It was near the end of my freshman year in 1970 and I had just gotten a B- on a term paper in Poli Sci. Being an avowed procrastinator, I had waited until the last minute before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter so I was fairly pleased with my grade. Nonetheless, below the B- the Professor had written those dreaded words: See me.
I can't say my first year of college had been a success. I'd sure as hell drunk a lot of beer, smoked a lot of grass, and gotten down with more than a few hippie chicks on campus but I was only skating through my classes. I was uninspired, adrift, and wasting both time and money.
My problem was that things came too easy for me. Small town High School had been a breeze. As long as I stayed away from Calculus and Chemistry, I barely had to study at all. I was also gifted with natural athleticism, a combination of strength and speed. I made first-string defensive end on the football team and was a solid sixth man in basketball. Still, the only real skill I had developed that would translate to college was drinking beer, smoking pot, and chasing girls. That's where my true motivations lay.
I showed up at my Professor's door the next afternoon. He pointed to a chair for me to sit in and just stared at me for a solid ten seconds as I squirmed.
Finally, he asked, "What's your draft number?"
What? Those were the first words out of his mouth? I had assumed he wanted to talk about my paper's thesis regarding the Federalist Papers, not this.
"237," I replied.
"So there's no chance of you winding up in the jungles of Vietnam?"
I was shocked by the nature of his question. "Not unless I do something stupid like enlist."
"From the evidence before me, you are exactly that stupid."
Now that comment was uncalled for and it pissed me off. "With all due respect, Dr. Morrison, what the fuck?"
"No need to get angry. I'm doing you a favor by being honest."
"Well, pardon me if I don't say thanks. So were you doing me a favor by giving me a B- on my term paper?"
"No. Your paper absolutely deserved that grade. But I recognize a don't-give-a-shit, half-assed effort when I see it."
"Are you allowed to speak to me like this?"
"Report me to the Dean for all I care." He wasn't bluffing. He didn't care. "I listen to your comments in class. In discussion, your analysis is solid, your points are cogent, your argument is grounded in logic, yet your exams are piss poor. And now this? I get a B- paper from a mind that should be doing A+ work."
As angry as I was, I could see he had a point.
He continued, "When I look at you I see a man/child who is not ready for college. An adolescent who is not mature enough to take advantage of his opportunities. I'm just being honest. I figure you have two choices."
"Okay. What are they?"
"Report me to the Dean or grow the fuck up."
"I still don't think you're allowed to speak to me this way."
"Take a year off. Or two. Work some hard jobs, the shittier the better. Try to have the life you want on the paycheck you get. When you figure out you're capable of so much better, come back. The University will still be here."
There was a knock on his open door. A student stood there with term paper in hand. By the embarrassed look on his face, he had obviously overheard. "Excuse me, Dr. Morrison, I was wanting to talk about the C I got. I can come back."
Dr. Morrison's voice shifted to a kindly avuncular tone. "No, come on in. I'm done with this student."
Before I could get out the door he added in a voice dripping with condescension, "David, I sincerely hope I do not see you on campus next year."
As I crept down the corridor, I heard his sympathetic voice return. "Oh yes, I remember your paper. You make some good points but your reasoning could have been stronger ..."
I didn't go back to school the next year. After my last final, I went home and had a long talk with my parents. It was the hardest talk I had ever had with them but we all agreed I should take time off and get my shit together. Mom shed some tears. I think Dad sent Dr. Morrison a thank you note.
My cousin John had graduated with his CPA the year before and had started working in the accounting department of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. He called to say that the labor union and management were at loggerheads over a new contract.
"It's not officially a strike," he explained, "but some of the hardline unionists have walked out. I could get you a job as a brakeman in the huge Proviso Freight Yard in Chicago."
"Thanks, John, but I don't think I wanna be a scab."
"You wouldn't be a scab because it's not a strike. Most of the guys are continuing to work and everyone accepts that non-union workers are going to have to fill in for the hardliners. No hard feelings. But when they settle or decide to actually go on strike, you'll be out of work. Until then, the pay is good and I've got an extra room."
So that's how I became a railroad brakeman.
I started out working the board, meaning I was on call 24/7 to fill in wherever I was needed. Definitely chum in the food chain. I'd just fall asleep and the phone would ring. Then I had one hour to get wherever and do whatever.
And Proviso could be a dangerous place to work. It was a vast matrix of tracks, hundreds upon hundreds of tracks packed so tightly there was barely enough room to walk between. Rail cars were smashing together all around. You got from one place to another by climbing between cars that could suddenly jolt half a car length. At night it was dark and treacherous. When it rained it was slick steel and crushing wheels. And there were rats the size of bobcats, fat from spilled grain, that were mean and would hiss like rattlesnakes. My first night in the yard I came across a rat that had been sliced in two by a train car that lurched faster than he could leap. I looked at his squashed guts beneath my boots and realized that could be me.
My illusions of making the Windy City scene with my cousin were dashed. I was a cog in a machine that used me up and ground me down. A twenty-year-old, hormone-laden cog. I barely had time to eat, jerk off, and get a few hours of sleep before the phone would ring again. Every weekend my cousin would come home with a new chick, light up some killer weed, put some vinyl on his McIntosh stereo (best time ever for rock music), and ball her ball her in the room next to mine. I could only dream of having his life.
After six weeks of working the board, I got a relatively steady gig spotting rail cars in the industrial parks around O'Hare airport. We'd go from one factory to the next, remove the loaded box cars, and leave some empty ones. It was busy work. A lot of switching tracks, setting brakes, linking hoses, and breaking knuckles (train knuckles, not human ones). But the hours went quickly and I finally had a steady gig.
