"No, no!", he said, "I'll be back in plenty of time." And he ambled out of the station and down the street.
Grandma had the tickets, and she stayed at the station with Mom, Charlie and Joe. Time passed, the train pulled in, but Grandpa was no were in sight. They waited as long as they could before boarding the car nearest the engine. Charlie and Joe sat in the end seat with their backs to the wall. They could see all the way down the aisle to the far end. Grandma and Mom sat facing them. She was on the aisle with Mom next to the window.
The whistle blew, steam hissed and the train signaled its intent. Grandpa Bert was late. Then the door at the far end opened and the boys saw him come through. He weaved a tortuous path down the aisle with the Conductor right behind. He was leading a search for Grandma and the ticket she held, and had lead the conductor forward, car by car, from the other end of the train. He was drunk, of course, and the swaying car hindered his forward progress. Just as he came even with them the car lurched and he lose balance falling forward. He bounced off Grandma and sprawled at her feet. He got up and apologized to the woman he did not recognize, but she didn't say a word and the kids made great efforts to maintain a proper decorum. The conductor had enough of this drunk who claimed to have a family on board, and hustled him off the train.
Grandma loved to tell that story, and she always finished it with the statement that people would ask her why she didn't tell the conductor that the man was her husband. She would say, "Well, he didn't recognize me, so why should I recognize him". They continued on to Catawba and were met at the station by Grandma's nephew Ray Jacobs. Grandpa was there on the platform too. His clothes were rumpled and dusty, but that was understandable for he had ridden the "rods" all the way from Covington.
“Riding the Rods” is the least comfortable and most dangerous ways to hobo. The "rods" of the old railroad cars were two long metal rods each running diagonally, from corner to corner, beneath the car. They were below the floor and formed an "X" where they crossed in the middle. There was room at that point for my granddad to lay straddled across with his body conforming to the "X". A rider held on for dear life as the ground passed by at a blur a couple feet below. It was windy, dusty, and could be mighty cold, but it was a free ride.
Pop had a job as a Fireman at the H.S. & I. Steel Mill in Hooven in 1920 His younger brother Bernard Frank worked there as a laborer. Bernard and his new bride, Beatrice (below), lived just down the street.
The steel mill manufactured iron ingots, and one fell on Grandpa’s foot. He hobbled around shoeless for several days, fussing incessantly, and finally escaping into drink. He got half-looped and decided it was time for a bath. The man had many faults but lack of hygiene was not among them. He took regular baths during an era when many insisted the act to be an unhealthy practice.The family kept the tub in the shed out in the back yard. Bert limped outside to get it but found two smaller tubs stuck inside. He wrestled with the balky objects for some minutes but could not break them loose. Grandma and the three kids were watching the spectacle from the back kitchen window and witnessed Grandpa throw the tubs to the ground and haul off and kick them...with his sore foot. Considerable hollering and cussing resulted from this unfortunate oversight. Grandpa danced a comical one footed two-step while cradling his crippled paw in both hands.
It was not easy to have sympathy with a man who so often terrorized them. But they dared not laugh; it was too dangerous. All four were snickering and Grandma kept saying, "Don't laugh, don't laugh", so they scattered to different parts of the house with hands clamped across their mouths. Mom dove into a closet and burrowed under a stack of clothes to muffle her eruptions. She thought the boys ran out the front door, but didn‘t recall where Grandma hid.
GO TO: Part 3f, Bert Frank
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