My dad worked for the Kansas City Southern railroad for over forty years. He was a locomotive engineer, which means he drove the train. Over the years he was assigned to work several different jobs as an engineer, one of the assignments he loved was the Mena dodger.
There were three men to each train crew when my dad was working. A brakeman, a conductor and the engineer. For several years dad worked with the same two guys. They all got along and had a lot of fun at work. Joe Harbuck and Buck Moody were regulars on dad’s crew. A few others that worked with dad were Phil Sanders, Tommy Newcomer, and Bobby Gilstrap. I grew up listening to dad tell stories of pranks they played on each other. We also deer hunted and spent several holidays with the guys dad worked with.
Any of those guys dad worked with had full authority from dad to bust my butt if they ever caught me doing anything wrong. Likewise, dad looked after their kids if he was home and they were at work.
Mena, Arkansas is about thirty miles south of Heavener where dad worked. So, every day dad and his coworkers would meet at the depot in Heavener and then car pool to Mena. After work they car pooled home. There’s kind of an unwritten rule with railroaders to have a junky car to drive. Dad had several over the years. A Ford Grenada was one, when the old car busted a head dad gave it to me to do what I wanted with. I drove it to school and on weekends I drove it squirrel hunting and to play golf with my buddies. It smoked and missed, but it became a contest to see how long it would run before the motor blowed up. I was surprised how long it lasted.
Dad and his crew would stop at a gas station each time they headed home. A soda pop and a snack was their usual fare. A certain road sign on the trip home became a contest of who could hit it with an empty pop bottle as they drove by. One time dad showed it to me and the sign was dented up pretty good. Dad laughed and laughed.
One time a hobo pulled a gun on one of the guys dad was working with. I can’t remember who it was, but he ran away and the hobo shot at him. That was something that worried us all for many years. Hobos and railroads have a long history, most of the time the hobos aren’t bad people, but it made dad and those guys nervous anytime they seen someone messing around the train.
I heard the train whistle blow the other day as I was driving down through the Kiamichis. Dad always griped about the odd hours a railroader works, but I don’t think he ever seriously considered quitting. I think he liked the guys he worked and had a lot of fun along the way, and that’s worth a lot.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.