Across the country by rail 1959

In September, 1959  I was packed and ready to go by rail to Northampton, Massachusetts to enter Smith College.  Until then I had never been east of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  And I had never been anywhere on my own.  I was a very protected young lady.  I clearly remember my mother saying to me as we waited for the Northern Pacific train to pull into the station: “I have taught you everything I can.  It’s now up to you.” 

I got on the train, exhilarated, waved to my parents and sisters, then over the next four days, watched America roll by.  The Rocky Mountains were just taller versions of the Cascades.  The plains of eastern Montana, however, were astounding: so flat it was possible to see the curve of the earth.   

In Chicago where I had a few hours layover, I was surprised to be waited on by a black salesclerk.  The dominant ethnic groups–and we never thought about people that way in those days–in Spokane and much of the Pacific Northwest  were Swedes and Norweigians.  The tiny black population of Spokane was almost invisible.  In Chicago they were very visible. 

I changed trains in Chicago and found myself on what could have been called  the “Eastern College Express”.  Somewhere in Montana, 3 or 4 young men heading for Harvard had boarded the train and we had talked.  Now there were dozens of students going to the colleges in New England.  We all identified ourselves, somehow or the other, and the midwest rolled by almost unobserved because there were so many new people to meet.

The train rolled through small midwest towns where laundry was waving on the clothes lines and past farm lands which could have been in the Willamette Valley where I spent much of my early life.   One thing I noticed immediately as the train crossed into Massachusetts was how close together towns were and how charming they looked, as if taken from a story book.  Over the next four years this lack of space–well, that was and is how I define it–made me eager to go back out West after I graduated.  I love the open spaces of the American West.  I love the idea that you can walk through forests or out into the desert and put your foot where no human being has ever stepped before.  I love being able to look around and see no evidence of human beings, only the land and the sky.  New England eventually began to feel very claustrophobic.   At the end of 4 years Smith College did, too.

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)

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