Retrospect

    I stepped into the depot
    of the little country town
    And my mind took in the objects
    that I viewed as I turned around;
    And instead of a man of forty-odd
    I am now a boy again
    hurrying to figure freight bills
    Era the daily trains come in.
    I can hear the shriek of the whistle
    And the clack of the cars on the track
    And the clatter of the telegraph sending it's message back.

    I sit at the desk in the corner
    which is just the same as then
    And the lanky station agent is at my side again.
    The same clocks ticks the minutes;
    and the self-same smells and feels
    Take me back over many years
    like the clack of the flying wheels.

    I am lost for awhile in my reverie,
    and memories flood my mind,
    But a glance at the calendar on the wall
    Shows I'm a little behind
    I blink and look at the numbers
    but something is wrong with the date
    For instead of nineteen twenty
    It is nineteen fifty eight
    The world around has been changing;
    and progress has had it's way
    But like a sentinel out of the past
    is this unchanged room today.

 Added by Vernon:
And now I work on the railroad.
The same as I did, you see
But instead of the Rock Island
I work for the old U. P.
Instead of figuring freight bills
as I did in that time long ago,
I work on Diesels and turbines which
are sometimes called "The big blow"
And oft as I speed through the country
on the city of Denver or San Francisco
I long for the peace and the quiet
of that boyhood so long ago.



This is written for my brother, Vernon after we visited in Garber Oklahoma where we spent our child hood and later moved to Nebraska where he was an electrician on the staff of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Janice Weeks, Chamberlin, Hankins, Rogers