through the trip over Welch Mountain, but I was awakened near the top by a rumble of trucks. I wiped the moisture off the window and saw truck after truck going by, all with Olga Coal Company markings on them. In the back of each of them were canvas-shrouded boxes and unidentifiable equipment. I presumed it was Dad’s new mining equipment, whatever it was. I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until we were winding through the low brick buildings that lined the streets of our county seat.
Our first stop was the Welch Norfolk and Western railroad station. The Big Creek band had been given the honor to welcome Mr. Truman to McDowell County. Mr. Polascik, our band director, was in a state of near nervous exhaustion even though we were all formed up, ready to blare out “The Stars and Stripes Forever” the moment the former president’s train arrived. A man given to worry, Mr. Polascik gave his worst tendency full rein as he raced in between the rows and columns of the nearly one-hundred-strong band. I thought we were looking pretty sharp in our green-and-white uniforms and our big tall shakos. Mr. Polascik was apparently not of the same opinion. His round face was nearly purple with concern. Or perhaps his necktie—a bright green—was pulled too tight. “Not too loud, Sonny, okay?” he reminded me. “Don’t drown out the woodwinds.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, perhaps a little too archly for his ears because he gave me a particularly beseeching look. I didn’t know why he was so worried. I had trained my drummers well. If I put my mind to it, I could keep them so quiet even the flutes could be heard. That was a particularly good idea, since Ginger was one of the flute players. I hadn’t asked her to the Christmas Formal yet but I still planned to do it first chance I got. I had decided it wasn’t right to just blurt out an invitation to a girl like Ginger. It required careful preparation and thought. One of the lessons I’d learned with my rockets was that planning was the parent of success. I figured that surely applied to girls just as well.
At 7:00 A.M., precisely on schedule, the Powhatan Arrow, loudly chuffing steam, rounded a curve and pulled into the station. It was a sleek black bullet of a locomotive. Behind it came a proud chain of red Pullman passenger cars. The last car was not the standard little caboose that trailed on the end of the coal trains but a big Pullman densely draped in red, white, and blue bunting. It looked like something I’d only seen in the movies. On the back was a tiny platform and a big circular sign of some sort that somebody said was the presidential seal. Harry Truman wasn’t president anymore, so I guessed it was an honorary thing and somehow that didn’t seem right to me. If my dad had stopped being the superintendent at the mine, he couldn’t go around wearing his white helmet anymore, could he?
The Powhatan Arrow rested for a bit while venting some more steam, and then the door to the fancy car opened in the back and a couple of men in brown suits with wide lapels walked out on the platform. An attractive, smartly dressed young woman in a white suit and high heels followed, and then out came none other than Harry S Truman himself, looking a bit grim. He was surely a small man, I thought. After he looked us over, he suddenly erupted in a huge grin, as if somebody had pushed a button in his back. He took off his fedora and waved it in the air. Mr. Polascik, about to burst a gasket, loped all around us, his hands shaking in the air to gain our attention. We tore our eyes away from Mr. Truman, and at Mr. Polascik’s nearly hysterical count “One-Two-Three-Four!” we launched into our march. I was so excited I began to batter my snare drum as hard as I could, and so did the other drummers. Everybody in the band played as loudly as ever we could. Mr. Polascik kept jumping up and down and waving and trying to get us to hit some low points as well as highs, but nobody
Our first stop was the Welch Norfolk and Western railroad station. The Big Creek band had been given the honor to welcome Mr. Truman to McDowell County. Mr. Polascik, our band director, was in a state of near nervous exhaustion even though we were all formed up, ready to blare out “The Stars and Stripes Forever” the moment the former president’s train arrived. A man given to worry, Mr. Polascik gave his worst tendency full rein as he raced in between the rows and columns of the nearly one-hundred-strong band. I thought we were looking pretty sharp in our green-and-white uniforms and our big tall shakos. Mr. Polascik was apparently not of the same opinion. His round face was nearly purple with concern. Or perhaps his necktie—a bright green—was pulled too tight. “Not too loud, Sonny, okay?” he reminded me. “Don’t drown out the woodwinds.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, perhaps a little too archly for his ears because he gave me a particularly beseeching look. I didn’t know why he was so worried. I had trained my drummers well. If I put my mind to it, I could keep them so quiet even the flutes could be heard. That was a particularly good idea, since Ginger was one of the flute players. I hadn’t asked her to the Christmas Formal yet but I still planned to do it first chance I got. I had decided it wasn’t right to just blurt out an invitation to a girl like Ginger. It required careful preparation and thought. One of the lessons I’d learned with my rockets was that planning was the parent of success. I figured that surely applied to girls just as well.
At 7:00 A.M., precisely on schedule, the Powhatan Arrow, loudly chuffing steam, rounded a curve and pulled into the station. It was a sleek black bullet of a locomotive. Behind it came a proud chain of red Pullman passenger cars. The last car was not the standard little caboose that trailed on the end of the coal trains but a big Pullman densely draped in red, white, and blue bunting. It looked like something I’d only seen in the movies. On the back was a tiny platform and a big circular sign of some sort that somebody said was the presidential seal. Harry Truman wasn’t president anymore, so I guessed it was an honorary thing and somehow that didn’t seem right to me. If my dad had stopped being the superintendent at the mine, he couldn’t go around wearing his white helmet anymore, could he?
The Powhatan Arrow rested for a bit while venting some more steam, and then the door to the fancy car opened in the back and a couple of men in brown suits with wide lapels walked out on the platform. An attractive, smartly dressed young woman in a white suit and high heels followed, and then out came none other than Harry S Truman himself, looking a bit grim. He was surely a small man, I thought. After he looked us over, he suddenly erupted in a huge grin, as if somebody had pushed a button in his back. He took off his fedora and waved it in the air. Mr. Polascik, about to burst a gasket, loped all around us, his hands shaking in the air to gain our attention. We tore our eyes away from Mr. Truman, and at Mr. Polascik’s nearly hysterical count “One-Two-Three-Four!” we launched into our march. I was so excited I began to batter my snare drum as hard as I could, and so did the other drummers. Everybody in the band played as loudly as ever we could. Mr. Polascik kept jumping up and down and waving and trying to get us to hit some low points as well as highs, but nobody
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