I sat with Grandpa on the concrete porch steps, looking across the street toward the train tracks. A single track snaked through our little town bordering the Cumberland River; close enough that we could hear the rumble of an approaching train from a mile off. When it was but a few blocks away we saw dark smoke belching up above the tree line. In another minute the first of three engines thundered into view from behind the old barbecue joint. The very ground vibrated from it. We sat in silence, awed by its roaring power, and watched it pass.
After it was gone I turned to Grandpa and said, “Grandpa, how big was that train?”
Grandpa said, “You mean how many cars? I don’t know but you should just count them next time.”
“Grandpa, I can’t count that high.” Even though I was eight years old math had proved a struggle for me.
Grandpa just looked at me and smiled. There was no condemnation or surprise at my ignorance on his face. “Of course you can,” he said. “When the next train comes we’ll count them together.”
As it turned out another train didn’t come through for a couple of hours. By that time Grandpa had left, off to work on a bridge somewhere, or a tobacco field, or anywhere else he could find work. I had waited patiently for a while, but two hours is a long time for a young boy.
My attention turned to the wild ducklings we had rescued from the spring floods. They floated around in a foot tub and cheeped incessantly. I loved to pick them up and cuddle them against my face. We kept hoping the mother mallard would show up to claim them, so we left them near the water that spring. But she never came. The ducklings wouldn’t eat, so they died one by one. One day the tub was empty.
Grandpa came back a few days later, with Grandma in tow. She was there to help Mom with her laundry. Mom had her hands full with three young children, the youngest a toddler. She appreciated Grandma’s strong hands.
Grandma pulled the old Maytag wringer washer out onto the back porch and ran an extension cord to it. Then she added the clothes and hot water. When the clothes were clean she pulled the hose from the side of the machine and let the water run down our gravel driveway. This was the fun part for me. I would race ahead of the water and dam it up with rocks to watch it find its way around them and begin a new stream.
After the water was drained it was time to wring out the clothes. We were told to stand clear but my little brother was particularly hard-headed. He watched as shirts and underwear disappeared into one side of the wringer and emerged on the other. Apparently the temptation was just too great for him. As soon as Grandma’s back was turned he put his finger into the wringer.
What happened next was a lot of screaming and yelling and general mayhem. Grandma popped the release of the wringer and freed my brother’s arm, which to me looked as flat as cardboard. I thought for sure they would have to cut it off. But six-year-olds are resilient. Within a day or two his arm was almost as good as new, just a little sore and bruised.
After the arm-wringing incident, my brother was shuffled off to lie down and I was told to go somewhere and play. I joined Grandpa on the porch where he sat rolling a cigarette from a tin of Prince Albert tobacco. After a few minutes, we heard the stout horn of an approaching train.
“Can we count?” I looked up at Grandpa hopefully. He was licking the length of the cigarette and twisting its ends.
“You start,” he said. “Go as high as you can.”
When the train roared into view I began with the diesel engines. One, two, three. Easy enough. I could count to 20 with no problem. But after that I always got confused.
“Twenty…twenty…, what comes next Grandpa?”
“You start over,” said Grandpa, “until you get to thirty. Twenty and one, twenty and two, twenty and three. You know?”
Fortunately the train was moving slowly through town. I picked up right after twenty with the “twenty and one” just like Grandpa said.
“Now just don’t say the ‘and’ part. Just twenty-one. Not twenty AND one.”
“So, I dropped the and, which meant I was counting! 21, 22, 23. After that I only had to remember that 30 came next, then 40. Near the end of the train I reached 100.
“What comes after 100, Grandpa?”
“You start over. It’s one hundred and one. Then one hundred and two, just like that.”
And I did! What a revelation. Counting wasn’t so hard after all.
And that’s how I learned to count to 100 and above. It’s also how I came to know that the average train length going through the tiny town of Kuttawa, Kentucky in 1962 was 115 cars, including the engines and caboose.
© Wade Kingston