The Last Train Home

In my present employment, I have the dubious opportunity to hear canned music for much of my workday.  Most of this stuff simply goes in one ear and then promptly out the other, but occasionally a line of lyrics becomes lodged in my mind.  One such verse is, “Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.”[1]  Hearing this line repeatedly leads to memorizing it, but more significantly, it sets a train of thought in motion.

Many times in the last several years have I taken “the last train home tonight.”  This last train left Boston South Station at 9:30pm every evening, made most of the stops along the way, and arrived in New York Penn Station at 2:30am.  I rode this train several times each year when I returned to my childhood home to visit and check up on my aging parents.  After a long and busy workday, I rode the Boston Express bus into South Station and then got on the train, and this schedule worked out quite well.  The bus was always a great soporific.  When it left Nashua, I fell asleep, but I always woke up just in time as it neared South Station.  The Amtrak train was even more comfortable.  I slept most of the way to New York, but I always awakened briefly at key points along the Shore Line that brought back memories for me.

The first of these spots was along the shore of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.  As the train rushed along, I sleepily glanced out the window at the black sky and blacker water and momentarily remembered sailing on this great bay aboard the tugboat Charger as she hauled the gasoline barge Interstate 35 toward Providence.  Then I went back to sleep.

The second wake-up took place as the train stopped in New London, Connecticut.  Once again gazing sleepily out the window, I noticed most of the Cross Sound Ferry fleet tied up for the night at the floodlit piers.  The larger vessels  John H and Cape Henlopen always stood out because of their size, but after a moment the Susan Anne and the Mary Ellen and others came into view as well.  As the train loaded and discharged passengers, I recalled the many voyages the family had made aboard these vessels when driving between New Hampshire and Long Island.  Then, with my mind comfortably at sea, I went back to sleep as the train eased away from the station.

The third seaside wake-up spot was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and this one was always very brief.  Following the station stop, the train rolled past the dock used by the Bridgeport and Port Jefferson ferry.  Often one of this line’s three ships was spending the night there.  I usually woke up slightly for a moment, just long enough to peer out the window and maybe see the Grand Republic or the Park City and recall the occasional voyages I had made on this mid-Sound route.  Then I quickly fell asleep again.

At last, after a quiet and restful journey, the train reached the Hell Gate Bridge in New York.  Wide awake at this point and getting ready to disembark, I took in the grand view of the East River from this landmark span.  To the west the water led to the skyscrapers of Manhattan; to the east it wended its way toward Fort Schuyler and beyond into Long Island Sound.  I remembered that I had sailed this route numerous times aboard the Charger-Interstate 35 combination many years ago  Next, and it always seemed too soon, the train pulled into the subterranean caverns of the Pennsylvania Station, and the peaceful and pleasant nocturnal railroad voyage ended.

Penn Station at 2:30 in the morning was everything the ride along the Shore Line was not.  Incessantly crowded and noisy, hot and humid in summer, cold and raw in winter, it always proved that New York really is the city that never sleeps, although a few passengers, myself included, sometimes dozed off between trains.  Fortunately, the wait for the Long Island train was never very long.  After an anticlimactic ride to Mineola, I usually disembarked amid a horde of late night party-goers.  Separating myself from this crowd and threading my way through the labyrinth of modern high-rises and parking garages that now comprise downtown suburban Mineola, I made the ten-minute walk to the old family home and usually arrived about 4:00am.  The odyssey of “the last train home tonight” was then concluded.

I always entered the house as quietly as possible through the garage and kitchen.  If the dog didn’t wake up and raise a rumpus, I went back to sleep for a while in the family room.  Eventually the dog always did wake up, though, and then my father, hearing the commotion, came out to investigate and then discovered me.  Usually, he had forgotten that I was coming.  Later, about 7:00am, my mother would wake up.  Mom never forgot that I was coming, and she was always elated to see her vagabond son again.  It was a happy way to start her day, and her enthusiasm always made the nighttime traveling worthwhile.

Typically, a visit of two or three days’ duration followed my early morning arrival.  These were always pleasant occasions.  With both my parents in their nineties, however, we all knew that their meters were ticking, counting down the limited time they had left.  When my visit with them ended, I usually took an afternoon train back to Boston.  The next day, I went back to work.

My last journey aboard the last train took place on the night of Tuesday, October 31, and Wednesday, November 1, 2017.  I arrived promptly on Mom’s 99^th birthday.  My son Michael arrived by air from Europe for the occasion, too.  That was a very special day for Mom, truly a very happy last birthday for her.  Now, with her gone, the house sold, and my father in assisted living, it’s doubtful that I’ll ever take “the last train home tonight” again.  These journeys are now memories, as were the shipboard voyages that I always recalled while on the train.

The highlight of these railroad journeys, whether made by day or night, was always the sight of the sea and the vessels that plied it.  My voyages aboard ship, first as an employee and later as a passenger with my family, were important events.  Now they are important and precious memories.  Likewise, the memories of family gatherings, special family occasions, and deceased family members are important and precious, too.  While we cannot repeat the past, we can relive it in memory and share the happiness we find there with others.  As the scriptures counsel us:

                        Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:

                        ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell

                        thee (Deut. 32:7).

But simply remembering and hearing oral histories often prove insufficient in the long term.  Thus we have the more recent scriptural injunction to “continue writing and making a history of all the important things” (D&C 69:2).  Since going to sea was—and still is—very important to me, I took both notes and pictures along the way.  Now I’m glad I did.

There is so much here to be thankful for: the memories of shipboard voyages and families, the writing and photographs that preserve them, and a random line of canned music that releases a flood tide of these magnificent memories.

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[1] Al Stewart, “Time Passages,” 1978, found at www.azlyrics.com.

Clothes Make the Man

A little while after the Furman, there was the Hayes.  Fully loaded with cable, the Furman left Portsmouth Harbor bound for the Far East on a rainy spring morning.  Miss Patty and I watched from the lighthouse base in New Castle.  A largely new crew had been assigned to the ship, and those of us who had been sick were taken off.  It was with mixed feelings that we watched the Furman sail away.  The time I had spent aboard this ship was also the longest interval that she and I had been together since the day we met.  That would soon change, though.

The Hayes had also been secured to a pier for a long time, but her pier was at company headquarters in Bayonne, New Jersey.  I moved back into the family headquarters on Long Island and commuted to the ship by automobile each afternoon and returned to the house late at night.  Commander Whitten, still recovering from his heart surgery and related problems, was also reassigned from the Furman to the Hayes.  Nick the Greek had gone to the Hayes ahead of us but did not stay long.  He eventually took a medical retirement.

Unlike the Furman, which had been in a semi-active status while slowly loading cable, the Hayes had been all but taken out of service.  She was waiting to be towed to a shipyard for a major rebuilding, but it was not a high priority job.  The wheels of the office bureaucracy turned very slowly, and the Hayes simply sat there and waited for something to happen. Consequently, there was very little work for us to do.  The Hayes was thus even more of a hospital ship than the Furman had been.

The mates’ schedule on the Hayes rotated so that everyone would have three days off once every three weeks.  I used these occasions to return to New Hampshire, visit Miss Patty, and complete the bedroom for the baby which we were by this time expecting.  As an alternative to more driving in the middle of the night, I often rode the trains between New York and Boston.  Enroute to New Hampshire, I would leave Manhattan aboard the Night Owl at 3:00am on Saturday.  Miss Patty would meet me at South Station in Boston at 8:00am and convey me to our house in Nashua.  While this may sound like a terrible schedule, it was actually quite convenient.  Aboard the Night Owl, I slept very well.

Of the several times that I travelled from New York to Boston aboard the Night Owl, one in particular stands out.  On most of these journeys I dressed decently but informally.  On this particular night, however, I wore a navy blue suit and a dress shirt. I brought my few other belongings in an airline carry-on bag marked with the Pan Am name and emblem.  Once aboard the train, I took the window seat in a two-seat section, removed my jacket and tie, and set them down with the Pan Am bag on the empty adjacent seat.  Nothing remarkable, really; I just wanted to get comfortable and go to sleep.

As the Night Owl eased her way out of the Pennsylvania Station and into the tunnels, the conductor came through the car to collect tickets and fares.  He, of course, was dressed in a formal railroad uniform as he carried out these duties.  I saw him go from seat to seat and heard him speak to all the passengers as he collected their fares and punched their tickets.  He was unfailingly polite and professional in all of these transactions.  Then he came to the section where I was sitting. 

He paused for just a moment and looked at me and at the dark blue jacket and necktie and Pan Am bag on the adjacent seat.  I said “Good evening” to him and held out the money for my fare.  Seeming slightly startled, he smiled broadly and responded enthusiastically, “Good evening, sir.  Welcome aboard.  We’re very glad to have you with us tonight, sir.  Are you going to Boston, sir?  That’ll be so many dollars, sir.” I gave him the money, and as he punched my ticket he continued, “Thank you, sir.  We expect to arrive in Boston right on time at eight o’clock.  If there’s anything you need, sir, please let us know.  Have a very pleasant journey, sir, and thank you very much for travelling on Amtrak.”

            I thanked him, too, and he continued with his duties.  As I sat back to doze off, I wondered what his excessive politeness toward me was all about.  I had heard him speak to the other passengers before he reached me, and afterwards I listened more carefully as he spoke with the passengers sitting behind me.  He was consistently polite and courteous to all of them, but not to the same degree.  He did not call any of them “sir” or “ma’am,” did not advise them of the expected arrival time, did not offer assistance with anything they needed, and did not address them with an obviously elevated level of enthusiasm.  As he got farther away from me his voice grew less audible.  Soon thereafter, I fell asleep.

I woke up briefly a while later when the Night Owl made a station stop.  I looked out the window to see how far the train had gone, then shifted in my seat to go back to sleep.  In this brief interval, the same conductor walked through the coach again.  As he passed my seat he looked in my direction, smiled at me again, and nodded in acknowledgement.  I returned the greeting, got comfortable, and went back to sleep.  When I next woke up, it was time to disembark in Boston.

In the car enroute from Boston to Nashua, I told Miss Patty about this curious incident.  She had a ready answer.  “He probably thought you were a pilot.  You could have been on your way from JFK to Logan for your next flight.  He probably doesn’t see too many pilots riding the trains.  You looked the part, though, and he noticed it.” 

This sounded reasonable, even quite likely.  But if true, the conductor had been very much mistaken.  My brother Robert was the Pan Am pilot, and he had given me the Pan Am bag. The resemblance of my clothing—which admittedly could have been folded to conceal insignia—to a pilot’s uniform was purely coincidental.  Looked at in this light, the train conductor’s politeness to me over and above his standard courteous manner with the other passengers seemed amusing.  I had not been at all what I appeared to be.  It was my clothing and my one accessory that had unintentionally transformed me into the image of an airline pilot.

The simple fact of the matter, though, is that what a person wears says something about him.  This can be either deliberate or accidental; either way, clothes communicate.  If they do not literally make the man, they at least project an image of the man.  I was fortunate aboard the Night Owl in that I had unintentionally projected a good and honorable image.  Better to be mistaken for an airline pilot than a bank robber!

What a person wears says something about him not only to others, but also to himself.  A man who would attend church on Sunday unshaven and dressed in sweat pants and a tank top, for example, conveys the message to both himself and others that church is not important to him.  Another man, dressed in a suit and tie and properly groomed, conveys an entirely different message.  By his appearance, he says in essence that church is important and worth the time and effort spent on preparation for it.  His appearance further indicates an attitude of respect and reverence for the things of God.  By contrast, the unshaven fellow in the sweats gives the impression of laziness and displays a disrespectful and uncaring attitude toward religion.

In a statement of reprimand, the Lord asserted, “you have treated lightly the things you have received” (D&C 84:54).  When we consider what exactly we have received in the fullness of the Gospel and the opportunity to attend the temple, treating it all lightly should not even enter the picture.  It is a given that the Lord deserves to be shown respect by his people; good grooming and decent dress form an obvious expression of this respect.  Furthermore, as children of Heavenly Father, we owe it to ourselves and each other to be decently dressed and well groomed.  This indicates self-respect and respect for others, reciprocal acknowledgements of self-worth, fitting for a species created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27).

Taking a different point of view, the secular world judges people by their appearances and treats them accordingly.  Dress and grooming can make or break appearances.  Of course, this is all superficial and does not necessarily represent the true inner self of a person, but the world is frequently a superficial place.  People often like or dislike other people because of their appearances, which is irrational. 

For more rational reasons, employees in honest and important professions dress according to company policies or in company uniforms.  The railroad and airline personnel are but two examples of this.  What they wear while on duty not only identifies them to their passengers, but also indicates that they have met certain standards and can be entrusted with public safety.  Their attire demonstrates respect for their professions and elicits both the respect and trust of the travelling public.   

My father has often asserted that if the average American were invited to a state dinner at the White House, he and his family would dress up in the best clothes they owned for the occasion.  Some folks would even go shopping and purchase entirely new outfits.  If people think that the President of the United States is deserving of such a display of respect and good manners, he would then ask, how much more so is God?

While not alone in this thinking, my father often feels outnumbered.  Several years ago two missionaries in Nashua, Elder Zoldana and Elder Cockane, paid a visit to Saint Francis Xavier Church one Saturday afternoon.  This building was one hundred years old and had recently undergone an extensive refurbishing.  Restored to its original grandeur inside and out, it was truly beautiful, and the missionaries, like many others, wanted to see it.  In the interest of discretion, they removed their name tags as they entered the church after Mass had finished.  They walked around quietly and admired the art and architecture of the building.  Presently, the parish priest came along and engaged them in a friendly conversation.  At one point he said to them, “Are you fellows Mormons?”

“Yes,” they replied, and one of them asked, “How could you tell?”

“Well,” sighed the priest sadly, “it seems like the Mormons are the only people who get dressed up for church anymore.”

The Lord has instructed us, “Trifle not with sacred things” (D&C 6:10).  Dressing and grooming properly for the Lord, for church, for ourselves, and for one another raises people above the level of trifles and demonstrates respect and reverence for the Lord and those created in his image.  In a world where such a standard is often sadly absent, doing so does not go unnoticed.  The reactions of the parish priest at Saint Francis Xavier to the visiting missionaries and of the conductor aboard the Night Owl to a passenger he evidently mistook for a Pan Am pilot demonstrate this point.