Miracle at Charlottesville - Chapter 3

[dabug]

Hey Mike:

Live on far west side of town, outside I-270.  Hope you are enjoying the ride so far; it's still a long way to Charlottesville.  Chapter 4 should be up tomorrow.

Dave

[Mikec6201]

Wharebouts are you in Col? Live on the east side myself....Mike

[dabug]

                              MIRACLE AT CHARLOTTESVILLE         

                                            CHAPTER 3

One morning around mid-April 1966, numerous members of our class were standing about on the porch of our classroom building before classes started that day.  I was standing near the end of the porch, generally facing the nearby street.  A naval classmate – Steve – was standing nearby, but facing away from the street.  Now, I’m not sure I even knew Steve’s name at that time.  I knew he was in my class, but cannot recall even having spoken with him prior to that morning.

Suddenly from behind the end of the building and into view came the woman mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, walking toward her class.  Seeking a conversation-starter with anyone within earshot, I remarked, “There goes the ‘Berkeley Beauty’.”

Steve overheard me, and replied, “Yeah, I saw the campus from the train window on my way out here.”  Whoa, Nellie!  Did I just hear the magic word “train?”  If so, this was the first person I had run into who admitted he had also traveled to DLI by train.  Immediately forgotten was the “Berkeley Beauty,” and the U.C. campus for that matter, as I turned toward Steve and cautiously responded, “I came out on the train too.”  Upon that pronouncement, Steve’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he almost demanded, “On the City of San Francisco???!!!”  When he could even name the train, I in turn inquired excitedly, “Are you a railfan???!!!”  “Yeah!!!  Yeah!!!”  If that wasn’t enough of a bombshell, I next asked Steve where he was from.  “Chicago” was the reply.  Oh my stars and little comets, Chicago – the railfan’s Holy City!  Naturally he inquired of my hometown too, but I think “Columbus OH” failed to impress him.  Oh well, compared to Chicago, I couldn’t blame him.  I learned Steve was very familiar with the Illinois Central RR, having ridden its electric commuter trains for years.

A friendship thus started that endures to this day.  This is somewhat ironic, as we have little in common otherwise.  But the alluring magic of the steel wheel on the steel rail is sufficient to cement that friendship.  We still communicate regularly via email and audiocassettes.  And when we get together rarely, we’ll usually offer a toast to the “Berkeley Beauty,” whoever and wherever she may be, without whom we may never have known of our common interest in ferroequinology.  I find that thought scary – though we were thrown together five days a week for nine months at the language school, it’s possible we may never have learned of our shared “affliction.”  We were never in the same section scholastically, you see.

In “comparing notes” later, we weren’t able to determine who checked Steve in when he and others came over from NPS (Chapter 2.)  Steve ended up in barracks B-7, and I soon became persona non grata as a visitor there with constant talk about trains, even being threatened with grave bodily harm by Steve’s cube mate.  So Steve and I had to confine our discussions to free time during the school day.

I had purchased a Super-8 movie camera shortly after arriving in Monterey.  (After all, trains move, and so, I reasoned, a movie camera was an important tool for a railfan.)  While in Monterey Steve and I talked about renting a car and traveling to Salinas (23 miles inland, on SP’s Coast Line mainline) some weekend to go railfanning together, but that idea never jelled.  Probably a mistake we never pulled it off.  (Could have captured both sides of the Coast Daylight and one side of the Coast Mail train during daylight hours on movie film.  Oh well, too soon old, too late smart…)  For some reason we never even tried to go see the Del Monte together.  We also determined that each of us had walked the track to Pacific Grove – end of track, two miles beyond Monterey at a large sand quarry – before we met, but never tried to repeat that feat together either.  Another mistake.  However, our biggest failure was being unable to convince each other to travel back east together during the late June/early July summer break.  Steve for some reason was enamored to the Overland Route, and was determined to reverse his trip out to Monterey via the Del Monte and the City of San Francisco.  I, on the other hand, was just as determined to travel east via SP’s Lark from Salinas to L.A., the Chief to Chicago, and the Lake Cities to Marion OH.  We both followed our individual plans as it turned out.  Besides, my new wife (from summer break) and I would be traveling back to California via the City anyway (using the Lake Cities from Marion to Chicago) because it was the only train that arrived in Oakland in time to connect with the Del Monte.

After returning from summer break, my wife and I lived off base, but within walking distance so I didn’t need a set of wheels.

(To be continued…)