Riding the rails of July 4 memories

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On July 4th, 1960, my mother surprised me with a 24-hour trip from Minneapolis to Chicago on the overnight Zephyr. I was agog and scared. But in a good way. Writer Anthony Lane wrote about that feeling in his enchanting piece, “The Enduring Romance of the Night Train.” Anyone who loves trains ought to read it:

“Although it is unlikely, as you clatter through the night, that anything of note will befall you, the prospect that it could feels ever present, just out of sight beyond the next curve of the track.”

He described “a theatrical air of suspense.”

He was right. So was my mother. Speeding that fast overland in the middle of the night was magical — a perpetual carnival ride under the setting sun and then the stars.

I was a child. So Chicago didn’t impress me much. Except for this: sitting on a beach along Lake Shore Drive watching fireworks light the sky over the endless opaque expanse of Lake Michigan, then racing to catch the Zephyr for home, cozying up in our seats, wishing and willing the ride to never end, then feeling a strange kind of emptiness I’d never experienced as our train crept into Great Northern Depot early in the morning.

Mom must have understood. When I was a bit older, she topped that July 4th journey with a round-trip ticket on the Great Northern Pacific to Duluth. This time, she said, “I want you to go by yourself.” (Back then, parents let their kids do things like that.) I spent that day gaping at the gargantuan barges and waving at them with the little American flags you got for free. It would elicit deep, sonorous horn blasts that made everyone laugh and cheer.

Most dear to my heart then (and now) was the rickety, homely freight train that galumphed behind our house. Twice daily it would pass before disappearing around a bend and into the nearby woods. For several years it awakened me gently in the morning. At bedtime, its rhythmic rumblings lullabied me to sleep. I called that freight train “Old Pepper.” I don’t know why. Maybe someday I’ll remember.

Billy Crawford, our neighborhood tough-guy wannabe, liked flinging stones at Old Pepper. One July 4th Eve, Billy summoned us neighborhood kids. “Meet up in the middle of The Bridge tomorrow morning,” he said. “Bring firecrackers.”

He might as well have added “or else …” — because we knew Billy Crawford.

His latest caper had us tossing a barrage of firecrackers off The Bridge at Old Pepper as he passed below us. “Don’t worry about train cops,” he said. “They’ll never catch us.”

I asked Billy Crawford if train cops were real.

He asked me why, was I scared?

Of course I was. But more so, the idea of hurling even harmless Whipper Snappers at Old Pepper was to me a mortal sin, deserving no less than a one-way ticket to juvie. But you couldn’t refuse Billy Crawford. He was burly, mean and 13. We weren’t.

With a heavy heart, I tossed my Whipper Snappers toward (but not at) Old Pepper and cheered with as much fake bravado as I could muster to impress Billy Crawford. I prayed I wouldn’t get caught and Old Pepper would disappear around that bend no worse for wear. Instead, he slowed under the bridge and then came to a screeching, hissing dead stop. That’s when Billy Crawford pointed toward the west end of the bridge and hollered,

“Traaaain cops!”

We screamed and scattered. Billy Crawford might have been laughing.

I made a beeline through neighbors’ backyards, barricaded myself in our basement bathroom with towels and toilet paper rolls crying crocodile tears, guilt-ridden over what Mom would think of me now and positive Billy Crawford’s train cops would ferret me out of there and drag me away.

When Dad came home from golf to begin his master grilling for our neighborhood holiday bash, he heard the commotion downstairs.

“What’s going on down there?”

“Nothing. Leave me alone.”

He did, for a while. Until he’d had enough of his son’s basement blubbering. I confessed about what Billy Crawford “made me do” to Pepper. Confused at first, he thought “Old Pepper” was the name of someone’s pet. When we straightened that out, he lectured me about how to deal with “the Billy Crawfords of the world when you grow up” (his exact words), handed me one of his famous brats smothered with everything sweet and sour, and another box of Whipper Snappers.

Every once in a while, when I’m in the mood to look back, I drive to The Bridge to think about those days. By magic or coincidence, I hope Old Pepper will pass by. He hasn’t, yet.

Until he does, any day is made better when I’m delayed at a train crossing. I watch the cars lumber by. Their clickety-clack is a soothing song remarkably similar to Old Pepper’s.

And sitting behind the steering wheel waiting as the freight passes, I’m reminded again of those magical July 4th nighttime train rides and the time Dad lectured me on how to handle the Billy Crawfords of the world.

Dick Schwartz lives in Minneapolis.