A Nine-Year-Old Boy's Memories of World War I

Not Forgotten A Nine-Year-Old Boy's Memories ofWorld War I BY FLOYD WALDREP This firsthand account of small-town life during World War I takes place in Red Bay, Alabama, located near the Mississippi border in northwest Alabama. THE TROOP TRAIN Everyone was talking about a troop train coming, and diat bodiered me. I knew it should be a secret. After all, a German spy might be lurking nearby. I knew this train was important because the government was paying a man five dollars a day to guard the railroads in Red Bay, Alabama, the only water stop between Corinth, Mississippi, and Haleyville, Alabama. This proved to me (and I was to be ten years old the middle of September) that it wasn't safe for everyone to know that this train was loaded with American troops. People were passing our store, which was only a block from the depot. Some whispered that a troop train was coming; others blurted it out loud. I joined the crowd and ran down the road to the neat litde railroad station. The smooth, hard surface of firmly packed cinders felt good against my bare feet. The road gendy curved by a loading dock that joined a corral, and a border of neady arranged cross-ties kept the cinders off the tracks. The yellow building trimmed in brown seemed to be sitting in a cinder box. I found a seat on the freight platform high enough to see over the train. I was looking at the signal when the red light popped on. I knew the train was leaving Vina, which was seven miles east of Red Bay. Traveling at the terrific speed of sixty miles per hour, it would be here soon. My watch was broken so I couldn't figure the exact time. The crowd lined the track to the railroad water tank. Men wiped die sweat from their faces with bandanna handkerchiefs, and the women fanned themselves with dainty litde fans. Across the tracks I could see Uncle Charlie, the division engineer in charge ofall watering stations, standing by his watermelon patch. He was dressed in his best summer clothes, wearing clean white shoes and a new Panama hat. He seemed a litde nervous as he lit his crooked-stem pipe. I heard the strong blast of the steam whisde as the passenger train neared the overhead bridge. Dust was flying, and steam hissed from the giant twentiethcentury engine as the wheels screeched to a stop. 123 Nine-year-old Floyd Waldrep in Red Bay, AUbama, ca. 191S. I24 FLOYD WALDREP The fireman skillfully climbed to the big water box and started the flow from the round, flat-topped water tank The Soldiers covered with wood slats. The soldiers unloaded from the/ j j r . ,., , r . ? ¦ , ? ? , unloaded worn train like a colony of ants and invaded the watermelonJ patch like soldiers in batde. They captured the melonsthe train like a without thumping them to see ifthey were ripe, and toted» p diem to the train and ate them with bayonets. Others~s J dropped to the freshly plowed ground, popped the mei-and invaded the ons open on their knees, and ate with their fingers and. ? , . ? JlU-C U ¦ A TUAACU Ä>rf/tfflH?«0» tOtCD drank the juice out of the rinds. The red dirt from the¿ watermelon stuck to their hands and faces, which were like Soldiers in sticky with juice. The soldiers looked like Indian braves 7 ? going to batde with painted faces and pompadour hair cut short......................... The late arrivals found nothing but vines and green fruit. In their mad frustration they made sport with the remains , tossing and catching the small melons, even throwing them at the train like a bunch of kids playing in the rain. Not all the soldiers were rowdy, though. In fact, most were very friendly. I got off my high seat and joined my neighbors in fraternizing with the young gentiemen . One gave me a poke full ofpretzels. I was so proud of them I showed them for days. The pretzels got so stale my mother made me feed diem to the chickens. Uncle Charlie was talking to a friend...