Waiting for a Train

Patchwork Quilt #2 - bridging the gap between the picture and a thousand words


Waiting for the Train

In certain circles Walker Shaw was a legend. I was lucky enough to have met him at a campground in Maine the summer I decided to see if I could learn more by hitchhiking the back roads than by staying in school. As a matter of fact I did, including from Walker, but went back to school anyway.

Over the years I stayed in touch, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by happy chance. One of the last times our paths crossed, I was in Chicago for some this or that and Walker was playing at a hole in the wall folk club near Northwestern, singing his songs and telling stories about Woody and the old guys, visiting a “daughter” in Skokie, and teaching his grandson Ted a thing or two about playing the guitar. I had promised to take him to see a baseball game and we were sitting on a bench waiting to take a train to catch an afternoon Cubs game. It would be the late eighties before they installed lights at Wriggly Field.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny and neither of us could, or for all that matter would want to, ignore the girl standing by the edge of the platform. She was everything Walker and I weren't. She was young. I wasn't that much older than she was but Walker self-described as “older than the dirt on the bottom of my shoes”. She was gracefully slender and carried herself with the unconscious poise of a dancer. I carried more weight than I should have, still do, and had no moves to speak of on the dance floor. Walker was angular and bony. Though I had never seen him dance, I doubted it would be pretty. Mostly she paid little notice to her surroundings, intent on a book in her hands. I caught sight of the title and though unfamiliar with it at that time, now it certainly rings true to the scene and has survived in my memory today. The Neverending Story.

Walker gave me a sideways glance that made me think he was about to say something along the lines of “she reminds me of someone I knew back in Omaha”, Instead he sighed a deep and bone weary sigh and said “You know Skipper I don't believe in love at first sight anymore, I'm not sure I ever did, but I certainly do believe in 'I wish I was thirty years younger' at first sight. Maybe forty”.

Then, adding “You know, I think there's a song in there somewhere”, he took out the pad and pencil he kept in the canvas bag he carried over his shoulder and started scribbling. Of anyone I knew, his handwriting was worse than mine and I couldn't make out what he was writing except for “Back in the Day” written in large block letters at the top of the page.

Apparently he performed the song at his next gig but never again, he died at a VA hospital soon after and his ashes were spread along a stretch of track outside Omaha. I've never been to Omaha. I think maybe its time for a visit with an my old friend.

thanks for putting up with my playing quite so fast and loose with the rules while i figure out where my patchwork quilts belong. Be safe. Be kind. Care ... and the adventure continues.