An American Flyer Tale for Christmas 2013 Edition

[Northwoods Flyer]

I had hoped to post this story earlier but other things took priority.  I hope you will enjoy it.

 

An American Flyer Tale for Christmas

2013 Edition

 

Most of the time Jillian thought that having four older brothers was the best thing that a girl could have.  And then there were other times when she wished that she was an only child.  Today was one of those days when she wished that all four of her brothers would evaporate.

 

For weeks she had been anticipating everyone being home for the Christmas holiday.  It would be just like every other Christmas with the house full of people.  Her brothers were always bringing friends home or dashing out to play a pick-up game of football or pond hockey.  They usually let her tag along to watch, or they invited her to play when they were shorthanded.  Jillian was a talented athlete in her own right, but her chosen sport was soccer.  Her coach told her that she was faster than any player that he had ever coached.  That gave her a sense of confidence and inspired her to always play her best.

 

Her brothers started arriving home the weekend before Christmas.  Her oldest brother James arrived home first.  During the summer he had taken a job on the other side of the state.  They didn’t see him very often but he frequently sent notes to Jillian asking her how school and soccer were going.  Several hours later her second brother Jesse came bounding in the front door.  Just like mom had predicted he had a huge laundry bag flung over his shoulder.  It probably contained every piece of clothing he owned.  He was going to school at the state university several hours away and had ridden home with his roommate.  The last ones to arrive were her twin brothers Joe and Josh.  All their lives they had done things together and when it came time to go to college they had even picked the same engineering school to attend.  Fortunately they hadn’t taken the same classes.  As freshmen they had the worst possible time slots for their final exams. When Josh’s final was done they just had enough time to get aboard the bus that would get them home very late.  The roads were bad that night and mom and dad had stayed up waiting for them to arrive.  They told Jillian that they were working on the last of the preparations for Christmas, but she could tell that they were worried.  She had gone upstairs to bed before they got home, but she knew immediately when they arrived.  There was thumping and bumping in the front hall and then the sound of her two older brothers thundering down the stairs with greetings and loud voices.  Jillian threw on her robe and slippers and headed down the stairs.  As she reached the landing of the stairs she looked down and saw her four brothers and mom and dad all hugging and talking at the same time.  She paused for a moment and took it all in.  It felt good to have the family all together.  Then she bounded down the stairs and joined the celebration.

 

The following days were full of preparations and celebrating.  Mom and Dad had gone to great lengths to have the house decorated with all the familiar decorations.  For weeks Mom had been baking everyone’s favorite cookies and treats and the tins on the sun porch were full.  Dad had gotten all of the outside decorations and lights put up shortly after Thanksgiving.

 

Several days after the tree was up and decorated Dad had dug out the old train set that he had as a boy and put it under the tree.  Jillian hadn’t seen it in years.  Her brothers had always monopolized it when it had been under the tree and all she had been allowed to do was sit on the floor and watch it circle the tree.  Dad had packed it up one year after he discovered the boys crashing the engine into their cars and trucks; creating spectacular wrecks.

Now that it was out on display again the boys were monopolizing it just as they had years ago.  Jillian had watched them play with it so often when she was younger that she knew just how to set it up and operate it.  Before the boys came home she had asked Dad to show her how to run it.  They had spent several hours that afternoon watching it run around the tree and Dad told her several stories about it.  He told her about the Christmas that he had gotten it and how Grandpa had helped him set it up.  He told her about Grandma giving him an old bed sheet to use as a snowy landscape.  He could remember who had given him the extra cars and accessories that he got each year for his birthday and Christmas.  Jillian enjoyed hearing the stories and they gave special meaning to that train running around the tree.  Dad had encouraged her to play with it, but to treat it well.  She was fascinated by the way it traveled along and she began to feel confident in running it.

 

That is one of the reasons she was so frustrated with her brothers today.  All four of them were in the living room monopolizing the train again and she couldn’t even get near it.  They didn’t seem to appreciate it any more today than they had when Dad packed it away years ago.  Their conversations bothered her too.  James kept talking about how much money they could get for it if Dad sold the pieces individually to collectors.  Jesse was focused on how much fun the train wrecks had been and wanted to run the engine into all kinds of things to see what would happen.  The twins were occupied with trying to apply the things that they had learned in their classes, like momentum and amps and volts and watts; most of which Jillian had no idea what they were talking about.  The most frustrating thing was that they ignored her or anything that she said.  Finally she got frustrated and announced to them that she wanted to run the train.  All of the chattering among the boys stopped and four sets of eyes focused on her as if she had poinsettias growing out of her ears.  That’s when Jesse told her not to be dumb. “Girls don’t know anything about trains or how to run them.  Trains and technical things are meant for boys.”

 

Jillian was furious.  Her face turned a bright red and she stormed out the room.  This was the part of having only brothers that frustrated her.  It had happened before and she always felt angry and hurt.  She retreated to her room for a few minutes where she plotted all kinds of ways to take revenge on the boys for being so thoughtless and mean.  After a few minutes as she began to calm down she remembered what she had done on other occasions when she felt mistreated.  She decided it was time to go for a visit to Auntie Mimi and Uncle Dick.

 

Jillian went down to the front hall where she could hear her brothers chattering in the living room, slipped on her coat, hat, gloves and boots and headed out the front door.  She closed it with just a little more force than she needed to so that it sounded inside the house as if she had slammed the door in anger.  She wondered if the boys would even notice.

 

Auntie Mimi and Uncle Dick lived two blocks away from her house.  They were actually her mother’s aunt and uncle which made them her great-aunt and great-uncle.  That didn’t make any difference to Jillian, she always felt welcome and loved when she went to their house.  They had no children of their own so they treated Jillian and her brothers as if they were their own children.  As she got closer to their house she felt some of the anger and frustration drain away.  By the time she got to the steps leading up to the porch and climbed them to the front door she was feeling eager to see them and taste some of the goodies that Auntie Mimi always had on hand.  She rang the doorbell and she could hear footsteps coming toward the door.  Uncle Dick opened the door, greeted her with his big smile and said “Jillian!  How good to see you.  We were wondering how long it would take before your brothers got on your nerves.”  He helped her off with her coat and called down the hall, “Marian, we have company.”  Auntie Mimi’s real name was Marian, but Jillian had trouble saying it when she was very young and it came out “Mimi”.  The name had stuck and now everyone in the family called her Auntie Mimi, except Uncle Dick of course who always called her Marian.

 

Auntie Mimi came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on one of the big flowery aprons that she always wore when she was baking. “My goodness child, what perfect timing you have.  I just finished baking a batch of sugar cookies.  Come out to the kitchen and have a glass of milk and some fresh cookies.”  Suddenly Jillian’s day was looking much better.

 

The three of them sat at the big round wooden table in the kitchen and chatted while Jillian drank her milk and ate more cookies than she should have; and while her aunt and uncle sipped hot tea.  Finally Uncle Dick asked how things were going with her brothers and she poured out the whole story about Dad’s train and how unfair and unkind her brothers had been.  Her aunt and uncle listened intently, but somehow she felt that they were both having a difficult time keeping the corners of their mouths from turning up in amusement.  Now that she was telling the story it didn’t seem quite so serious anymore.  Her brothers were just being dumb boys.

 

When she had finished Uncle Dick rubbed his chin and said “So your brothers won’t let you play with the train eh?”  He looked at his wife, winked and said “Are you thinking what I’m thinking Marian?”  She smiled back at him and said “I believe I am.  Do you know where those boxes are?”  Uncle Dick nodded his head and said “I do, but I think we should all make a trip up to the attic to find them.”

 

Jillian was puzzled by this interchange between them.  But things began to clear up quickly.  “Jillian” said Auntie Mimi, “I bet you don’t know that Uncle Dick and I had trains when we were children.  Jillian shook her head. “Well, you know that we were born in the same year.  It seems that both of our sets of parents were very excited to welcome a first child into the family.  In anticipation of our first Christmas, before we were even born, our fathers bought train sets.  We still have both sets stored up in the attic.”  Jillian was surprised and excited by this news.  “Would you like to go up and help us hunt for them?”

 

The door to the attic was in one of the upstairs bedrooms.  Jillian followed her aunt and uncle upstairs to the door.  Uncle Dick opened the heavy wooden door and flipped a switch just inside the door.  A cold blast of air blew down the stairs from the attic.  Uncle Dick led the way up the stairs, Jillian in the middle, and Auntie Mimi brought up the rear.  The lights along the ceiling lit up the entire attic.  Jillian could see neatly labeled boxes and cartons lining the walls.  There were several pieces of furniture covered with sheets and blankets to protect from dust.  Jillian was surprised at how neat and orderly everything was.  There was a large open space in the middle of the floor that was covered with linoleum.

 

“Dick, I think the boxes are just up there beyond Grandma’s chest of drawers.”  Jillian followed her uncle to the spot and there were two very old cardboard boxes with colorful paper labels sitting side by side. Each label read “American Flyer Trains”, and in an area shaped like a shield on the label it said “Electric Trains”, then “Wide Gauge” and a number was stamped on each label.

 

Jillian was so excited that she was almost dancing.  “Do you want to help me unpack them?” asked Uncle Dick. “It’s been a few years since we have had them out to run.”  Her aunt and uncle each took a box and slid the top off.  Inside each box were several bundles carefully wrapped in tissue paper.  They handed her bundle after bundle and she unwrapped them with great care.  She was surprised at how large the engine and cars were.  They ran on 3 rail track, but they were much larger than the train around the tree at home.  Eventually there were two trains sitting on the attic floor.  Uncle Dick’s train had a green square looking engine with the #4644 on brass plates on its sides.  It had an orange car that he called a sand car and a red caboose.  Auntie Mimi’s train had the same #4644 engine but it was a passenger set.  There were two coaches that matched the green color of the engine.  One had “America” on its sides and the other car was an observation car that said “Pleasant View” on its sides.  “We always felt lucky that we had a freight and passenger set.  They were purchased from the same store by our parents.” said Auntie Mimi.

 

Jillian helped them to unwrap the track and transformer with each set.  She helped them set up two ovals of track in the big open space in the center of the attic.  Jillian knew just how to assemble the track and make the connections between the tracks and transformers because Dad had shown her how to do that on his set at home.

 

Before long the tracks were assembled, the transformers hooked up and plugged in and the two trains sitting waiting on the tracks.  Uncle Dick found two low stools that he and Auntie Mimi could sit on.  Jillian was sitting on a rug on the floor.  Her aunt and uncle looked at each other and smiled. “Well what are you waiting for?” asked Auntie Mimi.  “You want me to run them?” said Jillian.  “Of course.” they said in unison.  She slowly turned up the power and both engines sputtered to life pulling their cars along the track.  The three of them sat in the attic playing with the trains for some time.  Jillian heard several stories about when the trains were played with.  She most enjoyed the story of how when they were dating they discovered that they both liked trains.

 

When it came time for Jillian to go home she offered to help put everything back in the boxes.  “Nonsense said her aunt. “We’re going to leave them up for a while.  When you feel like running trains and your brothers are not willing to share, you come right over here and run our trains.”  Jillian was thrilled.

 

As Jillian was putting on her coat she turned to Auntie Mimi and said “I’m so glad you think girls can play with trains.” A big smile came to her aunt’s face. “I always liked running my train.”  Jillian thought for a moment and said. “Auntie Mimi, I know those trains are very old and they still run so well. They run as good as Dad’s train at home.”  “Of course they do.” said her aunt. “Every so often I go up and oil the engine and do maintenance.  Uncle Dick doesn’t know anything about trains.”

 

Jillian almost skipped all the way home.  She couldn’t wait to get home and tell her brothers a thing or two.

 

The End

 

Uncle Dick’s train

 

Auntie Mimi’s train

Enjoying the World's Greatest Hobby

Northwoods Flyer

[cheapclassics]

Good morning all,

Great story.  Great trains.  Thank you for sharing.  Nothing beats the thunder of trains rolling on 2-1/8" gauge track.

Keep on training,

Mike C. from Indiana

[Ted_Yor]

Thank you. That was really good story. Thanks for taking the time to tell us all. It will be hard for me to get back to work thinking about my own past experiences!

Ted

[wallyworld]

An enjoyable nostalgic read. The magic remains.

[fifedog]

Northwoods - Ya know, if this Blueboard Central thingie doesn't work out, you could always write for Reader's Digest.

[AF53]

As always!