Slingshots and Train-Rides

I remember it as clear as if it was yesterday. Dad had taken me down to Coverts Crossing so that he could teach me how to use the smooth, wooden slingshot he'd given to me earlier, while we were eating breakfast. The one that he produced for himself to use was machine crafted, bought somewhere. I'd seen others like it on the shelves of the sporting goods store in our small town during trips we'd made there to purchase tennis shoes and figured I knew where dad had bought the thing. Mine though, was delightfully handmade; he'd carved it himself during breaks at work he said. It was fashioned from pine, I think, and was perfectly shaped to form the letter Y. It's sling consisted of a yellow, hollow rubber tube secured at either end of the Y by a small knot. In the center of the tube was a small, black pad of leather which dad said would cradle the ammunition we were to find and use. The contraption fit perfectly into my back pocket but I couldn't seem to leave it deposited there for long. I marvelled at it's design and at the slings elasticity and just had to feel its'
weight in my hands.

Covert's Crossing was named for the several sets of railroad tracks that lay across Covert's Road. At the approach to the crossing were the first two sets of tracks. Further forward and across the rickety, old, wooden bridge were two sets more. It was on the beds of these tracks dad said, we would find our ammunition. Trolley farts, dad said, were small and almost perfectly round and the best thing to use as slingshot ammo. Iron ore pellets is what they really were. There were a lot of active steel mills in my town and these pellets would have been used in the making of steel. I didn't know all this then and instead had visions of the trolley; the last car in the line, dropping out little rabbit droppings shaped pellets from its' tail-end. I was just five years old and still prone to literally translating things said.

After scouring the rail beds and finding enough ammunition to line our pockets, dad and I set up a target range which consisted of pop bottles and cans, and an old license plate. Dad showed me that if I placed a pellet into the little leather pad, held the slingshot with one hand while pulling back with the other, I could look down my arm and through the center of the Y at my target in order to aim. I practiced what he suggested but still, releasing the sling would send the pellet rocketing into the ground, way left or way right and even once somehow, behind my own head, nearly clipping my ear until I began to learn to focus and aim. The more I shot the better I got and began to knock cans flying and shatter bottles. We would reset our cans and place new bottles in the spots where the shattered ones had been, again and again we shot trolley farts out of our weapons. Dad even let me try his slingshot while he used mine. The elastic band on his was styled differently and was much harder to pull back on. I never hit a thing using that one.

We switched back and decided to walk further down the road and across the bridge to where the other sets of tracks lay. After pausing on the bridge for a moment, we heard the distant wail of a train. I was excited to hear it because I knew from experience at the crossing, it would have to eventually get to where we were and we could watch it go by. I'd never been so close to the tracks before. I only remembered seeing glimpses of trains from the back seat of my dad's car while setting at one of Covert's crossings as one of the iron monsters passed by, shaking the ground and our car in a way that only a train could. With every step we took towards the tracks I became more excited.

As we stepped off the final plank of the bridge and back onto graveled earth we saw it. And what a train it was! All black and red and shiny and belching smoke from everywhere it seemed. Too me it was a behemoth, a giant, metal serpent with a tail so long its' entire length could not be seen from where we stood. As it got closer and closer, the ground trembled more and more. I'd never felt the trembling from anywhere but in the car and with my feet directly on the trembling ground I swooned with excitement. Closer and closer it got and I so wanted to be aboard, to see it and feel it from the inside. And the giant smoking beast began to slow down as it approached us.

As we sidled up to the set of tracks the thing was approaching on, an arm extended from the blackened window of the engine, waving. The engineer was waving to us! I looked over to see if dad was seeing what I saw and he too was waving! Like two long lost friends, dad and the engineer waved frantically to each-other while the rolling behemoth rolled slowly to a stop, placing the engine right where we stood. And then the engineer leaned his body out of the window and called my dad by his name, said how good it was to see him again, what had he been up to and who was the little guy. Dad introduced me as his son and told of how fascinated I was of trains, that I went bonkers when we heard his approach and could he give me a ride. A ride? Dad asked his friend if I could have a ride? He did! And the friend said yes, bring him around to the engine compartments' door and help him up the ladder. Or steps. Can't seem to remember that particular detail.

It was dark and smelled of soot and of oil and of dirt inside the engine room of the train. Dads' friend had placed me on his own stool where he normally sat while operating the controls and levers that were now within my own reach. He stood over me and showed what he did to drive the train. This does this and that does that he said. As I sat on the stool pretending to drive the train my dad popped his head in and said he'd see me at the next crossing, that I was going to drive the train there to meet him and to not be scared and to have fun, that he'd see me in a few minutes.

I was scared at first. A lot, but it quickly passed when dads' friend reassured me that we could drive the train together, that it would be a great adventure and the next crossing was just down the tracks. So we pulled this lever and released that one and we tooted the horn and away we rolled. Slowly at first and then some speed and then we slowed again. Before I knew it, we were at the crossing where dad was already waiting, sitting on the hood of our car, legs crossed, waving and smiling like a lunatic. Dads' friend and I both leaned out the window to wave back at him and I imagine I too must have looked quite like a happy lunatic. And I was! I'd just driven a train! Sat right there in the drivers seat and pulled levers and tooted horns and applied the brakes to slow us. I was so excited! As I climbed down from the engines' compartment with dads' help I realized how lucky I was to have such a dad. A dad who carved slingshots and hunted trolley farts and knew train engineers!

Slingshots and train rides. I sure do miss that fella.