Trains

As a kid, we spent every summer in Louisiana with my maternal grandparent and innumerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. I believe that my mother really enjoyed these trips. I found them less pleasurable. But the trip down and back was always fun. Usually, my mother would travel with whichever of us little kids were alive and take the train down. We got on a Chicago & NorthWesten train from Appleton to Chicago, change stations in Chicago (I even remember sitting on the floor of one of those big old Yellow Cabs because we had so many people to transport) to the Illinois Central Union Station to take the Panama Limited all the way to New Orleans. We would have a sleeper car, and there is nothing better than lying in a bunk in a train and falling asleep to the clacking of the rails.

The Panama Limited

But one year, my sister Abbie attended summer school and threw the schedule off. Mel and Mark went down on their own first, then Chas and I went down together, and finally our mother, Abbie, and the two little kids.

I was 5, Chas was 14. As I said, we were more responsible back then. We didn’t get a roomette, just seats (it was a long trip). I can remember getting mad at Chas during one of the meals (they had Jell-O with peas in it. I didn’t like peas) and I walked all the way back to our seats alone. Chas let me go (not sure how he could have stopped me) and that was that!

We were picked up in New Orleans by Aunt Abbie and Uncle T, who then drove us to Franklin. I was very homesick until our mother came down.