When I was small, my family and I spent a good portion of our summers at my grandmother’s house. This was the same house where Mom grew up and it remained standing until about the time I was in my early teens. It was around that time that the state took over the house and tore it down to widen the road out front.
It was a shame for a lot of reasons. Not only was it a beautiful home but it was designed by Mom's father, who had passed away many years before I was born. The only people who ever lived in this house were Mom and her family (and later, a couple of elderly tenants upstairs).
So, it was a house filled with history and a house filled with memories - and at the time, it was still filled with Nona and my aunt, Eleanore.
Unfortunately, the house is long gone, but I have a lot of fond memories of that house and of our summertime visits there. And I also have a lot of fond memories of our trips there and back.
When I was really little, our visits usually started with us leaving our home outside of Boston and taking a train ride, which lasted overnight, to get to their small town. These train rides were a two part adventure. The first leg of the trip was a ride down to New York City where we would have to transfer to another train. The second leg of the trip was a much longer, overnight ride down to Biltmore.
At least once, after arriving in New York, we had to kill a fair amount of time before transferring to the second train. While I wanted to hang around the station, to ensure the possibility of not missing our second train (for which my concerns were roundly ignored,) for some reason - and I guarantee you this was not my idea - we decided to kill time by going to Macy’s Department Store. Why Macy’s? Who knows. Maybe this is what people from the suburbs of Boston thought that New York City was all about. All I knew was we were tempting fate.
Besides constantly worrying about missing our train, I only remember two other things about Macy’s. First, I remember that in their toy department, they had a couple of vending machines where you could put in a coin, select a figure - toy soldiers or Disney characters, as I recall - and watch as, a) a two piece metal mold came together and b) steaming hot, melted plastic was injected inside the mold. After a minute or so of unbearable anticipation (accompanied by the glorious smell of melted plastic) the mold would separate and the piping hot, presumably non-toxic figure would dump into the tray below. It was pretty amazing.
The other thing I remember about Macy’s is that Mom and Dad wouldn’t spring for me getting one of those plastic figures.
Other than mentioning that this entire incident took place over fifty years ago, I have no further comment about this. I’ll let you infer what you may from this traumatic experience.
Anyway, after killing time at Macy’s and miraculously not missing our second train, it was eventually time to climb aboard. We somehow located our cabin(s) and settled in for the rest of our journey to Nona and Eleanore's house.
This second train was where the real magic happened. At least once, and probably more (I like to think,) we got adjoining cabins. These cabins were normally separated by a wall, which for us - and only us - they somehow pulled out of the way for the daytime ride down- thus making one big room to accommodate the seven of us.
The room had what I remember to be the equivalent of a diner-style booth next to the window, where you could sit and stare out the window at the passing scenery or read comic books or brood over not having a piping hot plastic figure that you will likely never ever have the chance to get again in your entire life.
The room also had one, probably two (since they were usually two separate rooms) tiny little bathrooms, where one person could barely squeeze in. No shower, as I recall, just a tiny stainless steel sink and, more importantly, a stainless steel toilet.
I’m pretty sure that whoever designed the toilet went on to design either nuclear power plants or, at the very least, jet engines. Being steel, I imagine it could take a real beating. But the big thing was, if you were within five feet of flushing one of those things, you might as well say goodbye to anyone you ever knew. That thing flushed with such force that I’m pretty sure the vortex it created would suck you, and anything else in the vicinity, right down along with the you-know-what.
I remember Dad telling me that “whatever” got flushed down that toilet, got dumped right out onto the train tracks (if you catch my drift). I don’t remember if he was saying this in response to my legitimate concern over the turbo-charged toilet - or whether this was just another one of those interesting facts that Dad generously offered out of nowhere.
While this remark didn’t exactly give me any comfort, it did offer a distraction - which was probably the point. And anyway, it made perfect sense to me at the time. (For years, I was convinced that this was a true fact. However, years later, when Dad told me the same thing about airplanes, I started to have my doubts.)
Anyway, when it got to be evening, we would all gather up and leave our cabin to go to the dining car. This meant the dreaded, death-defying walk between multiple train cars.
At the end of each train car was a heavy metal door with a window in it. You would have to open this door, which opened with the sound of a hiss - like it was some kind of an airlock (though I may not be quite correct on this) - and then step into the no-man’s land between train cars.
This no-man’s land had a (presumably) thick steel floor plate attached to the car you were trying to leave - and another one attached to the car you were trying to get to.
These two plates moved independently of each other. And since they had to move independently of each other, there were lots of holes and air gaps between them. The gaps were so large, in fact, that you could see the tracks and ties racing along beneath you.
As a little kid, you would have to jump from one of those metal plates onto the other one- much like jumping from the ledge of one skyscraper onto the ledge of another skyscraper across the street.
To make it worse, while you were contemplating this entire situation (with people telling you to get moving), you were also surrounded by the non-air locked roar of the train - and, as I think I mentioned, you could see the tracks and railroad ties (and anything else that might have gotten dumped on them- if you catch my drift) racing along below you.
Once you finally managed to work up the courage and made the jump (i.e.: were pushed) - and once you had realized that you actually made the jump and yet you were somehow not lying on the train tracks below with the train roaring over you - you would then be informed that this was just the first of several times you would have to do this to get to the dining car.
When you finally made it to the dining car, you could then spend the entire meal thinking about having to make the exact same trip in reverse to get back to the cabin. To this day, I have no idea what I ate in those dining cars.
After the meal of whatever it was, and after the death-defying trip back to the cabin, we would enter to find the place had been magically transformed. The dividing wall that was gone during the day was back in place- wisely separating the girls from the boys for the night.
Gone, too, was the booth-type seating. In its place was a fold-down bunk - a couple of them, in fact. The beds were already made and at the head of each bed, night lights were turned on (either aqua or green or pure blue - I still don’t know, thanks to my colorblind eyes). All that was left was to get into PJ’s, use the much needed steel toilet (leaving it to some other poor soul to flush) and then climb into bed. But first, one last thing.
Up high, next to the door of the cabin, was what looked like a small cabinet door. This little cabinet had another door on the adjoining, corridor side of the wall. At night, you could leave your shoes inside this little cabinet and in the morning, they would be sitting there, now magically shined! Come to find out, this was something else, along with converting our rooms and making our beds, that the friendly porters were only too happy to take care of for us. (I suspect that this is where the term “spit-shine” originally comes from.)
The nighttime ride was generally peaceful - gently rocking with the rhythm of the train, and listening to the hypnotic clacking of the tracks as we made our way.
Somewhere down the line, our train car would be switched to another train. One time, Dad woke me up in the middle of the night to watch this process take place. I say middle of the night but it could have been more like 9:30 - and knowing Dad, it was probably more like 9:00.
Whatever time it was, it was dark. All I could see were the shadows and silhouettes of men, framed like ghosts in the dim lights of lanterns and railway signals, and the colored reflections of the lights on the steel sides of the train cars.
The train had stopped and so had the clacking along with the gentle rocking. Instead, there were the sounds of muffled voices from the train yard along with sounds of metal grinding against metal. Once in a while the train would shake a little and other trains would move as unseen workers somehow managed to take our car from one line and hook it onto another. Before long, we were back on our way.
In the morning, it was time to get ready for our arrival in Biltmore. Did we have breakfast on the train? I don’t remember. But I do remember pulling into the station and seeing Nona and Eleanore standing on the platform, looking up and down the line of the train to see if they could spot us. And I remember the excitement of trying to get out of the train while not getting lost in the rush of people leaving along with us.
Standing there at the train station, saying our hellos and catching up, was almost a little disorienting. But it was also a moment of relief and excitement - relief that we had made it without killing each other, and excitement over the fact that we were finally seeing these people we loved for the first time in a long, long time.
From there, we would head to Nona and Eleanore’s house. At least one of those times, we walked there from the train station. And while this was no great feat - the town was small and the distance was short - it added to the feeling of being home.
In later years, with one exception (which is a story for another day), our train trips were replaced by airplane rides. It’s kind of strange. Even though those flights were in later years, meaning, more recently - aside from the local airport, I have almost no memories of them.
But I have great memories of those train rides and, more importantly, I have great memories of that house and of those visits and of the people I shared those times with - memories so good, in fact, that in some ways, I almost don't mind not getting one of those plastic figures from Macy's.
