May 27th, 2009 Air Horns – The Last Train is Approaching
I can remember at least 100 times, as a kid, maturing up just south of the tracks, when Russell and me would be dashing for our lives, or so we would imagine. The freight yards blended with all different types of people and trucks, mostly waiting to get loaded with all the stuff that came off the trains. There was plenty going on all over this place, at least for most the day, to keep a hundred guys hoping making a living.
Russell’s dad was one of them and my dad used to be also. The train air horns from the locomotives would alarm in a chain of sounds and the trucks wouldn’t be far lagging, as if to say yea, yea we hear ya. I always imagined if those series of air horns blasting from the trains was signal for anything, or just some irritating wake up shout to stir the dock workers.
You know, I mean, they spent a lot of minutes talking about what must have been important stuff until those air horns blasted off, then like bees from a aggravated hive, they would leap to the closest thing to do and be doing all motivated like.
I’m sure we had better things to do than watch them buzz around, but it absolutely was a kick in the pants, and we would fantasize they were our soldiers, or maybe our slaves of some sort, you know when your a ruler or a General or something, you had to have human beings to do what you said, right?