Conversations With Glenn: Number One Rail Nut Friend "Shelley. I'm in Lancaster. It's going to be a while. I've got to get checked in. I'll be reading your texts and we'll talk again.” In our first conversation recorded as January 31, 2010, he said the same thing. It’s comforting to hear him say we’ll talk again. Different lives intersect from time to time, and I’m the better for it. I’ve known for years that he reads my text messages. But, now, it seems he doesn’t mind them. I’m the luckiest middle aged teenaged star struck love sick railfan in the world! I’m his number one rail nut friend. I’ll buy that package. It’s all I ever wanted. “Just curious. If you call the guys at Fullerton rail nuts, then what am I?” This message is sent to Glenn several days after the June 14 trip to Lancaster. I don’t get my answer till July 12, my birthday. The answer, however, as is everything with Glenn, is worth the wait, and the best birthday present, ever. “How old ru gonna be? 25, 26, 27?” It’s the usual birthday greeting. I’ve gotten it for three years now. But, then, there’s something just a bit different. “Just to let you know ur my # 1 rail nut friend. Happy birthday and have a good weekend” “Glenn orders,” I respond, a take on the phrase “train orders.” He’s my number one engineer. I’ll buy that package. It’s all I ever wanted. And, tonight, I think this conversation, vast in proportion, covering trains, pets, family, sports, marriage, travels, and sweet dreams, establishes that status. I think it’s all about me. It's Sunday August 25 and I've done something different at the insistence of a friend. She talks me into it. If he kills me will you apologize? No, she insists. He's not going to kill you. He'll love it. Um, we're talking about Glenn here and birthdays and I don't know if that's a sensitive issue. Last year it was. This year is this year. So, what have I done? Sent him a happy birthday singing text. Susie, my conspirator, said I should. Ok. Part of me really was intrigued with the possibility of doing that. So, I got out my iPhone manual and read up on how to create the file using the voice memos and send it. It was going to take some doing, and so I figured what the heck? I would just do it and let the chips fall where they might. Pearl, my trusty black and white cat, climbed on the dining table to help me do this. In the file I explain that pearl is helping me. Pearl meows once to lend credence to my assertion. She does help me and she’s the one who’s shy, of course. So, now, after work, on this hot, muggy Sunday August 25 after having an incredible meal at Varsity Burger, I dig through my trusty black grip for my phone. I search through the bells an keys, the clutter that is the front pocket of my bag and come up with my phone holding Glen’s picture on both the lock and home screens. Trembling fingers find his number. Yes, I’m nervous. Again. I don't argue with it anymore. If I'm going to be nervous about calling my number one engineer, whatever. Just shoot me someday and I'll die happy. I promise The phone clicks. "Hello." Familiar. Strong. Clear. I stand by the newspaper stand at the Starbucks at Anaheim and Lincoln, sweetly holding a white flag of surrender. Proudly. I give up. I am all yours, if you'll have me. "Hi." My word is just there. I never quite know what to say. does he know? From standing shyly under the stairs, to approaching the cab, being teased, serious railroad conversation, don't stress, just deal with it. And, now, this. Simple. Charming in its simplicity. Ok, don't say it like that. Never mind, I just did. "What’s up?" Low. Quiet. Confident. Curious. Please, don’t' say it like that. But, you just did. Somehow, now, I'm calm. Is it cool confident hands comforting a frightened dog? Cat? Is it the sledge hammer breaking the ice? Where did I get that analogy? I don't remember where I am. I forget the hot, muggy day, the oppressive heat. Everyone disappears. "Did you get my message?" Normal conversation. Familiar cadence. "I just got it. I couldn't retrieve it." Here we are, again. This is different than the last time, July 21st a conversation. He had a tooth pulled, he was kind, and couldn't talk. the anesthesia was wearing off. He seemed to sigh, clearly in discomfort. “Take some Motrin and get some sleep,” I counsel uselessly. It’s mom kicking in. He gives me his customary vocal sigh laugh, the one that says yeah that isn’t going to happen. In my heart, I know it. Maybe it’s the Lancaster trip and the ensuing reconciliation of images by my brain, but I’ve been keyed up since that day and so now, hanging up my phone, I cry. I don’t like to see my friends in discomfort on any account. I’m just distressed. Tonight, standing here, after so many analytical thoughts, maybe the most sense that 2011 period when I agonized over the route change and the possible misunderstanding about intensions, things that worked themselves out and weren’t brought up by either of us, listening to his quiet, calm, friendly voice, things are better. Much better. “Hey?” Suddenly, the first moment ends. There is an engineer question. "What happened on the Santa Fe?" "Where?" I’m confused. The veteran is talking to the new kid on the block even though he says two years ago I know more about the railroad than most people. "The local," he explains. I haven't heard anything. A quiet question forms itself in my mind. Standing here, in my own paradise, I listen now, trying to answer a question as best I can with absolutely no information. "What do you mean what happened? Where?" "The locomotive tipped over. A derailment." "When?" Quiet. Soft. curious. Tell me number 1 engineer just what are you talking about? "Saturday." "I don’t' know." I'll find out. I'll do my homework, though he probably knows more than I know already. "I'll check my sources." I'll swim rivers. Climb mountains, dear. whatever you want! "Check them," he commands with sweet insistence. This is Glenn. I will listen. "Are you going to be up late? Suddenly, another shift in direction. Miraculously, all the regular hang abouts are still gone. Perhaps they’re all standing near Jack’s Donuts. I see them later. They know I crave the occasional pleasure of a number one engineer phone call. I can’t talk now, I tell them later. I have to go. But, now, standing here, I feel myself not breathing. This is promising. Very, very promising. "Yes." The answer is kind of seductive. I wish I had a recording of it. I have to laugh, only a little. I’ll drop everything. Tomorrow is Monday. I am off work. But, even if I wasn’t, I’d drop everything. Well, within reason. “I'll give you a call when I'm out toward Lancaster." I am happy with that. "Ok. bye." “Bye,” says my number one engineer. It strikes me later that I’ve heard this quality so many times and I’m starting to recognize it. I recognize it on the radio when he says “Have a good day” or “Metrolink 208 out.” Yes, I’ve taken up listening to the Lancaster feed online, Railroad Radios monitoring more than one frequency, Valley Sub, the dispatch for Metrolink and whatever else they cover there being one. On my days off I can usually catch his first train’s transmissions, perhaps for a forty-five minute duration, depending on all the factors that influence them. They are online, perhaps something that is new in railroading and technology. Twenty years ago this probably wouldn’t happen. I remember in July 2009 getting information from one of the railfans on the trip I took to Santa Barbara, about the possibility of listening to the railroad radio online. How did I know then that four years later I’d be hanging on every word of one train’s engineer. Strangely enough, after Lancaster, this is the thing that brings together all the images and completes the picture. But today, Sunday August 25, I’m standing by the newspaper stand promising to pick up my phone when I get that call. It gets way better from here. Two hours later, I'm home on the recliner with Pearl on my lap. My hand on my phone. The harp, his ring tone wakes me from sweet contemplations of return phone calls. Has it all come to this? Remember, this is my perspective. And, I’ll take it. All of it. The engineer, not sleeping, wakes his number one rail nut friend. His number one rail nut friend stirs and can't answer the phone. It's being it's usual self. The voicemail he leaves is priceless before I persuade my fancy phone to call him. “Hey, this is Glenn calling you back. I’m going to be cruising for a couple of hours so if you’re not sleeping you can give me a buzz back. If you’re sleeping, sweet dreams. Bye.” I’ll keep this message forever. Always. Forever. Yeah, I’m star struck. But, now, I return the call, waiting. Where will we go? I do have my list. But first, the question. I don’t remember how he answered, I only know to my sweet relief I can hear him. I don’t know if it’s my phone or his, but despite the fact that he’s driving, the connection is clear and I don’t ask him once to repeat himself. This is engineer gold, for sure. “Oh,” I gush, remembering, taking my chance, “before we go on, I have to ask you. Where are you from? I mean so many things you say remind me of my family from the Midwest. Were you born out of state?” His phrases, word order, they remind me of growing up, my father saying “I’ve got to get” or “let’s get”, or other things that are more general in nature. Glenn’s personality I’ve decided is so close to how I grew up and just divergent enough from it, to be, for me, anyway, vastly intriguing. Captivating is the word I’ve settled on though it hardly describes individual traits. Tonight, I’m just asking. “I was born here. Born in L.A. Lived in Orange County. Live out here.” It occurs to me I don’t officially know where he lives. I have an idea from a post office box on his son’s web site, and I’ve heard the late Mo Miller mention something. And, he says he lives close to one of the maintenance facilities. But, I don’t know for sure. And, I forget to ask. That will come next time. But, I know he wasn’t born out of state, anyway. Living in orange County doe slime up with his mention of the Sheraton on our last conversation that took place in front of the cab car on train 205. It comes up again tonight. Is there still live entertainment? No, not that I saw when I was there, I say. There was a guy there named Jimmy sounds like sutra, but not sure if that’s what he said. I could ask him again, always a reason to have just one more conversation, you know. But, it’s been there a long time, I say later. Relaxed, muggy, the gentle whir of the air conditioner, his engine running in the background, my railroad crush, my serious imparter of information, the one who puts the pieces of the puzzle together for me, shifts the conversation, again. “So how are your kitties?” This is interesting. “Your babies?” This is the most personal question I’ve gotten in three years. The window of opportunity widens later. “They’re fine. I have one that follows me everywhere. I have one that only comes out at feeding time.” This leads to the question I’ve had for years. She can’t remember all the cats names, he says. One’s name is Rascal. But, the dogs? He recites all the names. Lulu. Duchess. Duke. Princess. Candy. Happy, and three more whose names somehow escaped me. Guess it’s an excuse to ask again. the bird is a cockatoo. I liked his little one. I remember it’s chirping during past conversations. I liked it. It lent a sense of stability to the tranquility of those moments in time. Now, the one left is the big one and its owner is unsure of its gender. When I put together the bells for him I first imagined they could be used as bird entertainment. But, perhaps the bird would be injured by shards of brass or the paint if the beek damaged the bell. A cursory glance at online sources suggests that this might not be a bad idea, after all. In any case, these are the extents of the pets, to date. “Maybe twenty-two cats is too much,” he says. “And, maybe nine dogs.” Too much cat food and dog food? This may be an assertion that I’ve held for so many years, but, it is his money and his life. He must decide. “My wife needs a job,” he says in one of his not quite complaining but only expressing what for him are probably mild reservations. “My daughter is worried about her mother and I’m worried about my wife.” “Why?” “She’s going to clean me out. I need this. I need that.” Far be it from me to tell a man what to do with his money. Somehow, I think this has been going on for a while. But, keeping my promise in a text I send a month earlier, I’m willing to listen. “Just want you to know,” I text shortly after the rail nut friend status is achieved, “if you ever need someone to complain to you can call me even at midnight.” I’ve heard worse before, this is mild. But, I’ll listen. I promised. “She could have mine,” I say. “I’ll trade.” Do I really say I would trade? I don’t think he quite hears that one. Besides, that really wouldn’t solve anything, would it? Well, honestly, if the truth were told, it wouldn’t be a straight trade. Many of the cats would go. That would be a job in itself. Perhaps the attraction for me is such an unconventional approach to pet ownership. It makes up part of the personality. Yeah, if I was destined to meet a train engineer, this had to be the one. And, then, remember, I’ve had questions about his daughter. For some unexplained reason I’ve been curious about his daughter since his late friend Mo Miller told me he had one. Years later when I discovered it, I never had a chance to ask the questions. “She’s blonde,” he says. Yeah, I’ve heard this one before. I’m going to firmly steer us past this one. “What does your daughter do?” “What does she do?” he asks me, quietly. He repeats things back to me a lot tonight. Maybe it comes from repeating instructions back to dispatchers? Or, maybe tonight he’s the one who can’t hear me. “Yes. What does she do?” “She does data entry for Volunteers of America.” Ok, we know his daughter has a job. His wife? Her job is caring for cats, I suppose. “She’s thirty,” he says. “How long have you been married?” Did he say he lost count? He used to go to the Sheraton when he was single, he said. That was thirty years ago, so probably more. Ok, we’ve exhausted that one. I’ll have to find out more about his daughter, later. This works. It’s more than I knew last year when he said she was blond the first time. Conversations are amazing things. And, if tonight is about me, it’s also about me asking the little things; things about the dentist, the mechanic, and the glasses. “How are your teeth? Done?” “Got a partial today,” he says. It seems the dentist is open on Sunday in Orange County, and the Mechanic is open on Saturday. “Burned up my Saturday morning waiting for the mechanic for my car.” Sweet whiner. I asked for this. “Tell me about the glasses.” The first thing I learned about the man sitting up there in the cab was that he wore glasses. Seems so old fashioned in a day of contacts. But, in some kind of way, imagining my number one engineer with glasses just seems kind of comforting. “The glasses?” “Are they sun glasses or prescription glasses?” “Prescription. I have some new ones coming, wrap around to make me look like I’m from outer space.” Yeah, honey, you’re from somewhere! That’s for sure. Never quite sure how the shift is made, but suddenly, the conversation covers the rumored derailment and faulty locomotives. I’m pacing now, in the kitchen turning on water, holding my phone, happy. This is always so worth the wait. “Did you check your sources?” “We don’t know anything specific. Where did you hear about it?” The engineer told the graduate to go check the sources once in those early days. “Check EMD he says about my curiosity about where to find engine specifications. Now, I’m turning the tables. “Joey,” he says, his nephew who is the conductor on 608 the train that once was the highest paid one on the Orange County line, and now that no one wants, according to another engineer. This is 608, the schedule I can mostly make, the train that once was christened Shelley’s Train, and where I wrestled this one out of his lair and discovered a gold mine. since we don’t know exactly what happened on the Santa Fe, somehow the conversation turns to faulty locomotives. “The power is breaking down every day,” says the number one engineer in the fleet. As if to emphasize his point, and in the future, on Monday August 26, the previous train on his line 206 is coupled to his train, 208 because it has broken down. It makes me wonder if he remembers that conversation that we had just the night before. In fact, it happens two weeks later. At 4:42 AM I get a message from the Metrolink feed saying 206 is cancelled. “206 cancelled. Double the fun for you,” I text. Sure enough, I was right. I heard it on the radio. But, this is all in the future. “I know,” I tell him about faulty power. “I saw a San Bernardino train cancelled at 4:00 in the morning. I wondered if the crew wondered why they got out of bed.” “That’s probably what they were saying,” says my number one engineer. And, then, the story gets personal. Heading somewhere on a train as a passenger, I didn’t ask him where, he says, his train breaks down at Montclair. Standing on the hot platform with passengers who just want to get home, he decides to go back to Los Angeles. Brian, the Metrolink agent, days later, tells me Glenn talked to him on the phone that day about that very train. I think I know what train it was, but I can’t find it in the Twitter feed. I still have to look it up, because, I’m sure I knew about it. Now, he knows. Not like he never did, he just saw it from their side. The same day that 206 was coupled to 208, two weeks later, Metrolink had three cancellations, 206, 686 and 689. I suspect 686 and 689 were related, if they were the same equipment, but I don’ know, for sure. And, on occasion, you get the locomotive that seems on this end, healthy and happy, like 876. But, that’s not this day. Today, he’s still driving and I’m still hanging on every word. He tries to make a connection for someone taking 109. I don’t remember that one exactly. “Metrolink’s newest locomotives 901 and 902 are in L.A. rusting for parts,” he says. I remember those. “They showed up about the same time I did,” I say. I remember talking to the guy who worked at the Pasadena Model Shop back in 2009 before I met Glenn about them. “When did you show up?” It’s classic energized Glenn, the one I recognize who says “I’m gonna ring this bell forever!” It’s my energetic engineer, the one who looks at me and says “They took them off to jail.” How does this man sustain that? He must be exhausted, sometimes. It is one of the things that intrigues, most definitely. “In October 2008 after Chatsworth.” Then, I make an admission, almost an entire shift in my reaction to that accident. “We’re not going to talk about that or I’ll just cry.” Silence. He counts out loud. “Five years,” he says. We pass this without discussing it. What is there to say? He said years back he’d tell me about his friend who was killed on that train. But, I’m not ready for that. It is now, that he asks the other question. “Shelley, I’m about to lose you. Do you want me to call you back?” He’s in that famous mountain place where I lost him a couple of conversations ago, the one where we talked about the restaurant and the railroad agreements and he told me I knew more about the railroad than most people. It’s also the last time we talked about Chatsworth. Since visiting the page with his friend’s name on it and meeting him out of the cab at Lancaster I just can’t go there. I’m in the anger stage, I suppose. But, right now, I’m not angry. I’m answering the question that proves to me a hundred times in my own head that my fear of losing this connection is unfounded. It’s even further debunked by the end of the conversation. But, for now, let’s deal with the answer. I’m not quite sure what I say. The words in my head are yes yes yes! Of course I do. Would I ever turn that down Ever? “Yes. If you want to, that would be great,” I think I say. Can I just reach through the phone and hug this guy? Please, call. Please. It’s a deal. I sit there for a while, waiting. Waiting by the phone, as usual, only not really waiting. I never wait, do I? No. I just take the phone with me. The phone rings, waking me yet again. This time I get it before the voice mail does. “When did you graduate from high school?” “1984,” I say. Somehow we discover that his family and mine either lived in proximity to each other, or at least made some of the same journeys. His nephew went to Excelsior High School, I believe is the connection. “I remember lying in bed at night and listening to the cars switch or something<” I say, in reference to trains. There was probably a small switching yard there for the Southern Pacific. Both the engineer and the historian have told me about it. But, I can’t remember now. Maybe, I was just too busy laughing. It seems that I spent a good deal of this conversation laughing at something he said. When I think back, it seems like he teased me more often from that cab, but maybe I was just too focused on paying attention to realize it. Now, it seems, tonight, after the last two months of analysis and dealing in a new way with Chatsworth, and just hoping I don’t overwhelm him, I’ll take the laughter. It’s a sign to me that really things are okay. Like I’ve said so many times, these conversations are always worth the wait. Somehow, we always end up talking about Disney. "So, they did a remodel of California Adventure Park?” he asks now. “Yes. They have the Pacific Electric car from the Orange Empire Museum. Disney got the prototype from that museum. “I'm a member out there but I never go out there. I'll have to go see it, the park.” “Don’t' pay.” “What do you mean don't pay? They wont' let me in on my good looks.” “No, they'll let you in on mine.” “They'll take me back out to the parking lot.” "That's not what they say from your picture. I showed this lady at work and she said wow!" Glenn is so refreshing in my experience simply because he works his way through things. He doesn’t seem unwilling to pay for Disneyland tickets. So many would jump at the chance to get them. So far, he hasn’t. “He doesn’t need them, the late Janice marsh says to me once a few years ago. I know. But, I’m always about offering. He can’t remember if Walt Disney World has a steam train. I text later that yes they do and they have four locomotives: Roy O Disney, Walter E. Disney, Lilly Belle, and Roger E. Broggie, a Disney imagineer who led the railroad project at Disney World. I don’t text him the names, that would just take too long. I’ll tell him in our next conversation. He took the kids there, he said, but couldn’t remember about the train. It makes sense of course that Walt Disney World has a steam train, but I think, and I tell him this later, the Disneyland locomotives have better names. At least they’re named after Santa Fe movers and shakers: C. K. Holiday, E. P. ripley, Fred Gurley, Ernest S. marsh. But, whatever the names are, Glenn’s conclusion about Walt Disney World is that Disneyland is better. We knew that. The conversation opens the door for my first marriage proposal story. Somehow, I’ve been wanting to tell him these for years. I tell him how I almost got married and moved to Florida. Somehow I miss his question and tell him that we have a team at the Walt Disney Travel Company that takes Disney World calls. “Have you been to Disney World?” No, this is when I explain that I had the chance to get married and move there, but turned it down. “Cold feet?” he asks kindly. It’s a long way from my first question in 2010 when he explained cab visibility to this statement. I’ve worked hard to get here. “No. I realized I wouldn’t be happy. And, if I wasn’t, he wouldn’t be.” He doesn’t say anything. He gets like that, sometimes. “Are you trying to marry your daughter off like you tried to marry me off?” I ask him earlier tonight. “It’s so hard to get you women married off these days” he says. That’s because, my dear, there isn’t anyone like you to take care of us. I don’t tell him that, but the thought crosses my mind. We’ve discovered we can do it on our own. But, I don’t say that, either. He’s so friendly that it makes me want to tell him those stories: especially the one about the railroad tracks. That comes later. Besides, I think he can handle things. There are some people I wouldn’t tell things to. I’ve told him that the fifth anniversary of Chatsworth makes me sad. I wouldn’t tell most people that. Of course, we do have a connection that way with the death of his friend and we did discuss the signal sequence. In the mountains, in the desert with the jack rabbits and the big buildings he tells me about in another conversation, the subject shifts again. “So, where haven’t you been?” I ask, while we’re on the subject of travel. Tammy on 684 has told me that Glenn has worked everywhere. I don’t know if this is true, seems like his most vast experience would have been with Amtrak. That is something for a later time. “Where haven’t I been?” he asks again. “Massachusetts. Minesota. In Montana,” he explains, tere were Canadians. It was winter. He sat in a t shirt talking to a Canadian about home temperatures. Ten below zero the girl said. And, here he was in a t shirt. I’m sure he has more stories. I’ll take them all. “So you’re a titan?” Somehow we’ve gotten to the fact that I work for Cal State Fullerton on my second job. And, somehow this leads to that. How does he know I’m a Titan? Did he know people who went there? Yes, someone did and then went to Overland Park to engineer school. He seems to not like this idea. But, he does know about the Titan’s. He says he spent time today watching a college game. I think it was an LSU football game. But, I have to admit that this eludes me. Just more things to clear up with him at a later time. “I worked sixty one hours two weeks ago on my first job,” I tell him. He does like people to work. “Wow. That's a lot of hours,” he says in that gentle way of his, the midrange Glenn. Glenn the guy who worked six days and had two days off in six weeks he says in a text to me two years ago, is telling me I work a lot of hours. Isn't that like the tea pot calling the kettle black? “And, a second job on top of that?” He asks. does he admire me or think I’m crazy? He's my Glenn. He's crazy. I'm is #1 rail nut friend. Maybe it's me who's crazy after all? “Is it for the courts? Attorneys?” he asks about my second job. Almost four ears ago now on a cool morning I tell him about my second job, talking easily with him as he sits in the cab car going toward Los Angeles. In the four years we’ve been talking intermittently, he’s never asked so many questions of me till tonight. “It’s for Cal State fullerton. I type interviews. I explain to him, “I’m the one paying the bills,” I say, defending my long work days, “I'm out of the house at twenty till five in the morning and back in the house at 9:30." "Oh." It’s his exclamation of Surprise. "Are you doing that tomorrow?" “No. I'm off Monday and Tuesday." Years ago Mo Miller told me Glenn was a tease. Now, he proves it. But, nervous as I am at the beginning, I am not without my responses. It’s part of what makes this conversation so different and perhaps what I’ve needed to combat all the anxiety spawned by the Lancaster trip, the fear of losing the connection and the complicated efforts I put myself through completing my picture of him. I worked hard to become that number one rail nut friend. I want to stay that way for a long, long time. “Now that I know you're off Monday and Tuesday I'll take advantage of you." "Advantage of me? You already did that when you grabbed me and went with me to the railroad tracks." This is a reference to the June 14 day he walked me to track eight for the famous picture. “Yeah,” he says in that way of his where the one word means everything and nothing. “You know,” I say, “you’ll only get away with what I let you.” If he wants to tese me, as number one rail nut friend, I have earned the privelege to tease back. I’ll let him win, sometimes. “Fair enough,” he responds. “Railroad tracks are dangerous. I got proposed to by the railroad tracks long before I was into trains.” This is my second proposal story. Now seems an appropriate time to tell it. “You got proposed to before you were into trains by the railroad tracks?” “A guy I know who was a train fan we were by the tracks going to that church that used to be there. I was performing the music there for the Easter service.” I’m talking about the Ice House where Calvary chapel Fullerton used to meet. Curly sat with me on the benches just to the left of the elevators and asked me to marry him. I said yes, and then changed my mind two weeks later. I didn’t know that some twenty years or so later I’d be attempting to make contact with engineers and telling one my story. It just seems the right thing to do. “I remember when they’d made that into a church. That was cool.” So, now, I’ve told him both proposal stories. I don’t’ know if he’ll remember. He always surprises me about what he remembers. I just have to wait and see. This rambling conversation swings back to trains, they are the things that unite us, after all. I’ve noticed on the radio that the dispatchers always call him by his name. And, they always tell him to have a good day. “But,” he says, “They can still line me up on a siding somewhere.” “No matter,” I say. “They all have a crush on you.” Somehow on the subject of trains, I decide to tell him about the incident at L.A. Union station when I was so distracted by my cell phone that the arrival of train 314 on the track to the left of where we stood to get the picture, scared “the crap out of me” as I put it. “I wouldn’t leave you somewhere not safe The way he says this is so full of feeling that it almost sounds sad. It makes me want to climb through the phone and comfort him. It’s ok number one engineer. I know that. I know. “I know,” I say gently. “I thought of that later. I was with the engineer.” I want him so badly to know that it wasn’t his fault. “But I really wasn’t worried about that,” I continue. “I’m observant it was the cell phone thing.” You’re not the only one to be distracted by the cell phone,” he says in that wise railroad way he has. Maybe we’re both thinking of Alan on train 111. Maybe not. I wonder. I was in a completely safe place and was still distracted enough not to pay attention to a train till its bell signaled its approach. After a moment of silence, we’re back to the teasing. "You're not as tall as I thought you were." "I’m shrinking." "With age?" "Yes. And, expanding outward." He's so silly. My favorite railroad engineer in the whole world is so silly! “You're too much,” I tell him. And, just before we end this rail nut adventure, there is one last thing. The original reason I called. He gave me an email address to send the file too so he could retrieve it. “I don’t have a computer,” he says. “But my son does.” He has one. It just got knocked off the table by the cats, he says. In our conversation on January 31, 2010, he said the same thing. So, now, he has my file. I’m sure he’ll tell me what he thinks of it. He hasn’t killed me yet. I think Susie is right. He won’t. when I tell him about our conversation he just says “That’s funny! That’s cool.” I’m happy about that. Now, he ends our time together with his usual reminder. "Shelley. I'm in Lancaster. It's going to be a while. I've got to get checked in. I'll be reading your texts and we'll talk again.” In our first conversation recorded on January 31, 2010, he said the same thing. It’s comforting to hear him say we’ll talk again. Different lives intersect from time to time, and I’m the better for it. I’ve known for years that he reads my text messages. But, now, it seems he doesn’t mind them. I’m the luckiest middle aged teenaged star struck love sick railfan in the world! I’m his number one rail nut friend. I’ll buy that package. It’s all I ever wanted.
Copyright © 2013 Shelley J Alongi |