Deep Freeze Education

On a night in bleak December,

(It was forty-five below),

You couldn’t see your own hand

Through the heavy, driven snow.

The storm had come on easy

Through the morn and afternoon;

By nightfall, ’twas a blizzard

That moaned an eerie tune.

It was in the railway station

With a coal fire warm and bright,

That the passengers all waited

For the train due in that night.

The old couple in the corner;

The farmer and his son;

Two sisters held each other’s hands

And the mailman with his gun.

There was also a boomer salesman,

All dressed up like a sport,

Who smoked a long and strong cigar

And sipped from a flask of port.

The train was due at 9:15,

The clock showed twenty after

The salesman paced around the room

While the wind shook every rafter.

He stopped at the ticket window,

And asked in a sarcastic tone,

“Does this dinghy ever run on time,

Or just a time of its own?”

The agent’s smile was rather cool

He looked out at the storm;

“She’ll be along most any time.

Just be thankful that you’re warm.”

All the others waited patiently,

While the boomer walked the floor.

The snow streaked past the windows,

Wind rattled at the door.

The clock now read 9:40,

And the salesman’s temper snapped,

“What a way to run a railroad.

That damned train should be scrapped.”

The agent left his office,

And came into the waiting room.

His heels crossing the hardwood floor,

Were like the drums of doom.

He grabbed the sneering salesman,

And spun him half around.

Then held him by his shoulders,

Like a post jammed in the ground.

He said, “Now listen, Mister,

And I want you to listen good,

There are some things you don’t     understand

And I think it’s time you should.”

The agent’s voice was brittle,

But he held his rage in tow.

“There’s more to this than meets the eye

And some things you should know.”

“Two steel rails guide the engine,

To where it ought to go.

But add to that the misery

Of ice and wind and snow.”

“Now the old man at the throttle,

Is one who knows no fear.

He’s a hogger gray and balding,

And a first rate engineer.

 He sits there in that banging cab,

At eighty miles an hour.

And pushes that old iron horse,

Through weather sweet and sour.”

“He’s blinded by this storm tonight,

But he hasn’t slackened speed.

To purposely let a train run late,

Has never been his creed.”

He grabbed the sport and his sample case

He watched the door open wide.

“Just so you’ll really understand,

You get the Hell outside.”

It was only a short time later

That the train roared to a halt

The engine and coaches were covered,

With a mantel, hard as dried salt.

The conductor came into the station,

Stepped to the stove to get warm.

Checked his passengers onto the ice-bound coach,

And the train disappeared in the storm.

I recall this out of my boyhood,

When the steam trains still made the run.

For the engineer was my granddad,

And I was the Agent’s son.

                              Claude Cassady