Train Spot
an excerpt

In my mind, it stays the way it was back when I was just a girl—
a cool spot, even at noon in summertime. Large maple, elm, and white birch trees hang their shade over the rock wall built by the Pennsylvania Railroad. And there, across the tracks, a tall tree line along the river’s edge. Wind whispers through the trees, a gentle reminder that a large world exists beyond my seclusion.

Visible between swaying branches, sunlit water flows down the Susquehanna; foamy wake from riverboats gently laps the shore. It soothes a weary soul. I watch, daydream from my hide-away, and see other people when they drift through my line of vision: children place pennies on the railroad tracks to be smoothed flat by a train; a fisherman carries home his eight trout limit; waders splash out in the shallows, unafraid of water snakes, crayfish, mudpuppies concealed by ankle deep river sludge.

I watch from a v-shaped crevice between two, large, flat-topped boulders. They form a stone table, a perfect spot for constructing daisy chains. I make small splits in the stems about half-an-inch from the bottoms, and slide the next daisy stem through, so the flowers and split stems form a button and a hole. In my hair I wear the chains of daisies, violets or forget-me-nots gathered along the way or in nearby thickets. Sometimes I make a flower collar for my grandmother’s dog, Scruffy who often accompanies me to my spot. There we watch the trains pass by protected by the thick stone wall without fearing the danger of such close proximity. Such a great retreat to sit in the cool shade and contemplate the mysteries of the world.

Everything stops.

It seems the air itself prepares for some grand phenomenon. I feel a stillness like a vacuum. Robins, sparrows, blue jays stop their chirping—silence builds before a storm. The wind lowly rumbles. I feel it in my bones and deep in the pit of my stomach, like the pound of a big bass drum during a parade. Far off, I actually hear its low moaning Whooo-whoo.

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I’d hide out in fear, Chelle,” Nan would say. “I can remember the way they looked…ragged…covered head-to-toe with black coal dust. It made me glad for what I had.”

I never once saw a hobo myself, but I imagined they led quite an exciting life. Hoboes rode the rails on magnificent trains—for free! They traveled to distant cities and camped out by rivers or in woods, cooking over an open fire and evading the ever-watchful eyes of railroad workers. Dangers, excitement, travel, sleeping under the stars! What more could a person want? To ride the rails in hobo style—oh, to ride the rails!