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By Homer Hirt
A few days ago, as the crow flies, my Favorite Son Mark and I were discussing the labelling of generations. From my recollection this began with Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation”. Since then we have picked up other titles: the Millennials, the X Generation, the Baby Boomers. Mark insisted that my generation is the Baby Boomers. I insist that it is not.
And then I remembered Old Josh and the Doodlebug.
Here is how that unfolds and becomes the exception that proves the rule.
My home town, yclept Chattahoochee, was known primarily for being the location of Florida’s mental institution. In my day it was called, simply, “The Hospital”, and was housed within the walls of the old fort that dated back to the early 1800s.
Chattahoochee was famous, also, for being the second-busiest rail center in the Sunshine State.
Four railroads had terminals there, and the sounds of switch engines connecting and disconnecting rail cars reverberated throughout the hills and valleys of the town all the day and into the night.
The Seaboard Railroad nosed in, along with the short line Apalachicola Northern. Louisville and Nashville aimed their freight haulers down and the Atlantic Coast Line kept their yards busy with freight and passengers crossing our continent. Pullman sleeper cars were unhooked and hooked back, moving passengers thither and yon.
And in the midst of all of this hub and bub, came Old Josh and the Doodlebug.
I don’t think that Josh, the engineer on the little short haul connector from out of southwest Georgia, was actually “old”. I don’t remember ever seeing him, but certain folks always had the title of “old” affixed firmly in front of their names.
“Old” Matthew Peacock ran the café at the hotel down by the rails, and “Old” Doctor Barnes tended to broken bones and croup. “Old Man” Blount was Postmaster and always wore a bow tie, and “Old Man” Hirt owned the Ford place.
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So Old Josh kept his hand on the throttle and his eye on the road as the Doodlebug hauled freight and, on occasion, a few passengers, into River Junction, the actual name of the freight terminal.
As the Doodlebug approached its crossing of Highway 90, always close onto four o’clock in the morning, Old Josh would release the throttle, set down on the steam whistle and let her go.
“Letting her go” meant that the long, loud whistle would bounce off the shot tower at the Hospital, run south and west to the steeple of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, South, awakening the hospital ward attendants on Watson Street.
The sound waves would then echo down Main Street, glance off the steep embankments through the main residential section of the town awakening the laborers and store clerks, and then jump over the ridge to Torreya Heights Mostly merchants and professionals along those shaded streets, and they would sit up in bed, look around and ………nestle up close to their mates….and er…..er….. er…..well, figure it out for yourself! Meanwhile the laborers, store clerks, hospital attendants and just plain folks would follow suit.
The next morning at Old Matthew’s café and down at the potbellied stove at Scarborough’s Store and the soda fountain at Old Doc Barne’s drug store men would shuffle in, a bit droopy eyed but somewhat pleased with themselves.
And then, nine months later, almost always at four o’clock in the morning, Old Doctor Barnes would be making his rounds, birthing baby after baby, all thanks to Old Josh and the wailing 4:00 whistle.
So, tell me, are we really the Baby Boomers, or should we be honored as the Doodlebugs?
Lagniappe (A Little Something Extra)
“To sit home, read one’s favorite newspaper and scoff at the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective.” – Theodore Roosevelt, Twenty Sixth President
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