Before my (sainted) mother discovered the miracle combination of Valium and Top Shelf Kentucky bourbon, she insisted that we travel
via train. She had been engaged to Frank Hershey (Yep, the chocolate family), who had suffered a failed launch from his aircraft carrier in 1944; he was overrun by the ship and killed. That put Mom off flying for a very long time, though it should have put her off steam catapults instead.
We would travel aboard the Seaboard Coastline/Southern
Crescent, leaving New York’s Grand Central station in the afternoon and arriving in Atlanta’s Brookwood station the next morning. We would charter a drawing room – two sleepers separated by a small living room – luxury it its best. The staff – conductors, porters, attendants – were immensely pleasant and the food was superb! The views of cities, villages, and countryside were fascinating and hypnotic. We made that journey ten times.
Years later, after she’d gobbled a couple of benzodiazepines and a belt or three of bourbon, I drove over to chauffeur my mother to Hartsfield, where she would board her flight to Rome. She was going through her jewelry box, deciding what to wear on her journey. My eye caught the radiance of a particularly large diamond solitaire which I had never seen her wear. I asked about it. She said it was the ring Frank Hershey, on bended knee, had given her when he proposed. It was 10 carats.
Then, as they do, more years rushed by and I found myself shoulder to shoulder with Robert and Graham Claytor in the cab of #611, the same massive steam locomotive which had headed the
Crescent on many of our journeys. That took my breath away as much as my mother’s ring….
- Ed
