Last week I wrote about Miltonvale, the town of Tom, Dick, and Harry. Rarely I have joined the three boys for tea in the afternoon when they sometimes tell stories about when they were kids.
Anyway, during one of the sessions, they talked about how Dick was sometimes assigned the task of taking care of Harry while Harry was a toddler.
One story that Harry remembers is when Dick would pick him up and put him down the laundry chute where Harry had a soft landing in a pile of dirty laundry in the basement.
I asked Harry, “Wasn’t that scary to be dropped down the laundry chute?”
And Harry told me, “Yeah, at first. But then as I got a little older, I would jump down the laundry chute myself for a short-cut to the basement.”
Another memory was one that Dick talked about—how he and his friend Bill used to play around the railroad tracks downtown all day. One day while there were there, Dick and Bill accidentally took their first train ride.
Here is how it went. That day, Dick and Bill were inside a boxcar playing when the train began moving. Instead of bailing off, they stayed on the train for their first ride. At that time, the train usually stopped at every little town. The first town after Miltonvale was Aurora.
So, when the train stopped in Aurora, the boys jumped off and played in Aurora until a train heading toward Miltonvale came back through. They hopped on the train and rode back home. When asked where they had been, Dick told his mother they had been playing around downtown at the railroad tracks—partly true.
Bill’s mother, now deceased, first learned about Dick and Bill’s train ride capers after I wrote about it for the Miltonvale Record a few years ago. Dick’s mother probably never found out before her death in 2008.
So, from then on—I’m not sure how many times—the two boys took train rides as far as Concordia and back until the conductor became wise to what they were doing.
Another train confession came from Merlin A. who has since passed. He told the story while at Senior Citizens. Merlin said, “I used to ride that railroad track from Oakhill to Longford,” Merlin said that he and some other boys would put a car on the railroad tracks for a ride.
One time, when he and his friends were riding the tracks, someone jerked the steering wheel, causing the car to jump off the tracks while the car was on a bridge. Merlin said they knew there was a possibility a train might come along and said it was scary to look down off the bridge. He also said they had a hard time getting the car back on the tracks again.
Merlin also talked about how his first-grade teacher took his class on a train ride from Miltonvale to Clay Center, then they rode back in vehicles—a memorable day for a six-year-old.
There was another true confession of a train hopping by Harry. By then, Harry was a teenager. He said they would put the car on the tracks at a train crossing and let some of the air out of the car tires.
Harry said they learned they did not have to let as much air out as they first thought. He said they just put the car in low gear and let it go—no need to steer. He said that if the car went too fast, the car could jump the tracks.
Harry said he and his friends would put the car on the tracks in Miltonvale and ride to Concordia. He said Concordia is only about 17 miles by rail rather than 25.
While in Concordia, they partied and drank some beer. Then they turned the car around and headed back home, sometimes taking a little beer home with them. No need for a designated driver—the car knew the way home.
So, there you have it—train tales from Tootleville—childhood stories of three young Miltonvale train hoppers.
