Carrie Street Station
St. Louis, Winter 1967: I was saving up my money, so I got two jobs.
Days: Yard clerk at the Rock Island Railroad.
Nights: Night Manager at the Hilton Inn.
With different days off, only three days had me working both jobs. At night from eleven, until seven in the morning, I ran the front desk at the Airport Hilton Inn. (Usually pretty quiet, except that time the Stones arrived). In the wee hours, I balanced the NCR 1600 bookeeping machine, and in the morning …
I walked through the halls and past the aviary — a large cage with the tiniest, quickest tropical birds, bright as a paint kit, and full of song so early, with cheery quick eyes askance — onward, to the Olde Weste Coffee Shoppe for my free breakfast. Oh, that was grand!
Then, piloting the volkswagen home to my unheated trailor, just off the end of the jet runway at St. Louis International Airport. Though the planes were very loud, I slept soundly.
A quick sleep it was, as needs be I’m up and dressed in Sears insulated underwear, thick roustabout clothes, and big brogan-style boots. Off to the Rock Island Railroad, Carrie Street station.
Not a passenger stop, no. A rough-looking switchyard in a rough part of town. Here’s how it works:
There is a local railroad called the Terminal Railroad. Their only job is to go around St. Louis, to the real railroads: Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Rock Island. Railroads hand off cars to other railroads, and Carrie Street was the Rock Island switching station.
When the Terminal Railroad showed up, I stood beside the track. They have 54 cars for the Rock, that’s us. Our switch foreman, Danny, would tell them to put the cars into our switching tracks 7, 8, and 9. As they backed the cars into these tracks, I stood alongside and wrote down the cars and their numbers, as fast as I could. (If I could write them as the cars passed me, then I didn’t have to walk up and down the tracks writing them down.)
The conductor on the Terminal Railroad would give a thick wad of the “Bills of Lading” to the Bill Clerk. These are forms that show where the cars are going, and what’s been laeded into them, laddie.
Me and the bill clerk sorted them, to discover we had sixteen cars for Kansas City, fourteen for Oakland, and so on. The switch foreman Danny figured how to move these long strings of cars around so as to get all the Kansas City ones together. It took most of the day.
Then, our train took off to Kansas City and points west. I think that, on the other shift, some of those cars went back east, but I never saw them, and for all I know there are thousands stranded somewhere out west.
Danny, the switch foreman, was a young fellow, and acted very sour. I think it helped him control his tough-guy crew. So I would often annoy him by striding through the bitter cold, along the track outside the switch shanty (while they huddled around the coal stove). I’d swing my arms wide, taking big strides.
In a loud voice, I sang, “Oh, the Rock Island line is a mighty fine line! Oh, the Rock Island line is the road to ride! Oh, the Rock Island line is a mighty fine line! If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it, get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island line!”
Sometimes my voice cracked, but it was never less than completely chipper and enthusiastic. And loud.
This goober act never failed to amaze Danny and the switch crew, and they pretended disgust with such cheerfulness, while I in turn pretended not to notice nor comprehend in any way.
Just before eleven each night, in the office bathroom, I’d change into my suit and black shoes. Then off to the Hilton Inn, to balance those books.
In the St. Louis winter, daylight comes late and night falls early. Some cold and snowy days there were when the sun hardly showed. During one stretch it had been over a week since I saw the sun, and snow fell heavy that day.
That evening, trudging across the yard toward the office, underneath the yard’s lamps high on their poles, I noticed that all the falling snow ahead of me, and the snow upon the ground ahead, glittered in sharp bright points, so beautiful they were, glittering.
Glittering before me like gold.
Looky Back — I am Born
Soon after, Margaret visited her parents farm 8 miles north of Henrietta Texas. I see pictures of each of my uncles holding me as an infant. The uncle that looks the happiest in this role is her mother lounged in lawn chairs behind, dressed in stunning, up-to-date 1940’s fashions. That is, somewhat baggy dresses of light material, tending to be covered with tiny, tiny, tiny little prints of flowers and lacy stuff at the collar.
Modern times!
He thought he was a wit, and he was half right
Just saw mpt, the weblog of Matthew Thomas. I don’t know a thing about this guy — though I might guess his middle name starts with ‘P’ — but the articlse seem mighty fine to me. The stolen quote in my title is his. That makes me remember the time … never mind.
It’s probably time to figure out what traceback and blogrolling mean. Time to find my peerds, or is it my pears? Lotto clever writistas out there; some must be findable.
Sleeping On the Job
Shady Shores community, near Dallas, Texas, 1964: In college, my roommates and I lived on a lake, in a concrete-block house made from a garage, just behind the grand house of Mr. J. D. Lingo, who operated a Dallas heavy-equipment business. I don’t know what that means, except that surely it involves large equipment.
Because my roommates found jobs as banquet waiters, I also applied at the Holiday Inn, and found myself a bellboy, and I also carried breakfast orders to the rooms. I became very proud of my skill in balancing the huge tray loaded with dishes and cups.
It was also fun to call in from the pool phone, on the busy summer days, and request Mrs. Heflin at the switchboard to page Mr. T. S. Elliot. She paged him again and again, but he never answered the page.
My life changed due to James, the cajun.
He’d come from the bayou and it lived still in his speech. Outside a bar in Lake Charles, he’d saved his friend from a drunk driver, but lost a leg in the act. Once living in Nashville, he knew the young Elvis. A fine boy, Elvis, and sober. Or, as James said, “I’ve got my first time to see him take a drink.”
That Fall, as we returned to classes, James decided to return to Lake Charles. He told Mr. Kahler the manager. He told Ron Johnson, the assistant manager. Mr. Kahler did nothing, and Ron did nothing. Ron told James that if he left, Mr. Kahler would have a fit.
But James said he was going to Lake Charles on that date, regardless.
James was the night auditor; he worked from 11 at night till 7 in the morning, and balanced out the bookkeeping machine at the front desk. The difficulty was in finding a replacement.
They did nothing. He left.
I showed up at the office, and said I could do it.
Having no better plan, they let me try. I knew nothing, but there was a single form on which this balancing was done. It all added up in plusses and minuses, and a big arrow showed which two totals had to agree. I was able to figure it out.
So I became the night auditor.
In a way, this was a student’s dream job, because — the way I did it — they paid me for sleeping. I came to work, balanced the books by 1 am, then retrieved the pillow stolen from housekeeping (which I hid daytimes inside the back panel of the switchboard), and then slept on the floor behind the front desk. Paid hourly; for sleeping on the job. Neat!
I admit it startled a few late-arriving guests. Walking up to the front desk, they’d tap the bell, and then I appeared, rising like Dracula from beneath the desk.
Once, very early, Ron the assistant manager unexpectedly came through the back door. He said that if Mr. Kahler saw me sleeping, that Mr. Kahler would have a fit.
But Ron often threatened that Mr. Kahler would have a fit. I was uncertain whether to worry, or not.
As it happened, a few days later, my roommate Pat was drinking iced tea behind the front desk. Pat was a nice-looking guy who resembled Jules, or perhaps it was Jim, from the French film Jules et Jim. Pat was also the desk clerk.
Ron told Pat that if Mr. Kahler saw those empty iced-tea glasses, that Mr. Kahler would have a fit. Oddly enough, just then Mr. Kahler walked through the front door.
Behind the desk, Pat stood up, and held up an empty iced-tea glass, so that Mr. Kahler could see it. Pat said to Mr. Kahler, “Have a fit?”
Mr. Kahler gave Pat a puzzled look, and disappeared into the restaurant. Mr. Kahler had said nothing; and Mr. Kahler didn’t have a fit.
It was Ron who had the fit.
Neat!
Big Trip to the Grocery Store
And then we went first to the Petco, where we bought some stuff. Then we went to the Trader Joe’s, where we then bought some stuff. And then we went to the Whole Foods, where we, err, bought some stuff.
And that’s the way it was.
On This Day: Now I am 59
I’m near 59 and not dead. Something of an Accomplishment.
I got several calls from family and a friend to wish me a happy — Folks, keep those cards and letters coming in! — So far having a pleasant day, and Adrienne cooked us lunch. The casual visitor here may not appreciate the earth-shattering significance of …
… the significance of Adrienne cooking lunch.
While I cook us many meals, and enjoy having somebody cooking for me — it seems a loving and neighborly thing to do — Adrienne, the woman, doesn’t like to ccok. She could live an eternity on yogurt and apples, I’m certain of it. Maybe a can of tuna fish. For many years, on certain years, around Christmas/Thanksgiving time, I might get a vegetable pot pie made with a cat face cut into the crust … if I was lucky.
Some years, no cat-face pie. Too bad. I was looking forward to that cat-face pie.
You know those stories your mama used to threaten you with, when you were very little. No, not the stories about the– Wait a minute. Let’s start over. You know how your mama used to threaten you around Christmastime with the claim that bad children would receive a lump of coal? (What was with this lump of coal? In Texas nobody uses coal. It’s natural gas, man. Why the hell Santa would bring coal?)
Well, a year with no cat-face pie seemed like getting the lump of coal in the stocking. Just out of luck, for now. Maybe next year …
In the meantime, I’m almost 59, and very happy to be here, thank you very much, and I’d like to thank the members of the academy, and my mother, and …
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