When I was four or five years old, I was so excited to learn that I would be going on a train ride with my grandmother to Alabama. When we got ready to go back to Memphis, my home town, my grandmother and I took a cab to the train station and when we got there, my grandmother changed her mind, for no apparent reason, and told the driver to take us to the bus station. I cried all the way home on the bus.
I can still see the telephone poles and remember being lost and mesmerized by the telephone wires as I gazed at them on the long ride home. When we arrived home, we learned that the train we were supposed to be on had derailed and a lot of people had been injured or killed. I didn't realize the significance of this experience until I grew up. I am amazed that my grandmother knew for some reason not to get on that train. I don't think she fathomed a train wreck, I think she just knew that something bad was going to happen and that she shouldn't get on that train.
What started out as a very upsetting time for me turned out to be the luckiest day of my life!
Loading comments....
