“What do you suppose he’s doing there?” I say to my friends Bill and Babs as we drive past the parked vehicle.  “I see him parked there quite often.”

“Well, he could be in the party store getting coffee and a snack or using the men’s room,” says Bill.

“Or he could be at the barber shop getting a haircut,” says Babs.

“I suppose,” I say.  “It’s also possible he just gets tired of driving and pulls over to take a nap, or to get out and stretch his legs.”

“Maybe,” says Bill.  “But, I’m sticking with the rest-room-coffee-and-snack idea.”

“Next time I see Matt the Barber, I’ll ask him.  He’ll know,” I say.

I know what you are thinking.  This is shaping up to be another story about life in a small town, where the locals notice every out-of-towner’s car parked by the barber shop and want to snoop into the poor owner’s business to find out what he’s doing in THEIR town.

No, I really don’t recognize vehicles.  When I take my own car to get it fixed and take the keys into the office of the garage and the service manager asks me what kind of car I have, I say, “It’s red.”

And, as for prying into the business of strangers in town, I only do that when they take MY table at the coffee shop in the morning, forcing my friends and me to sit at the WRONG table.  How rude! Then, I have to go up to them and find out what they are doing in town and how many days they’ll be here and just what it will take to get them to sit at another table.

See, I’m not really a rube.

But, back to my story. You see, it’s just that this particular vehicle stands out.

It is kind of like the situation in Chicago in August.  Here’s the story from an NPR broadcast:  “The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile got a ticket for parking illegally on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. The city called for a tow, telling the Chicago Tribune: “We have trucks that can handle a Polish sausage, not just a hot dog." But the driver got back first, to find on the giant wiener a $50 ticket — license plate reading "WEEN-R."

Only in our case, the vehicle in question, the one parked between the barber shop and the party store is not the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.  No, it’s a train.

Sure enough.  Every so often I see this train—usually just a couple of freight engines, parked on a spur just off the main line, parked between the barber shop and the party store, with the engine idling. 

Why not?  I mean, if you are driving a train all day and have to go to the bathroom or want to buy a Coke and a candy bar, or if you have an hour and need a haircut, what’s to stop you from pulling over by the side of the road and taking care of business? 

“Mom.  Dad.  I’ve decided to become a railroad engineer instead of an airline pilot,” says the bright young man, just out of high school and ready to tackle the world.

“Well, Son, you know we’ll support you in whatever decisions you make in life,” say his parents, who grew up in the ‘80’s and think that way.  “But, we would be interested in knowing some of the factors that have gone into your decision.”

“It’s simple, really, Dad and Mom.  You see, if I were an airline pilot and needed to stop for a break along the way, it would be very difficult, but in a train---shoot, you can just pull over whenever you want!”

                              © by Jim Whitehouse

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