After my first few trips as a greenhorn commute extra brakeman, I drew a weekend assignment with a fine old conductor, Tommy Meader, with whom I would work again on many occasions, including a trip to San Luis Obispo on the Starlight, in which he spent much of the time giving me a guided tour of the passing lineside.

I immediately liked Tommy, who hired out in 1946 and was already considerably past retirement age. His high-pitched voice was kind of endearing; he sounded like the Muppets' Grover. I'm not sure that he was always all-there mentally, because on one trip he reminded me that we were supposed to stop at the racetrack - he meant Tanforan Race Track, which had closed back in 1949.

But on my first trip with him, he performed service in an orderly, kindly manner, and I felt bound to help him out, in part because he obviously had problems with his legs. I had more-or-less caught-on to the hat check system of keeping track of passengers, so I decided in mid-route to start pulling hat checks as the train left each zone. This I did, until I realized several miles later that I had been pulling the hat checks in reverse order. I now had a coat pocket stuffed with hat checks punched for the zones ahead of us, rather than behind. OY!

This meant that poor Tommy would be asking a goodly number of passengers for their tickets (many that were hung in place of hat checks, and thus were currently residing in my pocket) a second time, a very embarrasing prospect indeed. I considered my options and realized that there was no way that I would be able to properly re hang that great wad of cardboard.

Quickly concluding from this that Tommy was screwed, no matter what, I adopted the only prudent course: I would save myself. With that, I proceeded to empty my pocket onto a convenient vestibule floor, and then ran off to tell the conductor that the passengers had reported a guy strolling through the cars yanking hat checks - and yes, that I had located the miscreant's work lying about the vestibule floor.

Accompanying me to the vestibule, Tommy surveyed the damage and sighed in his high Grover voice., "Ed, this is most distressing..." I felt about six inches tall, but it was still better than fessing-up. This was the days of old-school railroading, when mistakes big and small were not tolerated. This blunder would have put me on all of the old-head conductors' shit lists, once it got around. And, in retrospect, I would have missed that guided tour and his many other acts of kindness in the future. I desperately tried to make up for the incident in future trips - I surely hope that I eventually tipped the scales in my favor.

Tommy, old soldier, wherever you are: I confess, I confess! May you rest in peace.