Magazine Articles
Please note, the following work is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without express written consent from the author.
Confessions of a Temporary Yard Clerk by Phil Emery (Vintage Rails Magazine, No.14, September/October, 1998)
Just Because He's a Bird Doesn't Mean He's a Bird Brain by Susan Varno, (Buzzwords, Spring, 2003)
Welcome Foreigner by Susan Varno (Ozarks Magazine, April, 2004)
CONFESSIONS OF A TEMPORARY YARD CLERK
By Phil Emery
Just out of the Army, back home and killing time during the extra-hot Kansas summer of 1957, I learned that the Chanute, Kansas office of the Santa Fe was looking for someone to work as a yard clerk while the regulars took some vacation. I could only guess what a yard clerk did, but thought, "Why not give it a try?"
I was interviewed by the stationmaster and soon found myself working from 4 p.m. to midnight. I liked the idea of going to work at 4 p.m. after three years of Army 6 a.m. reveille.
I worked under a crusty old yardmaster, who some years before had lost an arm between the couplings. I soon learned the routine. The yardmaster filled out ruled manila cards with car numbers, destination numbers, car type, etc. Santa Fe towns and destinations were numbered, and as I recall, the numbers represented distance in miles from Chicago. I used the cards to type up a list of cars, in correct order, that made up departing freight trains. The yardmaster used a mushy soft-lead pencil, and to make matters worse, he obviously had never won a prize for penmanship. Also, I will admit, perhaps he had lost his good writing hand along with his arm.
Fortunately, I was a pretty good typist and made few typos (it was hell erasing all those carbons). The big problem was deciphering the yardmaster's numbers. After numerous trips across the room to ask him about some of his numbers (which resulted in his grumbling, groaning, and rolling his eyes), I gave up and "decoded" them as best I could. This lack of communication between us eventually led to bigger problems.
In addition to the typing, I recorded the 5 p.m. temperature of an outside thermometer and sold a few passenger tickets (learning in the process that the clergy got a discount), Also, I loaded the mail, and sometimes boxes of baby chickens, from a steel-wheeled cart onto the northbound Tulsan. Later in the afternoon I put bundles of the local newspaper into a nearby "way car." On the Santa Fe, they informed me, a caboose was a "way car." I don't know where the way car with the papers went, but where ever it was, they apparently were not in a hurry to read the news from Chanute, as the way car was always still there when I left at midnight. In the evening I often sealed boxcars with ICC seals and operated a scale to weigh freight cars.
But back to the crusty-grumbly yardmaster and our lack of communication. One evening he gave me an extremely indecipherable bunch of cards, and somehow I typed up a train in reverse order (way car behind the engine, etc.). This caused some comment, but no one, including the yardmaster, seemed upset. Could he have made a mistake on the cards? I'll never know. He just grumbled something.
Anyway, I was embarrassed and concerned. I wondered - as I watched the train depart - would it arrive in Kansas City with the cars arranged backward, or did my paperwork cause them to think it was backward, when perhaps it was not?
During my three-week railroad "career", were cars lost due to my typing incorrect destination and/or car numbers? If so, where did they end up? Are lost cars - some with cargo - still sitting out there, rusting away on old weed-covered sidings? Who got all those carbon copies of my lists, anyway? It seemed to me that it was one "hell of a way to run a railroad." I have read that the Santa Fe (now Burlington Northern - Santa Fe) is one of the best -run railroads in America, and I guess it is - in spite of the three weeks I may have helped them lose cars.
END
JUST BECAUSE HE'S A BIRD DOESN'T MEAN HE'S A BIRD BRAIN
(appeared in BUZZWORDS, Spring, 2003)
By Susan Varno
Tying lengths of brightly colored yarn to the tiny seedlings I just planted, I noticed several small black birds were following me. Yarn hung from their mouths, and my future dogwoods were naked.
"Get away from my seedlings," I hollered, flapping my hands at them. "These are going to be trees. For you birds."
A mother bird spit out her fuzzy mouthful. "This yarn will make such lovely nests for our babies."
"If you leave it alone," I said, "you'll have branches to sit on, berries and nuts to eat, shade."
A larger bird, probably the leader of the flock, strutted closer and planted his feet in front of me. "Do you really thing these little bits of yarn are going to protect these sticks from the monster lawnmower? I assume the kid with the shades and the Walkman will be hotrodding all over the yard like he usually does. The other day he was popping wheelies. He missed the apple tree by this much." The bird lifted one leg and spread his toes so I could see just how close my son and the garden tractor had come to oblivion.
"I'll tell him to be more careful," I said.
The lead bird wasn't impressed. "You know how long before these trees are big enough to do us any good? You're lucky to get twenty, maybe thirty, leaves the first year. What good is a stick with a few leaves on it? We're talking two or three years before they even look like trees, minimum that long before there are any berries." He sniffed a stick. "And I don't think we like the fruit from these trees. Don't those clowns that sing all the time like to eat these?"
Plum, dogwood and hazelnut trees, the Department of Conservation called this their 'Songbird Mix'. My visitors were starlings. When they sing, it sounds like someone scraping the inside of a rusty can.
"Then," he continued, "it's even longer before the branches are strong enough to hold a nest. Do you have any idea what our life expectancy is?"
I was beginning to wonder if I'd live long enough to see these seedlings grow into something I could recognize. "How long?"
"If we don't freeze to death in the winter or smash into the grills of the cars roaring down the road or get eaten by..." He eyed my cat lurking behind a mulberry tree. He sighed. "We need nests now. You're talking about who-knows-when."
"Aren't you concerned about your children's future?"
He glared up at me. "If we don't get some nests built, there won't be any children. Are you getting the big picture, lady?"
Reaching into my scrap bag, I pulled the rest of the yarn pieces out and spread them on the ground. "Take your pick."
He whistled to his cohorts, and the sky came alive with starlings. They swooped up the multi-colored yarn.
Back in the house, I took a waterproof marker and printed 'This is a TREE' on a hundred 3 by 5 cards. I poked a hole in each card and slipped each one onto a future tree. Not only did most of my seedlings survive, but so did most of my 'TREE' signs.
By Susan Varno
(abridged reprint from OZARKS MAGAZINE, April, 2004
see entire article at ozarksmonthly.com)
Have you been invited to a "come and go"? Ever been terrorized by a "mud dauber"? Have you heard someone "shelling down the corn"? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're probably a "foreigner" which is what the natives call immigrants to the Ozarks. They don't mean people coming here from other countries. They mean people who moved here from other places in the United States.
If you're a "foreigner" like myself (We moved from Illinois to Dolph, Arkansas, in August, 1999.), you may find the following information helpful.
The Rules
1. A "come and go" is an open house, "mud daubers" are wasps so called because they make their nests out of mud, and "shelling down the corn" means inspired preaching.
2. Fish and game wardens outnumber sheriffs and deputies, police and state troopers combined. "Deer Day" is a state holiday.
3. A snow emergency is declared if it's snowing in Kansas or Oklahoma or it might snow in either of those places. School is dismissed, activities are canceled, and the natives fire up their generators.
The Food
1. Meat is never served naked. It's always covered in breading, gravy or barbecue sauce. Pie is considered a food group with fried pie a subgroup.
2. In the Ozarks, canned corn is used as bait but crawfish are steamed and served with hot sauce. We foreigners put things the other way around.
3. Ozarks food is wonderful. Be on the lookout for dumplings, buttermilk pie, hoecakes, venison sausage, chocolate gravy on homemade biscuits and anything made with sorghum molasses. The natives insist sorghum is good for your blood.
The People
1. Drivers grip the top of the steering wheel with one hand so they can wave two fingers at people in other cars or along the side of the road. It's unneighborly not to wave back.
2. Dirt and gravel roads are often blocked by two cars (make that two pickups) parked side-by-side so the drivers can talk. Most conversations begin with "Seen any deer?" or "How high is the lake (or river)?"
3. If your car breaks down on the highway, everyone who comes by will offer to help. One directs traffic, another calls for help on his cell phone, the rest pop the hood to study the problem. For sure, someone has the tools needed in the back of his truck to fix whatever is wrong.
4. Family is important, and even death doesn't end a family connection. Throughout May and into June, Memorial Day is observed on a different Sunday at each area church so families can decorate all the cemeteries where their relatives are buried.
5. When we vacationed here, strangers would start friendly conversations with us at the grocery, on the street and in restaurants. Now that I'm getting acclimated, I sometimes started these conversations myself.
6. When people ask how you're doing, they really want to know. Everybody hugs you, even people you've just met. Men hug each other.
The Churches
1. At Ozarks churches, fellowship means food; men's breakfasts, ladies' salad suppers, meals after church service, pie auctions, baby and wedding showers, and "dinners on the ground" (picnics).
2. Being an uptight Chicagoan, I was embarrassed to find myself swaying and tapping my foot to Southern Gospel music. Lately, I've been known to lift one hand during particularly spirited passages. The congregation knows the hymns by heart. At a service we attended, the power went out; but everybody went on singing as if nothing had happened.
3. The "Bible Belt" means a church every few blocks in town and at the end of many country lanes. The parking lots are full on Sundays and often Wednesday nights, too. Social life revolves around church activities; concerts, revivals, turkey shoots, fund raisers. Here, people live what they believe offering to help anyone in need, helping without being asked.
Welcome to the Ozarks. We're glad to have you.
