled,

"Run!"

Everyone ran across the creek and up the bank, except me. I was frozen.

All I could see was a train-car coming straight at me. I swallowed hard with a gulping sound the only I could hear and dove into the water. After the dust settled, it was completely silent for what seemed like forever. Then the screams and moans started. A passenger train had been misdirected and this was the result. Every one of the ten cars had derailed, but thankfully only one went into the creek. The six of us pulled people out of the dining-car and got them to safety, while calming them down. It was an hour until help arrived, but it wasn't long until everyone was taken to emergency rooms or hotels in Travelers Rest.

The railroad did their own investigations back then and they took all our names and got us a hotel room in Travelers Rest too. Boy, that shower felt good.

The next morning we had made the headlines:

We were in high cotton. We were photographed, wined and dined. We were hobo heroes!
Later that day, I was lying on the bed in my hotel room watching TV when came a knock at the door. I answer it and to my surprise, it was Cindy Lou's daddy, and he had a shotgun. I knocked him down and ran away as fast as I could.

"I hitchhiked out of town and found me the next set of train tracks that I could. I never looked back for twenty-eight years"

"What ever happened to Cindy-Lou? Do I have a brother or sister?" Jessie asked.

"No." I answered. "I saw her a couple years later and asked if I was a father. She said that she wasn't pregnant after all. She was just late. Her mom found out and told her dad. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have had the life of jumping freight."

The End

• *This story is fiction, any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
• *Traveler's Rest - A Memoir is conceived and written by Rickie O. Pauley (@Lymmerik) and is the intellectual property of Rickie O. Pauley (@Lymmerik)

Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.
@Lymmerik

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