She Likes Trains: The Book Of Engineers Various groups dot the platform this week, discussing politics, the foibles of the educational system, the antics of business owners trying to save a buck and restaurant owners who don’t understand the book keeping practices of a business about to be purchased. There are anecdotes, memories of Mo, a new engineer, a conversation on the planter with Glenn by cell phone in the presence of a man I’ve been trying to arrange for him to meet, and there is, always, Shelley’s book of engineers. Yes, my sweet Glenn, I’m writing a book; it is the book of engineers. It is a book about community, family, love, fondness, and sometimes about trains. I know a man who runs a locomotive. He started doing that forty years or so ago. In the process of time he has met many people. Saturday October 29, he took the time to get up in the morning after driving home from his position in Lancaster and attended a memorial service for someone he met in 1998. The locomotive engineer knew a woman married to a retired bus driver for the Orange County Transit Authority, a woman who said he addressed her first by saying “Do you want to go for a ride?” This engineer has grayish red hair, a beard, a mustache, and glasses. Do you recognize this friendly engineer? Is he in your book of memories? At least if you read this description you may recognize him as my number one engineer, the right one, the engineer of my dreams. My personal railroad journey may be about meeting the personalities who run the trains, the engineers, mainly, but it’s also about the people who watch the trains and the sense of community that exists in a sometimes disharmonious way. This week it’s about losing one of those members, the woman who tried to cause trouble between me and Glenn the number one, engineer, at least that’s how I see it. But she’s not here to defend herself anymore. Two years ago when I first met Glenn on 608’s steps at Los Angeles Union Station, holding out my hand, getting a high 5 sign from a gloved engineer’s hand, one that hurt my wrist later on, (read about it in My Happy Places), Mo Miller told a group on the patio that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Two years have passed since then, I’ve developed my relationship with this engineer and met so many others. She went through her treatments and went into remission. Last week, after I returned from an extended absence from the train station, I learned of her death. The woman who gave me Glenn’s description and who made me angry, who told me that Glenn had a tattoo of Yosemite Sam on his arm: the one known as the frog lady, the Harvey girl, she is the one we lost. “Oh,” Janice says sitting on the patio on Saturday October 22, on a pleasantly warm fall evening, “it doesn’t make any difference to you. Mo passed away yesterday.” I’ve been in a bit of a shock since then; how could someone who I felt almost ruined my rail connection with an engineer, if only in my own head, how could that death make me so sad? I do not know, but maybe, more than anything, the lingering sadness serves as a testament to the bond that exists between all of us who gather weekly, daily, or after extended absences on the brick-lined platform to watch trains. And the engineer who comforts his four trains on the Antelope Valley line, taking time, even if it’s five minutes, to answer my questions, is part of that community. We’re all in a book of memories somewhere, and mine is the book of engineers. Tonight, a quiet Sunday night, October 30, two years after my only face to face meeting with Glenn, as some prepare to chase or become ghosts and goblins, princesses or frogs who turn into princes, I sit on my perch, Dave Norris in front of me, Allen, Jen, Tom the schoolteacher, another man I don’t recognize, and my phone. In my hand, my black phone rings, announcing it is a call from Glenn, the engineer of my dreams. Tonight I will not have an hour-long conversation with my number one engineer, though my heart longs to do just that; what his does I do not know, I only write this from the curious star struck rail fan’s perspective. Tonight, sitting here I have one question, did he get to meet Dave Norris at Mo’s memorial on Saturday? All week I have endeavored to bring together two members of my own community: Dave the 40 year train watcher and Glenn the experienced veteran of the railroad. As I try to make this happen I remember that one of the skills which I own is to bring people together. All through the 1990s I hosted New Year’s Day parties. I have introduced people to people, simply because I like to be a host. Lately with a full time job and a series of financial setbacks diverting my attention from hospitality making I have had precious little time to do that; but this week I’m back to my old habits, again. Two years have seen me go from paroxysms of anxiety about talking to the engineers, it took me a year to meet one, to get in to know the railfans and now trying to introduce the railfan and the engineer. I decide tonight after Amtrak southbound Surf liner leaves I will call Glenn to ask him what color he was wearing. Dave has informed me that he thinks he saw my friend given the description, but that he may have been outside in the anteroom since the chapel where Mo is remembered is filled to the gills with railfans and other people gathered from a lifetime of memory making and disharmony. I suppose we all have a little bit of each of those in our own communities. “Ask him,” Dave says, giving me an excuse to call Glenn, “if he was wearing a blue, checked shirt.” If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it now. My heart doesn’t pound so much tonight, I am in the presence of forty year railfans all of whom bolster my courage. I don’t know why I always get so nervous talking to Glenn, considering the last two conversations have been rather easy, but I do; maybe that’s all the fascination of meeting my first train engineer, one who turns out to be a very nice person with attitude. At first it was all because he runs trains; now it’s because he’s friendly; respectful, a little disrespectful sometimes, moody, helpful, responsible, and just plain old sweet Glenn. He is the first entry in my book of engineers. Tonight sitting on my wall now I hold my phone leaving a message. Dave wants to know if you wore a blue what was it? Oh a blue shirt, and if you can, call me back tonight I’m at the station I don’t want to compete with freight trains but call me and if not I’ll talk to you, soon. The last few times Glenn has talked to me he has said we’ll talk next time. He always ends his conversations by assuring me we’ll talk again. “Thank you for complaining on Sunday” I text to him last week. “It was spectacular. You are the best.” Now I put my phone down, holding it, talking, sure he won’t call me back. I am wrong! Two minute Slater my phone ring. “Hi! You aren’t’ driving yet?” “I am. I just had to drop a bench of stuff off at my kid’s house.” Ok. We won’t go there. “What’s up,” is his query, inviting me to lay it on him. “Lay it on me” he says once when I tell him I have a question. I explain that Dave thinks he might have seen him on Saturday. Was he wearing a blue shirt? I have to stop and ask Dave again. “I was wearing a red shirt.” Wow, Glenn is wearing my favorite color! Red. I can’t see red, literally, I guess, but red has so many variations it parallels my personality: stop, soft, notice me it announces imperiously, grab your attention! Red wine. Red apples. Red grapes. Sweet red. Bloody red; trouble! Red and gold the traditional colors of fall or someone’s mascot. In the railroad world at least in the signal variations I understand, flashing yellow followed by a solid yellow leads to red. Miss a red signal and you’re possibly dead, or suspended, if not fired. Ah, yes, red! So many things that can happen with red! Glenn is wearing red! I’ll have to tell him about red being my favorite color. “I got caught in the shuffle,” he says. He was indeed in the anteroom, listening. He thinks he heard Dave speak, he informs me. There was another David who spoke, a conductor, but no, Glenn insists, it was “your friend.” Dave confirms this; so at least they know of each other’s presence, and Glenn, because he is Glenn, remembers his name, just like he remembers mine. I always used to wonder if he remembered my name. I write about that a lot in my initial discovering of this engineer. His as the only train I could make at that time and he was consistent. All my other engineers take time off; he doesn’t. And he remembers my name. “Shelley this is Glenn.” There’s a voicemail for me. I can’t believe it’s from him. It comes across my phone on Tuesday October 25 at 1:54 pm. I still have it on my phone even at this writing. ”Hey. Yeah,” he says, his famous words. He’s going to Mo’s memorial and he doesn’t know where it is, but give him a call or leave him a message and “we’ll take it from there,” he says. I’ve texted him to let him know that if he an make it I’d like him to meet someone. I’m so excited he actually leaves a voicemail for me; my first voicemail ever from him! I am sitting at the Down Town Bar and Grill eating tacos on taco Tuesday when I get the message. It is after 4:00 pm and so I call him back. I forget to be nervous. “Hello!” “Good evening!” “What’s up!” This is all happening I can’t believe it! This is the guy who went to Lancaster in2010 and left me in tears on the platform not because of him going to Lancaster, but because I was so emotionally attached to the idea of meeting the engineers. Finally I was losing one! But as it turns out I didn’t’ lose him did I? No. I haven’t lost him. I’m the luckiest star struck middle-aged adolescent railfan in the world! I don’t’ even remember what I said in response to his query. I think I said something like “is it time to go home yet?” I was off work; I didn’t have to worry about that. I got your message, I explain, I think there might have been confusion, not sure but anyway I won’t be at Mo’s memorial I have to work that day and I couldn’t get the time off. I’m not sure what was said but he then said something about having to work till you’re old enough to retire. I must have said that I didn’t have any more paid time off or that I had used all my vacation time, or even maybe that I had to watch my points, I honestly don’t remember. What I do remember is that it was quiet, I could hear him, he sounded awake, friendly, familiar. We’ve been at this two years I guess he could at least recognize me. “Were you sleeping?” I asked him earlier, now with my own familiarity, always cognizant of that sweet moment when it sure sounded like I woke him on January 1, 2010. Who knows what I’ve done to him since then; maybe driven him crazy, maybe made him smile, curious, or something. I haven’t’ made him run away. I cant’ really describe him, he just seems to take everything as it comes, living in the moment, I think, not so plagued by analysis like I am. Maybe that’s why he’s so energetic? I don’t’ know, now I’m analyzing a man sitting somewhere holding his phone talking to his best station girl. “I’m alright,” he assures me. But about working till I’m old enough to retire, I say. “Yeah ok and then when you retire you’re still broke and hungry, right?” Sometimes I really do wish I could see this man’s face. I never know if he’s laughing at me or confused. Maybe he’s just taking it all in stride, rubbing that reddish gray head with all his vast experience with trains and asking, huh? It’s part of the mystery. What is he thinking? I might be surprised. Maybe he’s thinking nothing at all. I should ask him someday. Anyway, I gush forth like an excited fountain; he’s not sleeping, he has time for me. I tell him about how Mo explains their meeting. “Mo said she was in L.A. and you stuck your head out the window and said “Do you want to go for a ride?” She said she finally got one. “I don’t know if I gave it to her or not. I’ll have to ask Mel.” “She didn’t say whether it was you or not.” Around me the 195 bar and grill where I regularly stop in for taco Tuesday hums with quiet activity, and there wherever he is, is quiet, too. Then I tell him something else. “The day I met you on 607 when I got back that night I went across to the patio and she was telling the guys there she had cancer. She wasn’t telling me. Then someone asked me if I got to meet you and she said you were friendly. Someone asked if you were married.” I’ve always wanted to tell him this; here’s my chance. “I said you were probably married; whenever I talk to someone in the cab I always assume they are married. She said she told me you were married and that you were friendly.” He listens serenely. I think he’s beginning to see that I’m not out to get a boyfriend. I sincerely believe that he has never thought that; I think she just wanted to make me think he thought that. Who knows. You can read all about that in “Engineer Drama.” “I remember thinking I finally got to meet an engineer and she knows him, too. I just thought, well, she knew everybody.: and she did. Dave Norris has known her husband thirty years. Mo and Mel were married at least fifteen years, Dave says. “We met in ,98 huh?” remarks Glenn. “That’s what she said.” I think in the months to come I’ll tell him more about what she told me about him though it wasn’t much. Some of it was opinion about why he married and some of it was about each of his kids, we’ll just have to see how it goes. All I know is I’ve made a friend out of a railroad engineer, something I wanted to do. What a gold mine! Silence reins for a moment. Glenn asks me something gently, his words muffled. He does, I’ve decided, have a more gravelly voice than I first thought: maybe because of cigarettes, maybe because of yelling over the imperious voice of four or more locomotives on a freight train. But he has this quiet way about him, one that holds promise for whatever relationship he’s conducting at the time. I sit there, a little annoyed, not with him, but because I can’t hear his quiet question. I ask him to repeat it. he does. Finally, he rephrases the question. Someday I have to see him face to face again if only to avoid the locomotive cab, the bluetooth, or the cell phone. Look at me when you call me that, honey. “Who are these folks you want me to meet?” Oh, good grief, sweet engineer, I’m so sorry! Of course! The hole reason for this conversation. I tell him about Dave Norris, that I think they’ll like each other, that they should meet. He tells me he doesn’t know wher the church is at, or that it’s on Magnolia by Lowes, and then, he says in a way that’s more familiar to me, that he’ll keep an eye out for him. It’sclassic,energetic Glenn. I love this man. Can’t you tell? “So are you writing a book?” Glenn pipes up early in July 2010, when I leave a voicemail asking hymn a question. Yes, my number one engineer, I’m writing a book, it’s about my engineers and they all have to line up behind you. “I’ll have to ask George if they’ve put out any bulletins.” Dave Norris sits on the patio waiting with us for the Southwest Chief. I’ve just explained how that I met Carey’s replacement. “I met a new engineer,” I say, to which someone responds, I think it was Dan, that they’re putting out bulletins on me in Los Angeles. I just laugh and explain that I’ve made the trip carrying the super hero bag over the bridge and down the stairs to line up with the six car marker. I don’t stand so close to the tracks these days. It’s probably a good thing. A man supposedly was killed at Buena Park when the cow catcher on the phi locomotive caught his leg pulling him under the train. Engineers and people on the platform sometimes warn me away from the tracks, but I know enough not to stand that close. Usually my demarcation point these days is far behind that yellow brick safety striping, actually working its way into the tracks, not posing any kind of tripping hazards. Someday someone will probably replace it. It serves its purpose well. There are some places in other states that don’t have the safety striping. Certainly out in the ballast there is no safety striping. There is none at pedestrian crossings here, at least not at the ones I’ve been at. I don’t’ like crossing railroad tracks anyway, I don’t’ go looking for them. I only go looking for engineers. Once I tell Glenn that I don’t’ like crossing railroad tracks; I try to stay off of them. We’re discussing the latest fatality on one of his trains, when he wasn’t there to encounter it. “That’s different,” he says. He knows I’m operating safely. In the entire time we stood talking outside the cab he never warned me away from the tracks. I always came up as close as I could get, putting my hand on the window, loving every moment. Funny, I don’t do that, so much anymore, but what I do tonight, Thursday October 27, is stand by the tracks, waiting. I know it’s not Carey by the bell. Each engineer it seems has their own preference about when to ring the bell. Glenn rings that bell as far back as he can, almost at the signal for the junction, the place where the crossover switches the train onto the Fullerton tracks. Some barely ring that bell through the station. Some almost don’t ring it at all. “Was that far enough back for you?” Carey asks me once when I tell him that he doesn’t ring the bell very far back. I just laugh. Bobby rings the bell pretty far back. Glenn rings the bell back furthest of all. Tonight the bell rings further back than is usual for Carey’s engineering hands, so I almost expect that he’s not there. My suspicions are confirmed as he pulls the train to its spot and doesn’t open the window. I wave. “DO you need some assistance?” Now the engineer is the only person who can ask me this question. Glenn asked Curt if we needed the train the first time I saw him in Fullerton. Bobby asked if I wanted to ride with them. Frank and Carey asked me where I was going. Tonight, I let the as of yet unnamed engineer ask the standard question. “NO. I just come to talk to the engineers when I can. You must be an extra.” I think he’s listening to his radio or maybe just looking around because it is a while before he responds. Curt isn’t here to spot for me; he’s not here to assign the engineer a nick name. “Carey’s not here,” he says. “I know.” “Carey’s not here but you figured that out by now.” “Yeah.” I laugh. “My name is Shelley and I come talk to Carey when I can. What’s your name?” “My name is Ray.” The crackle of the radio alerts engineer and railfan to the high ball. “have a good day,” I say, parroting all my engineers. I wave. “have a good day,” he says. I smile on my way back over the bridge. I’ve met another engineer. There’s another name for my book. Now on the patio I’m teased again. They’re keeping watch out for me. Everyone knows Shelley. She likes to talk to the engineers. It’s been that way since Chatsworth. As number 4 pulls into the station, late, I make my way back to see Bobby. “DO you like my bag?” I hold the super hero bag on my shoulder. He looks out the window of the cherished Med. “A railroad bag?” “Yeah. Does it look like one?” “Yeah,” he says. I hold it proudly, like a child. This is the extent of the conversation. He rings the bell, pulling the train to its next cross over. So, I think, as I make my way back over the bridge, finally, I’ve showed the engineer my bag though I will by no means show him the switch key. We gather now by the signal at the junction, waiting. Conversation now turns to memories of Mo which range from the anger she could exhibit over Mel being offered Candy, or Mike says he missed the aggravation, or me saying I never really knew her. Dave tells us they were married at the Tehachapi loop, and they discuss the upcoming service on Saturday October 29. She was in hospice one day, the sudden return caught everyone by surprise, and there is some question about the doctors responsibility in this sudden turn of events. She died at 2:00 PM on Friday, less than 24 hours after being admitted into hospice. Having some experience with being a bereavement counselor five years for Hospice I know that many people don’t last 24 hours. She was one of those. I guess we’ll never know the whole story. There is always speculation. But her memory lives among us in all of its complexities. Everyone has memories of Mo, it seems, bringing up a discussion of the Harvey girls. The Harvey girls aren’t’ my thing in railroading, I say, finally deciding after meeting them at the museum. She got married in her black and white Harvey girl outfit. They wear long black and white skirts, blouses, very formal. I just don’t get the Harvey Girls. They are a historically significant reminder of days gone by when Santa Fe plied the rails with passenger service and provided reasonably priced, well prepared meals, marrying off many of the girls to train crews. It was a rule that a Harvey girl couldn’t marry for six months when in the service of freed Harvey’s Harvey Houses. But Harvey Girls just aren’t for me. “I’d rather be in a room full of engineers,” I start to explain. John the switch key guy laughs. He ran the locomotive at Knots Berry Farm. “Asking questions,” I say, finishing my idea. Instead of paying homage to the waitresses of the past I want to learn about the engineers of the present and the future. Is it the engineers or the trains? It’s a little bit of both; and I’ll take them all. Various groups dot the platform this week, discussing politics, the foibles of the educational system, the antics of business owners trying to save a buck, and restaurant owners who don’t understand book keeping practices of a business about to be purchased. There are anecdotes, memories of Mo, a conversation on the planter with Glenn by cell phone in the presence of a man I’ve been trying to arrange for him to meet, and there is, always, Shelley’s book of engineers. Yes, my sweet Glenn, I’m writing a book; it is the book of engineers. It is a book about community, family, love, fondness, and sometimes about trains.
Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi |