A Michigan Boyhood (June 1972 | Volume: 23, Issue: 4)

A Michigan Boyhood

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Authors: Bruce Catton

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June 1972 | Volume 23, Issue 4

This is how it was in the old days. A family that wanted to go from here to there went by railroad train because there was no other way to do it. If the distance was very short, ten or a dozen miles only, you might hire a rig at the livery stable and let the horses do the work, and if you lived on deep water you might go all or part of the way by steamboat, but as a general thing to make a trip meant to take a ride on the cars. The process was slow by later standards, the journey was apt to be bumpy and dusty, and there were inflexible schedules to keep, but it was exciting, especially for children past the time of actual babyhood. It differed from modern travel in that the mere act of departure was a great event.

We always began by going to the railroad station at Beulah. Mr. Benner had a wagon that left the Benzonia post office in time to meet all the trains, under contract to receive and deliver the mail; he carried our baggage, and his wagon had crosswise seats for passengers, who could ride for a modest fee, so he usually carried us as well. The trip to Beulah was unexciting—no driver in his senses drove down that hill at anything but a plodding walk—but once we reached the depot the atmosphere changed and we began to understand that we were really going somewhere. Actually, we already understood it. Mother felt that her children ought to be presentable if they were going on the cars, so the night before we all had to take baths, even though it was not Saturday night —a gross violation of custom that led us to utter vain protests—and when we got dressed on the morning of departure we had to put on our Sunday suits, so that the special quality of the event had already been impressed on us. But when we reached the station platform, the reality of the whole business came home to us.

For all that Beulah and Benzonia together made no more than a decidedly small town, this seemed like a busy place at train time. Somebody would be wheeling a platform truck down to the spot where the head-end cars were to stop: empty ice-cream freezers going back to the distributor at Cadillac, ice-packed containers from the Beulah creamery bound for assorted destinations downstate, a travelling salesman’s sample cases, somebody’s trunk, a few suitcases, a mysterious cardboardbound parcel or two, and so on. People who were going to get on the train stood about looking expectant, while behind the platform teams waited for passengers or packages coming down from Frankfort. The station agent was out, keeping an eye on the platform truck while he assured some anxious woman that this train would infallibly reach Copemish in time for her to catch the Manistee & Northeastern going southwest. Miss