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Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!
| Article
# : |
14155 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1988 |
2,896 Words |
| Author
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Steve Kaplan
Steve Kaplan is a widely published free-lance writer living in
St. Paul, Minnesota, who is also a contributing editor of St.
Paul Magazine. |
The cabbie was confused. The man he had picked up at a swanky Los Angeles hotel, dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit and carrying a fine leather briefcase, had him stop at a gas station. Five minutes later, he had emerged from the washroom looking for all the world like a tramp. Todd Water had changed into well-worn blue coveralls and had come out carrying a beat-up blue backpack, which contained his suit and briefcase. Then Waters had had him drive to the railroad--not the beautiful Spanish-style Los Angeles railroad station, mind you, but the Colton railroad yards, a train switching station in the middle of nowhere.
After leaving the mystified cabbie a good tip, Waters got out. With the skill of a lion eyeing his prey, he reconnoitered the railroad yard, discovered the train routed to his Minneapolis home, found an empty boxer, and settled in for the ride home. Sixteen hours later, Waters was walking through the door of his half-million-dollar house on Lake Minnetonka; he was a bit sooty, but felt completely refreshed.
Waters often rides the freights, but he is neither a hobo nor a "frequent-flyer" rebel. Waters is one of a small group of middle- and upper-class people across the United States who ride the freights for the love of it. A "survival sport" he calls it, and it plays the same part in his life that most other men give to spectator sports, collecting stamps, or following the stock market.
The first time
Like any lover, Waters vividly remembers his first time: "I was trying to leave Cheyenne, Wyoming, and it was getting late in the evening. The sun was setting over the mountains. I was riding this grain car, and I climbed up on top and held on to watch the sun set. The Western skies were so big and crimson, and as the sun set I was just mesmerized by the motion of the train, and pleased by the great progress I was making in the dark. I turned around and looked in front of me and I could see this little ball of light in front of the track, and it was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and then, just like that, we were in one of those little city downtowns. And with all the streetlights glaring it seemed like broad daylight. Then the train started off again, slowly, and I heard the ringing of the track highway warnings as I went past, and I saw all the backs of the buildings and the houses, and the faint blue light of the TVs reflecting off walls, and then, just like that, it was total darkness again. And that ball of light was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then, twenty miles down the track there
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