The 5 O'clock Train

No matter what your heritage may have been growing up through childhood, there are certain events that stick out to a person that they will always remember. The following is one of mine.

I was born and raised in HoustonTexas. I grew up on the northeast side of Houston. I have an older brother, a younger brother, and last but not least, a little sister who was the youngest of us siblings. Momma and daddy were strict down to earth parents who lived right and taught us to do so also. They were both what you would call American Indian by probably a quarter at least. Both were Cherokee to my knowledge. Their ruling to us in our raising was firm, strict, and without compromise. I saw it as daddy being the chief of our tribe, and momma as being the maiden. Daddy firmly believed in the chain of command. Every single issue was funneled through his maiden, momma, whether it was good or bad. With all this in mind, my story stems from the rules of our raising.

We lived on a dead end street and at the dead end of our street was a thin patch of woods and a Southern Pacific railroad track. In distance, the track was probably a hundred or so yards from our house. At 5’ o’clock, every day, like clock work, a passenger train would roar through on that track Thus getting every bodies attention, due to the noise. It was the chiefs’ rule, that when us kids heard that train roar through, that was our command to go home. You had better be home not long after the noise of that train disappeared.

There would be four happy go lucky kids full of laughter of play without a worry in the world during the day. Just carefree, and fully involved in the play world, with friends of the neighborhood. Then the nightmare would approach. The dreaded roar of the 5 o’clock train. That’s when laughter of play ceased immediately, and four faces turned from laughter, to sheer panic to make our way home. From four different directions, you would see us running for home, trying to make it in, under the wire, as to satisfy the rule that always stood from the chief in charge.

If we arrived late, then watch out, because the chain of command went into effect because we had defied the law of the chief. Following that chain, Daddy would fuss hard at momma, because we broke the rule. Daddy’s wrath wasn’t focused so much on us, but rather toward momma. He was what you could call the prosecutor of the broken rule. What was so bad about all this was that momma was the one you became under the wrath of. We broke the rule and momma was the person caught in between. It was momma who was the final judge and jury, who delivered the punishment phase. Boy, she could deliver it too. It was a willow switch on the behind with pants pulled down. That switch would strike until momma felt well compensated by the fact that it was us that got her in trouble, and fussed at by the chief in charge. That’s why us siblings would have the panic on our faces once the 5 o’clock train roared through. The wrath of momma.

In closing this story, I would like to say this. There is not one of us siblings who would even think about trading the parents we had, for any different ones. We always got the things we needed, although some of the (wants) had to take a back burner. Any place our parents were invited, if the kids couldn’t come too, then they just didn’t go. Life seemed hard growing up, but when you are grown, you understand the need for discipline. Momma and daddy set a standard for life and never compromised the standard in which they had set. God bless momma and daddy. Gone, yet never forgotten.