there, and when he got promoted to road engineer, they married and that’s when I was born.
‘It didn’t happen on a day like this,’ I said.
‘A terrible hurricane. High winds, rain, the worst weather they’d seen in ten years.’
‘Who’s telling this story?’
‘Sorry.’
‘The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 was heading straight for the Middle Keys just as Pop-Pop was finishing up his Key West-Miami run. He heard about it and volunteered to run a rescue train down there to save the track workers.’
‘Islamadora!’
The small town slowly drifted by below, nestled in a pearl-like string of keys. Even six years later, it still bore the scars of the hurricane’s path.
‘Did Pop-Pop drown?’
‘Most likely.’
She shivered. ‘Water over the tracks, people stranded everywhere, including the men on the bridge, right?’
‘During the depression FDR sent men across America to bridges, highways, schools, swimming pools. About six hundred men, mostly World War One army vets, were working in Islamadora when the hurricane hit.’
‘Just as Pop-Pop got there with his rescue train.’
‘Some say the wind was over two hundred miles an hour. The first storm surge scoured the town clean of everything; palm trees, houses, people, you name it, gone for good.’
‘But it didn’t blow over the train.’
‘Too heavy. If Pop-Pop had stayed inside with the fireman, he would have probably survived.’
‘But the soldiers were too scared to come out of their barracks, right?’
‘Pop kept blowing the train whistle for them to find their way to the train, but they stayed put. So he went outside to fetch them. The fireman said Pop-Pop managed to lead the first bunch back to the train. Then headed back to get the rest. That’s when the second storm surge hit and swept away the building and everybody inside it.’
‘A wall of water.’
‘Over four hundred folks drowned that day.’
‘Would have been more without Pop-Pop helping, right?’
I thought of the letters mailed to my mother after the funeral. Some crudely-spelled, others more eloquent, but all of them praising my father’s train for having saved their lives and expressing condolences that he lost his life in doing so.
The Hurricane of 1935 not only killed hundreds of people, it also killed the Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railroad. With miles of track washed into the sea and hundreds of bridges and causeways gone for good, the railroad ended its thirty-year adventure and sold its right-of-way to the state to build highways instead.
‘Pop-Pop was a hero,’ Abby said.
‘For sure.’
‘I want to be a hero too, some day.’
‘You can’t decide something like that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because history picks its heroes. Not the other way around.’
‘Doesn’t make sense.’
‘A hero is someone who does something ordinary in extraordinary times - like when Pop-Pop went out and led those men back to the train. It’s really an ordinary thing when you think about it, but he did it with the wind blowing and the rain coming down in buckets and the water rising all around him. Even with all that scary stuff happening, he just went ahead and did it.’
‘While that old fireman hid in the locomotive.’
‘Don’t blame him. You weren’t there to see what happened.’
She scowled. ‘If I’d been there, I’d have gone out with Pop-Pop to save those men. And maybe I could have saved him too.’
‘Maybe so.’
‘I know so.’
She clenched her jaw, looked straight at me and her brown eyes seemed to darken. ‘And if I hadn’t been sick and stayed with Grammy that night, maybe I could have saved Mommy and Baby Eddy. But they’re dead, and it’s all because of the Nazis, they’re worse than any damn hurricane!’
She pulled the release pin and swung the control wheel over to me. ‘I don’t want to fly anymore.’
She sat there, arms folded, head down and frowning while I corrected our course and re-trimmed the
‘It didn’t happen on a day like this,’ I said.
‘A terrible hurricane. High winds, rain, the worst weather they’d seen in ten years.’
‘Who’s telling this story?’
‘Sorry.’
‘The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 was heading straight for the Middle Keys just as Pop-Pop was finishing up his Key West-Miami run. He heard about it and volunteered to run a rescue train down there to save the track workers.’
‘Islamadora!’
The small town slowly drifted by below, nestled in a pearl-like string of keys. Even six years later, it still bore the scars of the hurricane’s path.
‘Did Pop-Pop drown?’
‘Most likely.’
She shivered. ‘Water over the tracks, people stranded everywhere, including the men on the bridge, right?’
‘During the depression FDR sent men across America to bridges, highways, schools, swimming pools. About six hundred men, mostly World War One army vets, were working in Islamadora when the hurricane hit.’
‘Just as Pop-Pop got there with his rescue train.’
‘Some say the wind was over two hundred miles an hour. The first storm surge scoured the town clean of everything; palm trees, houses, people, you name it, gone for good.’
‘But it didn’t blow over the train.’
‘Too heavy. If Pop-Pop had stayed inside with the fireman, he would have probably survived.’
‘But the soldiers were too scared to come out of their barracks, right?’
‘Pop kept blowing the train whistle for them to find their way to the train, but they stayed put. So he went outside to fetch them. The fireman said Pop-Pop managed to lead the first bunch back to the train. Then headed back to get the rest. That’s when the second storm surge hit and swept away the building and everybody inside it.’
‘A wall of water.’
‘Over four hundred folks drowned that day.’
‘Would have been more without Pop-Pop helping, right?’
I thought of the letters mailed to my mother after the funeral. Some crudely-spelled, others more eloquent, but all of them praising my father’s train for having saved their lives and expressing condolences that he lost his life in doing so.
The Hurricane of 1935 not only killed hundreds of people, it also killed the Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railroad. With miles of track washed into the sea and hundreds of bridges and causeways gone for good, the railroad ended its thirty-year adventure and sold its right-of-way to the state to build highways instead.
‘Pop-Pop was a hero,’ Abby said.
‘For sure.’
‘I want to be a hero too, some day.’
‘You can’t decide something like that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because history picks its heroes. Not the other way around.’
‘Doesn’t make sense.’
‘A hero is someone who does something ordinary in extraordinary times - like when Pop-Pop went out and led those men back to the train. It’s really an ordinary thing when you think about it, but he did it with the wind blowing and the rain coming down in buckets and the water rising all around him. Even with all that scary stuff happening, he just went ahead and did it.’
‘While that old fireman hid in the locomotive.’
‘Don’t blame him. You weren’t there to see what happened.’
She scowled. ‘If I’d been there, I’d have gone out with Pop-Pop to save those men. And maybe I could have saved him too.’
‘Maybe so.’
‘I know so.’
She clenched her jaw, looked straight at me and her brown eyes seemed to darken. ‘And if I hadn’t been sick and stayed with Grammy that night, maybe I could have saved Mommy and Baby Eddy. But they’re dead, and it’s all because of the Nazis, they’re worse than any damn hurricane!’
She pulled the release pin and swung the control wheel over to me. ‘I don’t want to fly anymore.’
She sat there, arms folded, head down and frowning while I corrected our course and re-trimmed the
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