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LAMESA PRESS REPORTER, LAMESA, TEXAS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1972, PAGE IIGod's Little Children ”By FRANKLIN Y. MARTINI have never had the pleasure of extensive “luxury” travel; but I have logged more mileage on freight trains during a hop - skip - and - jump period of three years than anyone I know, excepting a few brakemen and freight - conductors, and certain professional hoboes - “Knights of the Road” — like Kilroy and Mover, whose authographs I've seen on the walls of countless box - cars.I’ve shared these “purloined excursions” with a mottled but interesting cross - section of humanity: A cross - section probably sliced off by a discerning Deity as a cull or reject. These trunkline gypsies came from all avenues of life. Some were tall in the saddle, but most of them crawled in the dust or wriggled in the slime. A glimmer of respectability rested on a few; but there were too many swine and not enough pearls. .All were “rolling stones” -but some had enough flint in their makeup to remain square. They gathered no moss, (if they did they wore it in their sox for security reasons). They were acutely alergic to manual labor, and bathing was the Unpardonable Sin, Looking back through the corridors of Time, I recall a few whom I shall always cherish and respect. As Satan said to Job a couple of times, “From going to the fro in the earth and walking up and down it” with these pitiable pilgrims, I learned some lessons that have benefited me through the years.Kn transit, I tried to be “with” them but not “of” them. All I shared freely with them was conversation. I seldom spent more than six hours or one railroad division with the same gang. They were vagabonds, drifting without plan or purpose. I was an adventurer. A sort of conquistador: Coronado, searching for the Seven C ities of Gold.Bow come?In the spring of 1919 I had a long and losing encounter with Bis Satanic Majesty, Bronchial Asthma. Doc assured me it was either Arizona, Beaven or Else for rne. Neither option had any gripping appeal for me at the time. Theodore Rossevelt had died two months earlier, January 6, at Sagamore Bill. Newspaperstold how the youthful “Teddy*’had carried a stubborn case of astham out of the short-grass area of the Dakotas and Wyoming and had completely rubbed it out in two years. I packed my tocthbrush and cap and took off for western Kansas. My lungs perked beautifully. In a short time I had made the positive and pleasing discovery that our vast plateaus and magnificent mountain states were totally off - limits to my respiratory problem. I was cured - as long as I remained in this magic wonderland. I had invaded the Happy Hunting Ground.I hope the preceding paragraph establishes a satisfactory motive for my itinerary with these social outcasts. I was with them “only for theride.” I was the worker, the others were the drones. Icon-trolled the labor statistics; viz, in a group of ten I was the 10 per cent who worked; if there were only two, I made it 50 per cent. I never panhandled or mootched, I was never extremely' hungry, and I was seldom broke. At all times I welcomed honorable employment and usually had little trouble in finding work.My longer tenures were seven months teaching in Wyoming; six months news-papering in Wyoming; hitcheson railroad, highway and oil -field constructions jobs in .Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming. The briefest time I ever bartered to labor was a couple of hours I spent in the employ of Bamum and Bailey Circus in Pratt, Kan. I was teamed up with a gigantic colored gentleman (he was too big to be anything less) who was a dead - ringer for the late Big Daddy Lipscomb -except he was twice as big. Our chore was to drive stakes for the Big Top, swinging 12 - pound sledge - hammers alternately, synchronized to the blatant strains of “Blue Danube,” on a worn - outWurlitzer.I acquired a consuming thirst. No western movie or Grand Prize commercial ever exploited a bigger thirst. At short intervals I staggered to a nearby water hydrant anddrank - not wisely’, but too well. I staggered toward Big Dady, then reeled dizzily' toward a soft spot of Mama Earth to execute a faint -but then came the Cavalry and I was saved. Two harvest -tramps whom I had loaned 5-spots a pair of weeks earlier came along, miraculously, and tendered payment. (A guy who earned his money in a Kansas wheat harvest was too honest to beat a debt). I left the hammer where it lay. I was too weak to have lifted it, anyway. I was so tired - and happy — I forgot to collect my wages. But I crashed the gate that night and saw the show from an unclaimed reserved seat. I have recovered 110 per cent of my lost wage*.I’ve ridden the rods and watched fearfully as the tracks flanged wheels grouped in fours) would bounce as much as four inches above the rails; spread - eagled on the cat -walk atop loaded box - cars; the blinds on baggageandmail coaches and Pullmans; Eve pre - empted ice compartments of empty refrigerator cars.One night I removed some grating from the bottom of an ice - compartment and squeezed into the cargo room - the ar proper. Its last cargo had been bananas, as was evidenced by a few loose bananas that had fallen from the stalks. I tore some building paper from the walls and made a pallet.I tucked myself in cozily with*some of the larger pieces.As I lay listening to the clickety - clack of the wheels beneath me, I recalled a story I had recently read: Deadlybanana tarantulas occasionally stowed away Ln banana bunches and sought a new wayof life in the I .S. A. I tried desperately to eject the little wet - back from my thoughts; but he held his ground tenaciously'. He drove everything else out; he became aggressive. I began feeling him crawling on me. Be was on my foot; I brushed him off gently. He was on my other foot. I raised up and brushed him off sharply. Then I felt him on my right arm - that was my vaccinated arm — there was some respite and comfort in that. While he was in this “safety zone” I would, for once in my life, serious-fly consider, “Where do I go from here?”Suddenly I felt him on my left arm. Heaven help me! That was the arm I used in swinging freight trains. Without it I would be grounded for life. Savagely I tried to crush him. Then he executed a dead march across my forehead. I almost knocked myself out with a left uppercut. I stood up and shook my aching head. I knew it was my imagination: But this intruding, venomous, hairy - legged, nightwaiking figment had “murdered sleep” as dramatically and as definitely as ever had Macbeth. .And Mack was a grown man.Beaten, I squeezed my trembling anatomy back into the ice - compartment. There was room for me to sit comfortably. It was a great andwonderful world, and I was a part of it - a breathing, living part of it. And I was fully confident that daybreak would find me in this delightful state. I felt the tender kiss of resurrected sleep upon my eyelids.And in those days it came to pass that I was employed at a Railroad Construction Camp, 20 or 30 miles out of Cheyenne, the railroad’s objective terminal. The right - of - way for the trunklin under construction traversed a little valley whose terrain was rough and rocky. All vegetation had been cleared away,and the roadbed and grade were being built. The holes for the telegraph line had been drilled: 24 - inch holes to a depth of about 15 feet, and at 90 - yard intervals. The giant, mast - like poles were neatly stacked at the camp, awaiting distribution and setting.A “cut” was being madeacross a hill; rocks and aggregate from this operation were loaded on dump - wagons by steam - shovels, then hauled and deposited on the roadbed’s grade, which at this stage had attained a height of about 20 feet. These 20 or 30 dump - wagons dropped their cargoes at the end of this grade and bounced and bumped over huge rocks to the ground level: thence returning by a lateral trail to the steam - shovel.I captained one of these dump - wagons, same powered by two tough - mouthed mules. This short, stubby, rugged piece of equipment was right-handed, and difficult for a southpaw to operate. Brakeand dumping lever on the right side. Making this 20 - foot descent without a set - brake was both uncomfortable anddangerous. .And I was no Ben-Hur at handling the reins.At the end of the steepgrade, maliciously watching and directing the dumping op-and signaling w ith both arms -like a Dutch windmill. The thought of him contaminates my mind. This neurotic little toy Napoleon was jumping about, barking out commandsto the wagoners — just as Ifancy Satan will perform at Armageddon. He was especially profane and nasty when I came to bat. ^nd each timeI would tell him specificallywhere to go.Then came \ - Day. I missed my brake and dumping lever and my loaded wagon rampaged down the rocky incline,pushing my mules before it. Old Thunderbird went into hysterics. I repeatedly exhorted him to make that downward journey I had been asking him to take for two weeks. I kept up my verbal barrage with him as I tried to get one of my mules from under the wagon tongue. I’d tied up traffic. Halted wagoners were elated at our sizzling crossfire of caustic comments and withering expletives. I watched him jumping wildlv about, inhis frenzy. Once again, loud and clear, I urged him, I implored him — to — to —too—What’s this? I could not believe my eyes. He was gone. He had disappeared. Instantly and completely! ‘*1 didn't mean it — I’ll take it back —” I thought to myself.Then came a voice, as from a jug: “(Jet me outa here. Help! It’s over my head in water - and the walls arc slick.” The old reprobate had fallen into a fifteen - foot hole that had been prepared for studier and finer timber.Deliberately I began t ing a trace - chain from a mule’s harness. .Another wagoner rushed by. “Bring one of your checkline, Tex — it will be quicker.”“I know it,” I replied. “That’s why I’m getting this chain.”I looked down, upon him as he clawed the muddy walls to keep his head above water. I threw out the lifeline. He snatched the end of the chaingreedily - as was his nature. “Thanks,” ht* wh zed between chattering teeth; and I think I detected a faint smile. (I’m not going to pull him out— yet. He’s where he deserved to be — and I’m slow about obstructing Justice. And I love stories that end happily - for me .GARRETT’S TRACTOR SUPPLY208 M 1ST872 8214■ s, Aerations, was the shriveled, choleric and fidgety grade -boss, screaming out orders
Newspaper Details
Lamesa Press Reporter
Lamesa, Texas, US
Thu, Jan 13, 1972
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
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USA 10 Jan 2019
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