Will the original poster of this story please contact me PRIVATELY either at
daveklepper@yahoo.com or by airmail at
Dave Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot, Shmeul ben Adiya 1, Mt. of Olives, Jerusalem 97400, Israel
with a copy either to jwrinn@triansmag.com or to the regular mailing address of the magazine.
Thanks.
good reality check today.
Everyone has a bad day once in a while, you know, those days where you could care less about any and everything, catch a good case of the blues, and end up feeling really sorry for yourself? Had one of those yesterday, and it looked like a repeat for today. The yard is jammed to the gills with cars, no place to switch them to, more work than we could ever get done …that along with some personal issues keeping me down in the dumps, having a real good pity party for myself…
There is a young man, now a teenager, who shows up just about every day it isn’t raining…he sits across from our yard entrance watching the action on the old XYZ line, and watching us switch. The thing is, he sits in a wheelchair. His Dad brings him up there in the afternoon, around noonish, and they sit, him in his chair, Dad in the van he has, watching, taking the occasional photo, waving at the crews as they go by. I have never really talked to either one of them, other than giving them a few cans of water during a scorching summer day, and sneaking a free cap out to the kid once…didn’t really know his story, other than he shows up all the time, and a few of the other regular railfans seem to enjoy sitting with him.
Well, we were sitting there on the lead, blocked by another inbound, while we were trying to go grab another switch cut from the receiving yard…just piddling away time really, when I noticed the van drive up. Dad unloads the kid; they have on