Eastern Seaboard Line: The Tracks

Leaving North Carolina involved getting a ride to the train station in Norlina and waiting for the Eastern Seaboard Line to come rambling through going north. In our world it ran alongside #1 Highway in Ridgeway, North Carolina. As children, we played all of those dangerous games on the railroad tracks that parents warn you NOT to play.

On the one day that I decide to cut school with a friend, my younger sister, who was born on my birthday 2 years after me, decided to follow along.

"Little Miss Book Worm ain't going to school, well neither am I. And you can't tell anybody. So how do you like that?"

I spent most of my childhood avoiding fights with a younger sister who was a terrible bully and who stole my birthday. My one day of being a rebel because now I had the responsibility of looking after her. Strange things happen on railroad tracks because of the immense possibilities that come to life in the minds of young ones that should be in other places, safer places. My sister, the bully, tore her Achilles heel on the tracks after only 2 hours out. I had not even figured out what was so fun about the dreaded tracks. I was lying on the embankment listening for the 10:15 to hit the Norlina station 5 miles away. Her screams sent shock waves through my head and face as I rolled in her direction. She passed out soon after the scream. My friend Dot and I ran to her. Dot didn't even stop, she continued to run for help. I stayed with my little sister. There was so much blood. The back of her foot was caught on a spike.

Needless to say, we all got what was coming to us for that day. Authorities had to be relied on to get medical attention. We were taken in a police car to the Hospital. Our parents were picked up at their places of work. Losing half a days pay was no small matter in those days. Railroad tracks held no fascination for me after that day. All I had to do was think of my sister's scream, the blood, and the anger of my parents in losing half a day at work. The whipping was secondary and meant nothing compared to the disappointment my Mother expressed in me.

"I expected that of her, she doesn't know any better. You are supposed to protect her. Why on earth possessed you to play on the railroad tracks with your hardheaded little sister? Even if you were already ditching school. Why couldn't you do something like YOU normally do!"

I spent the other part of my life trying not to talk back to my parents.