STAPLES

                                                          

                                                

Someone started a face book memory trail of all of the graduates of Staples high School, of which I was one. It’s been so much fun to see the pictures and hear the stories. It’s Ironic that the very school I couldn’t wait to get out of, and the very town I wanted to leave in the rear-view mirror way back then, brings back such precious memories.

I did leave town, not because I wanted too so much, but more because Staples at that time had little opportunity for employment. The railroad was moving out and it wasn’t until a few years later that some other small companies started up in town. I guess I always envied the ones who did make it work in Staples although I had a good life where I did go. But always my thoughts and roots went back to Staples. I think this is inherent to people and where they grow up. “You can take the boy from the country but you can’t take the country from the boy.” Right. 

Call me crazy but somehow, I liked the smell of creosote from the railroad ties. It was later in life that I connected the dots and realized it wasn’t those wooden tie’s I smelled but the scent of my dad’s overhauls from working long hard days in the car shops. In 1959, the year I left there was a siding full of old steam engines relegated to the scrap yard. I remember going over there one night, when I knew my days in Staples were numbered and sitting in one of those big steam engines with my arm out the window, looking down the track like those engineers did as they traveled across the prairie for decades. At the time those engines too were leaving Staples forever and it was so sad. I can still hear those steam whistles when I close my eyes and see the smoke from their stacks. I remember pressing my ear to the track and feeling the vibrations of those huge steel wheels on those endless ribbons of steel track, even though the train was still out of sight. I made one last trip that spring of 59 to the round house where it was always warm on a cold winter night. Saw those behemoth beasts of burden sitting in their stalls warming up for the last time. I climbed the coal docks where you could see over the whole town and sat once more on the polished benches in the depot and thought of all of the trains and people that had stopped over the years. All while listening to the clicking of the telegraph operator.

I have traveled this life’s journey for the better part of eight decades. Lived in numerous towns, and in more than one state. Raised a family with my wife. Had grandkids and great grandkids. Had a career and retired and became a writer. But it seems to me if you could magickly convert memories into something tangible and put them in a box, my Staples box would be the fullest. They are my oldest memories, yet some of the most memorable.

Today we are in the middle of something that could have only been dreamed about back in 1959. Our world is going to change in ways we never thought possible. Hopefully for the better but there are so many unknowns and it is scary. I am thankful for the life I have had and I am thankful it started where it did. “In a lonely shack by the railroad track,” if I can paraphrase from an old song by Gogi Grant.