Well, I wish I could top yer story, Alan, but my most memerable train journey occued when I was about 14 years old...

Like most 14 year old wise-to-the-worlders I knew it all and had done everything except hop a frieght train... So Jim Clark, Jerry Christain and I decided that it was time to take care of that last remaining feat, other than getting laid, that a 14 year old could honestl;y say that he's "done it all"...

Now there's something seriously wrong with the wiring of most 14 year old boys 'cause they really don't think, ahhhh, long range.... So the three of us took the bus to Alexandria, Va. where the freight yard was and walked down the tracks aways so as to not be seen and just sat there in a wooded area watching up the tracks for the sign of any trains that looked hop-able... Well, we'd been there what seemed like days, which for excitable boys of 14 was probably more like an hour when a train did come lumbering in out direction heading south... To be honest it was barely movin' and when it finally got toward us it was moving about as fast as we could walk...

Now, I'd sure nuff like to be tellin' a story about jumping up into a box car but them doors is purdy danged high to get in but a flat car did come along and we had no problem gettin' on the danged thing and so there we were, ridin' south on a dirt flat car...A few miles south of Alexandria the train picked up some speed and purdy soon we was rollin' down them tracks maybe 50 mph or so...

There's a point in every 14 year old boy when he realizes that perhaps he doesn't know everything in the world and I'm here to say that point in time came upon all three of us at the same time as in "Oh, Sheeeit!" I mean, here we were, hangin' onto a dirty flat car headin' to who-knows-where at 50 miles an hour and ya' know what, our parents are gonna be good and p.o.'d, that is if we aver see them again??? Who knows? Maybe this train is going to Brazil, or Egypt, or worse, Russia and we're going to have to work in Siberian salt mines for a buck a week??? Lotta stuff goes thru a 14 year old's mind once he has crossed that most important threshold... No, not getting laid, gol dangit. Learning that yer parents might be smarter than you??? Horrors!!!!

So this thing had been thumpin', rollin', bumpin' for about an hour and half when it started to slow down ever so slowly until it wasn't moving much faster than it was when we hopped it in Alexandria so not wanting to end up workin' for a buck in a Siberian salt mine we decided maybe we should just get the heck off and see where we were???

Well, where we were was in the woods and we could hear cars not far off but there was a steep hill to climb to get to it and I remember vividly scratching and clawing every inch of that hill, grabbing exposed tree roots and whatever but we made it to the top and could see up, as in north, the road a truck stop in the distance... Now that truck stop sho nuff looked like an oasis and we walked to it, asked a trucker where the Hell we were and found that we were just north of Fredricksburg, Va...

Back in those days hitch-hiking was an honorable profession... Heck, we did it all the time so we jst stuck out out now humbled 14 year old thumbs and made it back home before dark...

"So, son, what'd you do today?"

"Awwww, you know, just messed around, Dad"

Sad but true story about Bobert as a 14 year old...

Bobert