When I was a boy, I would go to bed at night and lay there trying to get to sleep. If it was the summer time, I would probably be thinking of the sandlot baseball game all of us neighbor kids played that day. Boy, if I got a hit or made a fantastic game-saving play, I would go over every minute detail until I exhausted that memory. If it was the winter time, I might be thinking of the snow fort we all built and the battles we fought with snowballs. Again, this memory of the day’s activities would only last so long. At that point I would try to continue the excitement of the day’s activities but to no avail. Just as I was starting to toss and turn it would come.
Off in the distance I would hear the most beautiful sound in the world, the lonely moan of a diesel engine pulling its freight somewhere. I had no idea of where it was heading, but I knew that I had to hurry to jump on one of the boxcars before it got past my house. I was always successful and there were always some hobos on the car I got on. They would always welcome me as a fellow traveler and would ask me where I was headed. It was always out west somewhere I would answer, that huge area of land where a freight train could travel for hours and days without stopping. Even though I did this every night, I had no stories to share so I listened to the thrilling hobo’s tales and knew I would be telling someone else my tales someday.
As I fell asleep with the sound of that diesel still in my head, I knew that tomorrow night I would be on another freight train another destination and new travelers of the iron road to talk to.
I know this is where my love of trains comes from and I still get these feelings every time I hear a diesel horn in the distance.
