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TRACK WALKER

Back in the early 1940’s, when I was five years old we lived on a farm in Kansas near a place called Finley Hill. We were sharecroppers. Sharecroppers were farmers who never owned the land but farmed it and split the profits with the owner of the land. Dad called it Cockleburs Hill because the cockleburs were so bad it was hard to grow anything. It was a constant battle to keep the cockleburs out of the crops. There was no such thing as weed control back then for farmers. You had to hoe them out by hand or your crops would not yield anything. That was us kid's job-helping dad do the hoeing. Cockleburs are a wild weed that would grow almost anywhere. They have big stickers on them that hurt when you stepped on them barefoot. Wherever it grew it would crowd other any type of vegetation and take over.

Down at the bottom of the hill where the railroad tracks came through was an old general store they called a whistle stop.

When the train came through and the big red arm was not out the train would not stop. It would blow its whistle and go on by. The big red arm was on a post and when they needed the train to stop for mail or passengers the store manager would pull on a rope from inside the store and the red arm would come out. Then the train would stop. More or less like we do today when we want the rural mailman to stop to pick up the mail. We put the red arm out.

Almost everyday I would go down to the train tracks so I could watch the train go by. I loved to watch trains. When the big red arm was out the train would stop and I would talk to the engineers. Sometimes they would buy me a penny piece of candy. When the big red arm was not out I would stand there and wave as they went by. They would see me and blow a really long whistle and wave. Mom had bought me a pair of bright red mittens. I wore them down to the tracks and when I saw the train coming I would hold my arm high and wave my mittens but the train would not stop like I wanted it to. My mittens were not like the big red arm. I would have to wait for my piece of candy. But I got a long whistle and a big wave.

One day when I was down trackside waiting on the train I saw a man coming down the track. He was wearing an engineer’s hat and striped pair of overalls just like mine. For that is what I wore when I went down to the tracks to watch trains. Mom got them for me on my birthday. Best present I ever got as a child. The man stopped and I asked what happened to the train? My name is Casey Jones no relation to the late Casey Jones and I am not an engineer I am a track walker. I said to him "What is a track walker? A track walker is a person who walks up and down the railroad tracks to inspect them. For you see the railroad tracks are getting so old and they could break down. It could cause the train to wreck and we don’t want that. I walk the tracks and if I find a problem I report back at the next whistle stop so they can come and repair the broken track. Tell me now, are you the train-greeting boy here at Finley Hill that I have heard about? The engineers told me all about you and said when I reached this whistle stop to look for the boy in stripped overalls and an engineer’s hat and you fit that description. That’s me all right!

I asked Casey, "Tell me how far you go and where did you come from?" He told me that he walks 20 miles of track a day and walks for 6 days. This stop is the middle of my walk. On my way out I stop here on Wednesdays. It takes me a week to return back here which is a week from now, next Wednesday. My home is 60 miles back down the track where I came from. I end up at home every two weeks. I eat at all the whistle stops. I buy some food to carry with me if the whistle stops are too far apart.

I would make sure that I was down at the old general store every Wednesday. One day I asked Mom if Casey could come up to the house to get a piece of her good sugar cream pie. Mom said "Sure. I would like to meet this friend you talk so much about." So on the next Wednesday I asked Casey if he would like to meet my mom and have a piece of her famous sugar cream pie. He said, yes, but what is sugar cream pie? I said it’s the best pie in the world and my mom makes the best.

Casey and I and Scotty headed up to the house. Oh! I forgot to mention Scotty. Scotty is my brother's dog and mom sent him with me everywhere I went for protection as my brothers and sister were in school.

We got to the house and I told mom "This is Casey, my railroad train friend." Mom said, "I hope my son hasn't bothered you very much. He likes trains and everything about them." Casey said "No ma'am, he hasn't. But he thinks he has the best mom in the world and that she makes the best sugar cream pie that I have never eaten before." Mom said, "Well, sit down and see for yourself." Not only did mom have a piece of pie for Casey but she cooked him a whole meal. After Casey got done eating he said,

"Not only do you make the best pie but that is the best home cooked meal I have ever eaten. Don't ever tell my wife that I said that, not that you will ever meet her. She doesn't walk with me nor do we have a car. You know I come through here every Wednesday and if I could get a meal like that I would pay you a dollar." Back then a dollar was like ten dollars today. Mom said that sure she would do that.

Every Wednesday Casey came to the house for a home cooked meal. He would also have something different every time to teach me. He taught me magic tricks, made me wooden toys, told me stories and other neat things. The best trick he taught me was spinning a quarter around a large granite wash pan. The quarter would go round and round on the edge just on the inside of the pan.

Casey came for years and always was a good friend to the whole family. Everyone in the family loved him, especially me. Then one Wednesday he didn't show up and the next Wednesday he never showed. The next time the train stopped at the whistle stop I asked the engineers if they had seen Casey. They told me that his legs had given out and he would never walk the tracks again. Matter of fact he wouldn't even walk on this earth again. We think God has given old Casey a new pair of legs and he is walking the tracks in heaven. They said, "Casey was a good old boy but his walking days are over."

Every Wednesday at dinnertime there is an empty plate at the table. Mom would set out the one Casey ate out of just for a reminder of all the things he'd done for me. And to this day I use some of the things he had taught me. Every time mom made a sugar cream pie she would look up at the heavens and say, there you are Casey, your favorite pie.

Shortly after that we moved away from Finley Hill. After a few years I returned for a visit to see the old Whistle-Stop. It had been torn down. All that was left was the big Red Arm. I pulled on the rope and it still worked but it would not stop a train anymore for the train tracks were all rusty and covered with weeds. No more Whistle Stop; no more trains; no more Casey. But, I still think of all those memories when I eat a piece of sugar cream pie.