Ray Bilderback
Most of us have memories involving trains. Maybe someone read “The Little Engine That Could” to us or told stories of early train trips. My experience was different, so I’m told. When I was very young, we lived in a cabin near the narrow-gauge train tracks. It wasn’t a very active line because we were deep in the 1930s depression. But the train did come by about 20 feet from the cabin, and when it did (according to some family sources), I would crawl under the kitchen sink. Unreliable family lore, of course. I was never such a scaredy cat.
We read train stories to our children and they got to see the real stuff when we visited the grandparents in Sprague. So, when we started planning a family adventure, the subject of trains came up. “Can we take a train ride? “
AMTRAX left Spokane in the wee hours (about 2:30 a.m. when we caught it) so we did not reserve a compartment, choosing instead to sit upright for the ride to western Washington. Staying awake paid off for us, the moon was full when we crossed the Columbia River, giving us an unforgettable view.
The wait was short when we got to Seattle where we hooked up with a ride to Oakland, Calif. This time we had a compartment with four bunks, crisp white sheets, and a window on the passing world. We also had an attendant that saw to our needs and seemed anxious to treat us like royalty.
Once the train got underway the “clack, tuh-clack, tuh-clack,” set up such a rhythm that we took a nap until our attendant rapped on our door. Supper time. We were somewhere south of Portland, Ore.
If you haven’t had dinner on the train, you’re in for a treat. It was a white tablecloth affair with fine cutlery. The works. I don’t remember the meal, but I do remember the service.
It was dark when we crossed into California. Occasionally we got a glimpse of the Sacramento River bathed in moonlight, but once again, the rhythmic “clack, tuh-clack, tuh-clack” got to me, and I must have napped an hour before the children woke me. There in the light of the still-full moon was Mt. Shasta. It was so beautiful that the children woke their mother. In my mind, Mt. Shasta is just as majestic as Mt. Fuji. They both dominate the view for many miles around. Fuji I could see most days from my barracks window in Japan.
Even a mountain the size of Shasta eventually fades from sight. We contented ourselves with moonlit glimpses of the Sacramento River until the “clack, tuh-clack, tuh-clack” did its work. This time, it even got the children.
We arrived in Oakland positively worn out. The children’s mother slept much of the trip, but we had not. She was so tired by the end of the school year that we had to remind her to eat and drink water. I once took her on a three-day fishing trip to British Columbia at the end of the school year. We rented a cabin and a rowboat. The cabin had a wood stove for cooking. There is something about a woodstove that draws me. Maybe it’s just an elusive memory, but it pleases me. I cooked and fished, and she slept the whole time waking only to be fed.
We took a bus to San Francisco. Jason stretched across the back seat and (you guessed it) he slept. A couple of kids sitting alertly kept looking back at him. Evidently city kids need to be more alert.
Our hotel was The New Beresford, a small, comfortable establishment that catered to embassy employees and their families (at breakfast the next morning we were the only people speaking English). True tourists, we spent the afternoon riding cable cars and gawking at tall buildings. It was a whale of a lot of fun.
Next morning, we traveled by bus to Berkley and the Japanese Trade Center. The center was half marketplace and half museum. I got to act as tour guide, reliving my time in Japan.
Back in our part of San Francisco, we rented a car for the trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to my aunt’s house. Renting a car was unexpectedly painful. The only credit card we had at that time was Chevron. The first car rental company turned us down for lack of “a proper card” but one tried harder and we drove back to the hotel. Just inside the door, our well-behaved rascals raced to be first at the elevator. Their mother, wanting to avoid a scene, tried to stop them, tripped and sprawled halfway across the little lobby floor. No damage done, but the clerk, after finding her unharmed, did not retain his composure any faster than she did. So, we all had a laugh and gained a friend.
That night we planned to have dinner and take in the sights that only Chinatown can provide. I didn’t relish the idea of driving at night in unfamiliar territory, so we decided to leave the car parked and take a taxi. I complained to the driver about the hassle involved in renting a car. He was puzzled, “If you’ve got a car, why did you hire a taxi? I never will understand tourists.” He shook his head and chuckled. He was having fun with the country bumpkin.
Our driver entertained us with stories about San Francisco, and we made good progress most of the way into Chinatown. But two blocks into Chinatown, we stalled. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper in both directions. A pair of blocks ahead there were flashing lights, firecrackers and music. We waited a few minutes and then a few minutes more. Our driver had gone quiet. No talk about foolish visitors. And we were stuck.
Stuck.
On the sidewalk the crowd was four-deep and moving toward the celebration. We paid up and joined the happy flow. All about us there were rumors of dragons in the street.
Dragons…. I love Chinatown.
Ray Bilderback, creator of the Reuben Braddock novels, was born and raised in the Sierra foothills of California. He served in the U.S. Navy Seabees during the Korean War and taught for many years in the west. He makes his home in the mountains of eastern Washington with his archeologist wife, Madilane Perry. “In the 1930s and 1940s, where I lived, we still used horses and hand tools, canned and preserved what we grew or raised, lit our kerosene lanterns, stoked our woodstoves. In my writing, I draw from those times like water from a sweet well.”