A Ride to the Trestle
by Frank Macdonald
[This] 1935 photo of Jack D and Annabel is Jack D.’s railroad pass with his wife’s photo on it so that she could travel free as well, along with the children.
The story that photo reminds me of is one my father told me. He was in grade 10 and on a beautiful spring day as he was walking home from school he heard the train getting ready to leave the station.
He gave his books to someone, Greet possibly, and ran to jump on the train and ride it out to the trestle, a mile or so outside of town, and walk back, a not uncommon boyhood activity here. I even did it myself once.
The difference was that my father jumped the train to the trestle and came home two or three years later.
It was the Depression and he spent a lot of time hoboing through northern Ontario and Quebec, “riding the rods” as they called, hanging on the bottom of a train if a boxcar couldn’t be opened. He ran into people from home who were scattered across the country looking for work like himself and they often travelled together.
He remembered it was damned cold a lot of the time riding the trains, and the advantage he had over those he was travelling with was that he had a railroad pass in his pocket because his father worked for the railroad but was too proud to use it.
Eventually he came back home and went back to school in the same class as Greet and they graduated together.
My father: Freddie Macdonald
Greet: Greet Macdonald, Freddie’s sister
Jack D: Jack D Macdonald, Freddie and Greet’s father
Annabel: Annie Belle Rankin, Jack D’s wife
Characters • Macdonald, Freddie • Macdonald, Greet • Macdonald, Jack D • Rankin, Annie Belle • Stories • Storytellers • told by Frank Macdonald | Dave Ferguson March 5, 2006
