Childhood Lost

– C H I L DH O OD L O ST – "What'd ya' think?" he rejoined with a grin.

"I don't know," I replied. "I guess I think you walked away."

"There's not much that's worth hittin' yer parents over, Deke," he said sadly, "or anyone else for that matter."

"What'd you do for food and clothes on the tracks?"

"When I'd hit a town, I'd start lookin' for odd jobs, fences that needed mending, wood that needed choppin'. I could usually find somethin' to do for nickels and dimes. That was all people had then, ya know. Hell, five dollars in them days was a pile. You could get a bath, shave, haircut...new jeans, shirt, and jacket, and still have enough left over fer a good meal and a couple packs of smokes.

Sometimes," he continued wistfully, "I'd stumble across a job that'd take a week or two to do. Times like that I'd usually make enough to keep me goin' for a month." He fell silent for awhile, lost in a past I'd never know.

"You been ridin' since you were fifteen?" I asked incredulously.

"Naw," he chuckled. "World War One broke out when I was seventeen. I figured 'what the hell.' I got an old bo to swear he was my father. He signed my papers, semi legal like, and joined the Army."

"Did you go to war?"

"Yeah."

"What was it like?"

"Like life, once you understand it," he replied with a short laugh, then explained, "War is just life accelerated. A fella mostly has more fun quicker, works harder, and dies sooner, ya' see, so all we're really talking about here is the time. Ya do all those things when the world's at peace too, it just takes ya' longer to do 'em."

The box car suddenly lurched several feet forward, throwing us both sideways. A series of lesser jerks followed. The protesting screech of metal wheels on steel rails reverberated in the empty car; we were rolling east.

We sat in silence for a while, the old man and I, then he drifted off to sleep. I walked over to the door and stared out at the passing scenery. Houses soon thinned out, gradually replaced by unfenced lands and old growth evergreens. We were, I knew, headed for the Cascade Foothills. Beyond that, I had no clear idea about either the train's destination or what I would do when I got there.

"Is any of this real?" I asked myself, staring out into the gathering gloom. With time now to reflect, it seemed decidedly unreal,