Adventure – Snail Trek Blog

Coming Aboard

The swift and turbulent grey-green waters of Germany’s lower Rhine River were hungry for anything that floated. Its rough riverbed of granite boulders stirred threatening waves, sculpted into whitecaps by brooding winds.

Every day, barges steamed past our living-room picture window, perched high above the riverbank. Some ships rode low in the water, hulls pressed deep into the current by their cargo of coal, ores, chemicals, or grain. Others—empty and ready for the next load—sat high, their draft marks well above the surface. Traveling upriver toward Switzerland against the powerful current was a crawl, a maritime traffic jam. But for those swept downstream toward Holland, the river became a fairground ride.

Our tiny, sixteen-foot, fifty-horsepower runabout was anchored just below our home. To reach it, my brother and I scrambled down a steep embankment through nettles, foolishly believing that holding our breath would spare us their sting. Once we loosened the boat from its red buoy, we would fight our way upstream against the current, then reward ourselves with a safer, faster ride home.

When my brother departed for boarding school in Switzerland, I was left to my own adventures. For a young teenager, navigating the Rhine alone in a fragile, underpowered boat was daring, even dangerous. Yet I had become emboldened— surviving great river swells without capsizing, bouncing across barge wakes, and coaxing the undersized, sometimes-unwilling outboard motor.

The river barges carried not only cargo; each also carried a clutch of travelers, the crew, and often their families, housed in small quarters at the stern.

I was determined to know more about the crews inhabiting these barges. So, one afternoon, I fired up the intrepid Mercury motor and set out alone.

I soon found myself near a fully loaded barge straining upstream, its flat black hull as long as a soccer field. The engine groaned against the current, grey smoke puffing from its short stack. The crew’s cabin sat at the stern, a little retreat for the people who cared for the ship’s cargo.

On the deck, a lone figure waved to me. Curious, but mostly surprised, I waved back, edging closer.

“Hey!” he shouted in German, “Do you want to come aboard? Throw me a line!”

I don’t know who was more surprised—me, at his audacious invitation, or him, seeing a boy daring the Rhine’s treacherous current in a toy-sized boat.

Once aboard, he welcomed me into the family’s cabin: pine paneling, white lace curtains, pictures of German landscapes on the walls. He introduced me to his wife and two young children, smiling shyly. Soon there were five place settings on the small table. Sausage and sauerkraut simmered on the stove. Would I stay for dinner?

Yes, of course.

I was an interloper, a stranger invited into their world. Their welcome gave me the courage to step across the swift water and into their family, melting any unfamiliarity. Together, we were fellow travelers sharing an upstream resolve.

Decades later, I still think about that river, those people, that barge, and that dinner. How much I would have missed had I focused on what separated us—the dark waters, the swift current—instead of the wave of a generous and trusting man.

What I saw that day has served me well for decades: No matter the speed of our journey, the burden we each may carry, or the course our lives have followed, we are all better served when we dare to lean across the currents of life as we call out to others:

Do you want to come aboard? Throw me a line.

Audacious

I stood before a small door, hinged within a massive one—both built from gnarled timber. For centuries, the large door had opened to horse-drawn wagons, heavy with farm tools, fresh vegetables, and weary laborers.

The smaller door groaned as I leaned into it, inching it open.

Inside the cavernous, windowless entry to the farmhouse, I blinked against the darkness. A single, bare bulb hung overhead, its dim light barely breaking the gloom.

I’d spent the night in my one-man tent, pitched just outside the East German border.

As dawn broke the horizon, I packed my tent into my rented Volkswagen. My Bible, wrapped in my underwear, was hidden from view—concealed from the East German guards whose concrete watchtowers loomed ahead.

A truly incoherent situation: A country in collapse, being invaded by the theater of the absurd. Like East Germany, my life’s main road had just washed out; I was searching for a new road, a new career, a new horizon.

Two guards—machine guns slung casually within reach—demanded my documentation. They studied my American passport as if I had just floated down from space. One peered at me and murmured in awe,

“Ein echter Amerikaner!”

A real American!

Then the steel gate clanked open, and they waved me through. I was in East Germany—my bag unchecked for either drugs or Bibles.

East Germany swallowed me whole—its colors drained. I had walked out of Kodachrome into black-and-white. Weeds pushed through cracked concrete on the crumbling Autobahn. East German Trabant cars coughed and sputtered; mopeds with bronchitis.

I was here on a covert operation, my own “Your-mission-Craig, should-you-decide-to-accept-it …” assignment. A map on my lap, I searched for a town called Rötha. There, I hoped to find Manfred, a man I’d never met. I was not sure he even existed.

Blacklisted by the regime for being a pastor, his mail was cut off and all contact with the West was forbidden. His friends didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Having grown up in West Germany, I spoke fluent German. So, as an American searching for Manfred, I drew less suspicion. But alone on those pitted roads, my confidence wavered.

Rötha seemed frozen in time. Bombed-out buildings leaned wearily against one another, survivors of World War II. Bullet holes still marred their bricks, untouched since the war.

Without a person or single street sign to help me, the town felt abandoned. I saw no one.

I pulled my Volkswagen into a small cobblestone square surrounded by centuries-old, thatched farmhouses.

Leaning my forehead against the steering wheel, I groaned a desperate plea: “Have I come all this way for nothing? You’ve got to help me here.” My plea sounded like the only voice in a dark and cold universe.

I stepped out of the car.

Then I saw her—a woman opening a third-floor window in one of the ancient farmhouses.

She was the first person I had seen in Rötha.

Simultaneously panicked and seizing the opportunity, I called up to her, grasping for any thread of hope.

“Kennen Sie Manfred Hoffmann?”

Do you know Manfred Hoffmann?

It was a long shot.

She froze, silent, unmoving, staring down at me, trying to make sense of what I had just asked.

Then, her face lit with shock.

“Das ist mein Mann!”

That’s my husband!

“I’ll send him right down!”

I had arrived in a ghost town, without signage or directions, searching for a man I had never met—a nearly impossible task. And the first person I encountered—was his wife.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness behind the weathered farmhouse door, a man’s face slowly emerged—wet with tears.

Then he stood still; Manfred was rooted to the stone floor, unable to move. He spoke halting German, barely able to speak through his sobs.

“I’m Manfred Hoffmann,” he said, voice catching. “I’ve prayed for someone to find me for a very long time… but I never imagined they’d come all the way from America.”

I stayed with Manfred’s family for many days. Eventually, the crumbling Autobahn led me away from Rötha. But I would never be the same.

Soon, the East German regime collapsed. After the wall fell, many letters passed between Manfred and me.

But the most enduring connection was forged that evening under the glow of a single bare bulb in a shadowed entryway.

“You’ve got to help me here,” I prayed. Or was that too visceral to be prayer? Perhaps God answers raw and audacious prayers ahead of polite and saintly ones.

Friendship Afloat

The fight was on. Rick’s fists grazed my head as a giant, feather-engorged pillow collided with my face. Feathers exploded into the air, drifting throughout the cabin. When our pillows finally ran out of feathers, we called a time-out. It was 1958; we had just met aboard the SS United States.

Steam billowed from the four turbine engines as we cruised east across the Atlantic. Ford Motor Company was transferring our fathers and moving our families to Germany. We had five days of open seas before docking in Southampton, England.

Smoke trailed behind the massive twin red, white, and blue stacks as we prowled every deck and explored the ship’s innards like giant viruses. We strained to peer into the bridge, mesmerized by its massive brass gauges and outsized levered controls.

That day in 1958, I found a new friend in a pillow fight—a friendship that, 67 years later, remains my longest-enduring bond.

The distinguished service of the SS United States expired long ago. Now a 72-year-old relic, the ship that convened my school of friendship, is being scuttled to serve as an artificial reef. Schools of fish will soon inhabit our old pillow fight venues. Stingrays might glide through the luxury ballroom, where we once stole glimpses of Steve Allen, Rita Hayworth, and the Aga Khan. Sea slugs may ooze across our dining tables. Aquatic life might gather, to be protected by the submerged swimming pool.

Friendships were simple then. Proximity was the great unifier, and shared experience outweighed any cultural or political differences. Living down the block or down a passenger ship’s shared corridor meant you were “in.” Even today, the memory of those shared moments brings the joy of genuine friendship.

But what becomes of older friendships? Do they have a shelf life, expiring like an aged maritime vessel scuttled to the ocean floor? Geographic distance, circumstance, or life-altering challenges can erode bonds. Or we may simply drift apart like melting icebergs.

New friendships are even harder to predict. They may bloom unexpectedly—sometimes forged through crisis or compressed by circumstance. Even among people with opposing perspectives, bonds can form in surprising ways.

Yet can we intentionally recreate that magic? After the uncomplicated friendships of youth, is it still possible to build deep, lasting connections?

In their duet, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers remind us, “You can’t make old friends.” Old friends accompany us on long, challenging roads. We finish each other’s thoughts, anticipate a punchline before it’s delivered, and share comfortable silences. In winter’s chill, old friends bring warm bisque to our souls.

The central question remains: What qualities are essential for lasting friendships?

In his book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks offers essential insights:

“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”

Brooks suggests friendships are not born randomly. Instead, creating high-quality relationships requires intentionality. Friendships are crafted when we model selflessness and genuine care for others. We shift our focus from “me” to “you,” providing the nutrients for new and enduring connections to flourish.

Ultimately, we become the kind of friend that others—and we ourselves—value. Just the kind of friend who is always up for a friendly pillow fight.

Wandering

With the determination of a Muscle Beach body builder, the pale green lizard performed pushups on tiny arms, intending to draw admiration from an adoring female. Instead, with no comely female Reptilia in sight, it drew only my attention, as it pushed hard up and down against a warmed rock. The superheated West Texas summer attracted few visitors. As we hiked along a nearly indecipherable rocky path, the sun baked both the lizard and ourselves. Still, we bet against the midday scorch. The vast desert would provide the wandering adventure we sought.

Beginning our trek at midday just as the thermometer eclipsed one hundred degrees, we realized we were out of our element. Carrying no water with us, we firmly cemented our novice status. Never mind, it would be a quick hike. Upon returning to our car at its completion, freezing air conditioning would await us. So we tripped onward, energized that we were the lone brave souls wandering through this hostile world. Occasionally, a surprised rattlesnake hastily retreated across our trail. Jackrabbit scat baked along the stones marking the trail’s edge, though we noticed the trail markers growing increasingly rare and random. Once reassuring, the pathway eventually disappeared altogether. We searched for clues. Was this a stone arrangement pointing forward, or the burial marker of previous hikers, wanderings that would prove to be their final wilderness hike? Five miles into our hike, we were lost, so what to do next? Should we soldier onward hoping to discover the markers again, or would we attempt an uncertain recovery and retrace our steps? With no water, no trail, and 105 degrees of scorching heat, we were like wandering Jews—minus the water from the rock, the manna, and Moses or Joshua.

By definition, wanderings stretch boundaries and challenge limits. Good wanderings hold adventures and untold stories, yet they can be scary and hold danger. Songs are written in their honor:

“My father was a wanderer,

And it’s also in my blood,

So I happily wander as long as I can

And I wave with my hat

Valeri, valera,

Valeri, valera ha ha ha ha ha,

Valeri, valera,

And I wave with my hat.”

Frankly, it sings much better in the original German lyrics. Nonetheless, the song accurately describes my own father. When he passed away last year, aged 106, my Artist-Father proved to be a wanderer to the end. Left-brain required tasks were not his thing. Without the aid of a check-writing coach, he would stare uncomprehendingly at his checkbook. But even though aged, by changing his mental channel to his impassioned world of art, he would defy gravity, rise and hover over his wheelchair, balance against the walker that held his paint palette, and stab at his wall-hung oil paintings. Brush in hand, he would improve them yet again! Precarious, yes. Inhibited, no. Dad never learned to stay on the beaten track or, for that matter, off his little apartment’s walls.

Can we recall the last time we wandered off the beaten track? Perhaps to our loss, many of us learned early on to stay ruthlessly on track and to avoid coloring, painting, or wandering outside the lines.

I recently installed a 100-watt solar panel on the roof of our 17-foot camping trailer that inhabits the driveway. Thus equipped, she can charge her battery unaided. It was a sort of “put a ring on it” moment, lending our relationship full empowerment. Now she can hum and buzz with glorious self-generating power, our energized equal as we wander roads, whether paved or dirt. I felt I had breathed new wandering life into our little Pinocchio.

Of course, our tiny trailer offers no equivalency to the wanderings of bold explorers. Instead, she provides us with our-scale wanderings, helping us to dial in randomized mixes of people, places and events. Sometimes, we are led on a leisurely stroll through the woods beneath ancient oaks with deeply scarred bark, moss-covered stones cradling a brook’s clear and crisp waters. At other times, our trailer delivers us into a different kind of wandering—an unpredictable Vitamix concoction of unexplored places and previously unknown faces. They are random wanderings, though afterwards we wonder if they were indeed very random. Long after these events occur, the retelling begins with, “Do you remember when…” and the warm joy of familiarity tickles our brains once again. We embrace these wanderings as being somehow sacred, each retelling resurrecting a precious, sweet nectar.

Our hiking path having disappeared in the vast West Texas desert, we rambled blindly on, sunbaked and lost, our wandering adventure grown not so sweet! By now, with sun blazing and deep concern setting in (yes, we might call it “panic”), I happened to recall one steady feature during our hours-long wandering mishap: for miles behind us, a lone utility line had bisected the cloudless sky. I now recalled observing it even from the now-distant plot where we had parked our car. I surmised that we could now follow that power line, straight as a prickly pear thorn, leading us back to our trail’s beginning and the safety of our car. And so it did. Found again! Joy and relief at being alive!

There is a counterpart to wandering: restoration. Restoration, that essential element that salves and strengthens us upon a return from wandering, can be easily underestimated. Yet restoration is the most critical component for wanderers. Returning from wandering in a desert, whether actual, relational or emotional, demands commemoration. Restoration after wandering through an illness, from captivity, and return from grieving, all deserve uncommon celebration, the sort held for soldiers returning from war.

And for those friends who have helped us both to wander and to return from wandering, we also owe uncommon celebration.

Like the utility line, they help to guide us onward toward wandering, and afterward, homeward, toward restoration.

Silver Streak

A 1949 Pontiac Silver Streak doesn’t just sit there. It lounges like a pregnant golden retriever, faithful, comforting, and swollen.

In 1956, I sat in the back seat of my uncle’s Silver Streak–uncle, aunt, mom, dad, brother, cousin and I all fit into that lump of a car, a trundling loaf of sourdough bread.

Fireflies lit up Ohio’s evening sky. Through the Silver Streak’s window, I watched them dance between me and the corner gas station and the stop light, which had advanced from amber to red as we came to a stop.

Instantly, the peaceful scene transformed. Behind us, tires howled; headlights glared, swerved, bounced. We lurched violently. Suddenly stilled, the headlights stared cross-eyed at the Silver Streak’s enormous trunk. All was silent, except for Uncle Chet, unrefined vocabulary seething in his breath.

Then the yelling began. First Chet, then the guy whose bumper had mangled our trunk. I don’t know how drunk a skunk can get, but he was all of it, and then some.

Chet dumped change into the gas station’s pay phone and called the cops. Meanwhile, the drunken driver somehow lurched into his car’s driver’s seat and blasted headlong down the country road.

Within minutes, a puzzled cop arrived. As Chet spilled the details to him, the policeman’s radio crackled. It was a quick call. “Which way did he go?” he bellowed. “The guy that hit you is the man we’re looking for!”

Long after the fireflies had extinguished for the night, Chet’s Silver Streak somehow crawled home with all of us still in it.

We all recognized the next morning’s newspaper headline story–drunk hits car at stop light, then speeds off.

But we could not have known the rest of the story.

The drunk man, car trunk filled with loaded firearms, so drunk he called his family, telling them he was coming to kill them all. On his way, drunk man’s car collided with our Pontiac Silver Streak. Discovering that his family had fled, he burned the house down. Drunk man was arrested for attempted murder.

Inside, in Chet’s house: us, greatly relieved.

Outside, in Chet’s driveway: the Silver Streak, bruised and heavy, a lump of a car, faithful, comforting, and swollen. And fireflies.

A Tilling Experience

Saturday dawned, but I slept in. The weekend had arrived. I could handle life’s demands at my leisure.

Until I recalled that today was the day to create the new, long-promised flower bed. Ugh.

Never mind. By mid-morning I trudged out, armed with my blunt shovel, and started digging up rocks–lots of them–as I created a trench outline of the bed.

At well over 100 degrees, it was one of the steamiest days of the year. Within the hour, I hoisted the unmanly white flag of surrender. I was off to Home Depot to rent a gas-powered dirt tiller.

I narrowed down which tiller I needed: gargantuan, giant, or medium. Intimidated, I asked for something still smaller. I had to settle for the scary, medium-sized beast, the smallest that they had. Getting the thing into my car was no picnic. We dismantled the handle bar and gently hoisted it inside, being careful to place the sharp tines on a thick book of maps to keep the leather upholstery from being pierced.

Once home, I constructed a ramp of two 2 by 4s, upon which I gingerly placed the sole wheel, intending to guide the thing backwards down the ramp. The boards immediately parted, leaving me to precariously balance the heavy and awkward contraption on a four-inch wide plank at a 45 degree downward angle. The disconnected handle protruded toward my chest like the horns of an angry bull. The sharply-honed tines, intended to turn earth into shreds, hovered menacingly near my loins. One unfortunate lurch and I knew I could be singing soprano.

A lifetime can seem to pass in the course of one day. In the case of a groin gore, I was glad to already have family firmly in place. In the case that I should collapse and meet Jesus in the sweltering heat, I was pretty sure that heaven was climate-controlled. Besides, we don’t have enough put away for retirement, so I would permanently escape that spreadsheet diorama that wallpapers my office.

“Seven hours and 32 minutes,” came the report when eventually I returned the tiller to the dude at Home Depot. I was filthy from digging dirt, and I wanted my heroic efforts to be noted by everyone at the macho Home Depot store–wow, what a man.

Mr. Home Depot Rental Check-In Man congratulated me. “Good thing you chose the 24-hour instead of the four-hour rental rate!” He crowed, as though he possessed supernatural insight.

Yeah. Just think. If I had gotten my money’s worth and kept the tiller 24-hours, I could have tilled up all three bedrooms and the neighbor’s dog run.

And by then, I would definitely have met up with Jesus.

“I’ll Have Another”

The horse pictured above is a locally-stabled equine. It is not the horse that is so much in the news these days.

No, the current horse of renown, named “I’ll Have Another,” has already won two of the three horse races required to earn the fabled Triple Crown. Will he gain horse racing’s highest honor by winning three in a row? In a few days, we’ll find out.

Those who keep up with such things will recall the last Triple Crown winner, in 1978, named Affirmed. He was only the eleventh such winner, dating back to 1919. That’s an average of one Triple Crown winner every 5.36 years. Statistically, we’re way overdue.

Three days ago, at the Los Angeles International Airport, I heard the luggage belts creak under the combined weight of suitcases and sports bags, the unloaded belongings of thirty-five giant players of the triumphant Belmont Shore Rugby Club returning from Colorado, where these hulks had demolished the other national rugby championship contenders. There were winners’ medallions around their necks and high fives all around.

More sports victories–ice hockey fans are tumbling from obscurity into sports bars to observe the newly-minted triumphs of the Los Angeles Kings. This year–if the playoff finals go their way–they may win their first-ever Stanley Cup victory, the highest achievement in ice hockey.

I’m no sportster. I don’t generally attend sports arena-based athletic events. Most of this is beyond both my pocketbook and my personal interest.

Nonetheless, I experienced my most salient encounter with a professional sports personality during high school in 1969 on a Detroit freeway. A friend and I were sailing along in my very first car, a white 1962 MGA convertible, with the top down. In those days, the gas in my tank cost me 19.9 cents a gallon. We owned the road.

We were, quite logically to us, pretending to be flying in an aircraft, our hippie-era hair blowing freely, our arms extended outside our doors on either side of the car to imitate wings. We spoke back and forth to one another on pretend microphones grasped in our fists, checking altitude, wind velocity and destination headings. We were alone in our own world on the freeway.

Suddenly, the car ahead of us inexplicably slowed and pulled into the lane to our right. I looked up at the enormous automotive hulk. When the driver’s window got next to ours, his electric window descended, and he peered down at us. Our arms were still extended in airplane-flying mode.

A handsome, middle-aged man appeared from behind the lowered glass in the neighboring car, staring at us. Suddenly his hand emerged, grasping a big black object. On my second glance, I saw that in his hand he held a very large wingtip shoe, which he had extricated from his foot. He held it there, in the car window, toe to his ear, heel to his mouth, beaming gleefully back to us, pretending that it also was a microphone. Through his wingtip mouthpiece, he pretended to converse with us through our imagined fist-microphones. We were astounded. We were confounded. We were delighted that an adult would take us seriously–or playfully banter with us in our imagined world.

After a few moments, he was gone with a wave of his hand. The window rolled up, and he passed by us, our arms were still extended as wings.

As his car pulled in front of us, I read the personalized license plate displayed upon the car’s chrome rear bumper, identifying the car’s owner, and our freeway aircraft co-conspirator, as–Gordie Howe.

Yes, we had been trading antics with none other than that Gordie Howe, the Detroit Red Wings 23-time National Hockey League All Star. He is recognized as the greatest all-around ice hockey player in history, and, incidentally, the owner of an impressively large wingtip shoe and a generous sense of humor.

Whether “I’ll Have Another” or another horse yet to be born will eventually win the next Triple Crown is an open question. As for me, my wish is that I’ll Have Another life-long memory with the likes of an athlete like Gordie Howe, a man of generous heart who, on a Detroit freeway, inspired me to also live life generously.

Protest and Pursuit

I should have known better. But my curiosity and emotions got ahold of me during that early morning trudge to meet my train—what could the clamor mean, these shouting voices echoing through this normally peaceful and quiet college campus? In the distance, the voices grew louder. I was onto the trail of a Happening! Could it be the beginning of yet another “Occupy” protest with folks sitting-in to rail against big banks and corporate villains? Perhaps I would stumble upon a breaking story, worthy of the evening news. And I was equipped with my video-enabled iPhone—I had to investigate! But I’d better be fast. I usually have a few minutes to spare before the train arrives. It would have to be a two-minute or less diversion for me to still be able to intercept my train.

I rounded the corner and came upon the marchers who had taken up their protest. I grabbed my iPhone and began recording the quickly-developing events. But wait, there were no police to control the gathering crowd. A lone security guard watched from his golf cart-like buggy, more amused at the event than concerned for my safety. What if this crowd should seek a target and take their anger against the system out on me, the news reporter? I didn’t exactly panic at the thought—but maybe I blanched—yes, that’s it—a full blanch.

It gradually dawned on me. This was no full-bore, nearly-getting-out-of-control protest. It was almost polite. And there were no slogans decrying “the Man” or “the System.” Instead, I learned that it was a student-led advocacy to improve the wages of the college food service workers, hardly the sort of event that would threaten my life or make the evening news.

I recognized I would have to move quickly. I concluded my video recording. My two-minute long diversion left me no time to spare. I launched into a shortcut to the train station to save time; I cut quickly to the back of the building to shorten my train trek. But wait! A large construction project blocked my path. I quickly found a way around it and squirmed through, only to have my path disappear behind a construction fence. I backtracked and then tried to go the long way around the construction, ending up nearly across the street from the train station. I walked quickly, relieved to have found a way out of my quandary. Just as I completed this detour, I discovered I had entered another cul-de-sac. Never mind. I would cut through the hedge to the street.

I failed to recognize that a hidden chain-link fence ran the length of the hedge. I broke into a trot inspecting for any way out. Unfortunately, I was moving directly away from the train station. Without finding a break in the fence, I came upon a tennis court. Surely, there would be a gate out of the tennis court area, and yes, there was! I hustled to it, backpack now jouncing smartly on my back, and found—a large padlock and chain barred my exit! I was stuck like a lab rat in a maze. There was no way out.

With few minutes until the train’s approach, I made a desperate, beeline charge back toward the site of the rioting students, where my shortcut path had first gone awry. The backpack bounced violently as I hit full stride, jostling my lunch and tumbling my coffee thermos. Would I make it to the train in time? Could my heart manage the unaccustomed and sudden surge of adrenalin? Would subsequent passengers find me, exhausted, splayed out in the shrubs?

As I urged my body toward a sprint, I passed a middle-aged couple, who politely bade me a pleasant, “Good morning!” as though my reckless flight, panting breath and galloping backpack were the commonest occurrence on their slow daily stroll.

I hurtled through the intersection, daring a passing bus or car to obstruct my path. The clanging bell announced the lowering of the crossing gates. I told myself I had to make it. Faster! Faster!

And then it was over. I seized the hand grab, bounced up the single step and tumbled aboard the train, the last passenger to alight.

Drenched with perspiration, I steadied my breathing, trying to hide my flushed and panting state. I eased into a seat beside an unknowing passenger lost in sleep.

Seconds before, I would have risked a coronary to make this train. But like many fleeting life goals, once I had achieved it, I was ready to board the next train to the familiar comforts of home.

The Train Broke Down! (Or Did It?!)

Disembarking my routine shuttle bus that takes me from work to my train, I noticed a much larger than usual congregation of travelers waiting on the platform. Ordinarily, only several handfuls of folks loiter there for its arrival. On this occasion, there were several hundred passengers waiting to embark.

Were there that many workers who had mistakenly set their watches to the wrong time zone? Was a train-riding celebrity about to arrive?

But there was another curious fact: the previous train, scheduled to depart nearly an hour ago, was still sitting, not moving, on the tracks exactly where my train was supposed to arrive.

Was this a spectacular train wreck in the making? The adrenaline assaulted my veins. Quick! Prepare the iPhone’s video function!

I joined the crowd on the platform, plying several folks for an intelligence report, and discovered that they, too, lacked solid reconnaissance. Interpretation of the scene was up to conjecture.

Suddenly I noticed a train official on a walkie-talkie. Surely he could advise me; I asked him what was going on. His response was less than gratifying.

“Train broke down,” he muttered, before yelling at some people to get behind the yellow warning line. I heard him radio the arriving train—my usual train—to slow down as it arrived, explaining, “There’s a bunch of people here.”

Like weathervanes when a storm approaches, the awaiting crowd all pointed their heads in the same direction, toward the unoccupied second train track. I surmised it was intended for the arriving train.

But how could this gang of passengers all crowd onto one arriving train, which surely already contained its full load of passengers? And what really was the story of that broken down train, a disowned hulk just sitting there, clogging up good track space?

The new train arrived, and we herded in like cattle. The only missing components were the mooing and the slop of livestock droppings.

Miraculously, I was able to wedge myself between the wall of the train and a vertical handhold pole. With my head cocked to one side, I managed to stand relatively comfortably, slowly rotating myself like a rotisserie to spread the neck pain equally.

On the floor at my feet, a bearded young man wearing homemade jewelry and a headscarf displayed video clips on his computer to an attentive young lady, eagerly displaying himself performing various yoga-inspired dance routines in shows he performs across the country—perhaps across the world—I never could quite understand the context. Understandably, this fellow had a difficult time manifesting modesty since he excelled in all manner of crafts, meditation, disdain for the material world (except, apparently, for computers) and a oneness with nature and ecology, all honed such that it would make a Renaissance Man blush in comparison.

Meanwhile, the packed train clickety-clacked onward, past my usual stops, passengers eager to disembark, understandably displaying a mere veneer of patience.

Then, a most curious event transpired. On the second stop before my own, the train halted, ready to disgorge the host of impatient and disgruntled crammed-in train riders. The doors would not open. What seemed minutes later, the conductor’s voice came over the intercom.

“We will not be opening the doors until the sheriff’s deputies tell us we are cleared to do so. Thank you for your patience.”

I rotated my rotisserie-like stance, wedged next to the vertical handhold. A mystery was afoot, involving sheriffs! Was there danger from outside the train? Terrorists? Bomb-sniffing dogs? Worse yet, was there looming disaster from within the train?

Several minutes dragged by, when suddenly, three sheriff deputies burst into our train car from the car behind ours. They had, apparently, made their way through the entire length of the train, finally reaching ours.

They didn’t need to go much further. Employing the assistance of another officer who happened to be traveling in my railcar, the four officers gave sharp instructions for two young men to stand up. They handcuffed them immediately, though the throngs in the aisle would have made their escape impossible. The train doors finally opened, letting us view the officers trundling the two ruffians past a police dog, and loading them into awaiting patrol cars.

It had all been a sting operation! The two unwitting young hooligans had been aboard the “broken down” train, which was a ploy to transfer all the passengers, including them, into the second train, thereby gaining time for the officers to board the second train and set up the arrests. Once inside, the officers methodically made their way through the train, before finally finding them within my car.

The look of astonishment passed from passenger to passenger as they realized they had been traveling all this time, enduring a fake train breakdown—with criminals in their midst!

For me, working in a parole office, it was all in a day’s work. Tallying up the previous arrests I witnessed earlier that day at the parole office, these were simply more of the same—arrests number five and six.

By the time the doors closed behind the sheriffs and criminals, I was one stop closer to home. I rotated myself within my standing-room-only rotisserie and let the clickety-clack tracks take me away.