sonora2sonoma

by Tim Konrad

Chapter Eight

Few things in life have the power to evoke long-forgotten memories than the plaintive sound of a lonely train whistle. Thanks to the recent return of rail travel to Sonoma County, this sound is now heard several times each day in my community and, each time I hear it I am brought back to the comforting wail emanating from the Sierra Railroad’s locomotive each afternoon as it wound its way to the train station at the south end of Sonora. I recall accompanying my father as he went to the train station to receive the shipments of paint that enabled him to provide for our family while I was growing up. As a small boy, I remember the guilt-tinged fascination with which I would steal glimpses of the calendar girl pinups that lined the walls of the inside of the freight-receiving part of the train station. Pictures of scantily-clad women, a novelty for an 8 year-old boy unaccustomed to such material, became something to look forward to when going to pick up paint with my father.

The rail line played a big part in meeting the area’s freight needs at that time.  The freight depot, located  where the post office sits today, was a handsome building with a deck on the receiving side whose height was just right for off-loading freight onto awaiting trucks. In the days of my youth, the train had been reduced to a freight- hauling line. In an earlier time, before a larger and more ambitious train station had fallen victim to fire, the rail line had ferried passengers bound for the foothills and beyond. Today, most of the passengers riding the rails in these parts are tourists, visitors to the area who arrive in Jamestown by automobile to board trains for short excursions on summer weekends and special occasions.

In reflecting on the ability of sounds, such as that of a train whistle, to summon memories long forgotten, another sound familiar from childhood comes to mind—the once familiar sound of a rooster crowing to herald the arrival of a new day. A man who lived uphill from us when I was a child had a chicken pen commanded by a rooster who, each morning, would proclaim the coming of the dawn with unfailing regularity. Anyone who doubts that roosters are early risers is someone who has never lived close enough to one to be dispelled of such foolish notions! Many were the times I cursed that bird as a teenager after having stayed up half the night thinking I could sleep through the following morning to catch up, only to be awakened in the early light by that damnable biological alarm clock. In those days, once awake I was not able to go back to sleep, no matter how late I’d stayed up. Had I been bolder, I might have consoled myself at those times with thoughts of the bird’s demise but I was not then yet sufficiently distrustful of my conditioning to indulge in such independent thought.

I eventually learned to accept the sound of the rooster crowing and even, in time, to appreciate it. One of the blessings of the passage of time is its ability to promote acceptance of that which is beyond one’s ability to change—a life lesson whose applicability has extended far beyond the confines of the conditions which, in this case, as in many others, nourished it into being!  I hear no such morning delights these days in Petaluma. Alas, the advantages of urban living do not often include the freedom to raise farm animals.