(The following story by Zack McMillin appeared on the Memphis Commercial Appeal website on December 16.)
ABOARD THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS — It is 6 a.m. on a Monday morning and Central Station in downtown Memphis has not seen the likes of this.
Everywhere you look there are folks clad in their best blue and gray. Some wear cheap blue Mardi Gras beads with a pendant showing a logo for the New Orleans Bowl, where the University of Memphis plays tonight. Others sport a T-shirt promoting the same event, in less official lettering: ”NAW-LEANS!” they say, and that’s the destination.
They are waiting for Amtrak train No. 59, which, announces the lady at the front counter, hails from ”Chicago, Homewood, Kankakee, Champaign-Urbana, Mattoon, Effing ham, Centralia, Carbondale, Fulton and Newbern-Dyers burg” and is headed for ”Greenwood, Yazoo City, Jackson, Hazlehurst, Brookhaven, McComb, Hammond and New Orleans.”
It is the train more commonly known as the City of New Orleans, made famous in song. On this Monday morning it will shepherd a few hundred University of Memphis football fans to the school’s first bowl game since 1971.
Most Monday mornings 35 to 40 passengers are expected on board in Memphis. Amtrak added three cars to accommodate the 300 expected on board.
”This is the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen,” says Robert Rodgers, an Amtrak attendant the past five years.
There is a hitch. Isn’t there always when it comes to football and the University of Memphis?
There was a delay coming out of Chicago because of maintenance, and the 6:30 a.m. arrival has been pushed back to 8 a.m.
And, by the way, if that’s your gray Cadillac parked in a residential space – or if you’re parked around back at all – the tow trucks are coming.
The announcement and freezing temperature and the black light outside – it really is darkest just before the dawn – do not exactly make for a festive mood, notwithstanding the Tiger fight song that blares from a small boom box.
Back inside the station, Rob Russell, U of M ’81, is waiting at the ticket counter. He and his wife, Karen, have brought along their children, 11-year-old Tyler and 6-year-old Alexandra.
Rob had to talk the principal at Crosswinds Elementary into letting them miss a few days of school.
The kids are excited about participating in the parade planned for 6:30 in New Orleans. Dad just can’t believe he’s actually headed south to watch the football Tigers play in a bowl game.
”I told the principal I’d been waiting 30 years on this, and I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be another 30 years,” Russell said. ”I think that’s what convinced her.”
As the morning light begins invading the station, the mood picks up. Cheers erupt, and some fans start the ol’ chant, ”Who ya rootin’ for?”
Some respond with ”U-of-M!” Some shout ”Am-trak!”
Another vehicle is about to be towed, ”a green Suzuki with Ole Miss tags.”
The place erupts.
”Tow it! Tow it! Tow it.”
Finally, at 7:45, a train whistle heralds the arrival. At 8:32 a.m. – 102 minutes past the scheduled departure – the City of New Orleans, begins its long slide south.
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With the houses of South Memphis serving as initial scenery – there goes the corner of Yazoo and Norwood, separated by a kudzu-clogged ditch – the conductor welcomes all aboard, offering tips for safe strolls through the 11-car train.
”Keep your feet spread slightly farther apart than normal,” he says.
Also: ”Keep your shoes on at all times, for your neighbors’ sake and your own safety.”
As the greens of T. O. Fuller golf course slide past, the train lurches forward, as if a jockey just smacked its backside, and the amble becomes a gallop.
In the back of one car, Ron and Brenda Limberg pull a bottle of champagne from their Styrofoam cooler, pass the bubbly around in papercups and call out a toast.
”Go Tigers!” comes the song from the back, and it seems that, finally, the trip is under way.
Pretty soon a water tower with WALLS – that is, Walls, Miss. – buzzes by, and the train is deep into the Delta.
The scenery turns to flooded rice fields, trailer homes with their satellite dishes and, occasionally, flocks of migrating ducks and geese so thick that, when they flee the oncoming train, it looks like a mystical white apparition rising into the sky.
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On board, strangers are becoming friends, Tiger football and their shared 10-hour journey serving as bonds.
Harvey Barton is a 76-year-old retiree wearing a nice coat and fancy fedora, dressed the way folks used to for train travel. A 1954 graduate of what was then called Memphis State College, Barton got a call from his sons last week.
”They said they were giving me an early Christmas present,” says Barton, formerly a schools superintendent in Rivercrest, Ark.
Buddy McEwen, Class of ’63 (by then, it had become Memphis State University), was set to begin taking treatments for throat cancer on Monday, but postponed it in order to make the trip.
”Isn’t this great?” says McEwen, the golf pro at Davy Crockett. ”I know this ol’ fellow who I’ve always seen wearing orange. Well, I saw him the other day and he says he went out and bought himself a blue hat and a T-shirt and he’s going to the bowl game.”
In the lounge car, Jimbo Anthony and his 9-year-old son, Cannon, are playing a card game called ”Golf.” They are looking east and sunlight is bursting through the car, which is basically a gigantic window to the passing Delta.
Jimbo is a sergeant first class in the National Guard unit out of Bolivar. He is awaiting orders for a one-year tour, likely as a military policeman in Hawaii beginning in January.
The constant delays – often to allow for passing freight trains – mean even more precious time together for father and son.
”I always wanted to take a train all my life,” says Jimbo, who is 41. ”We enjoy Tiger games, so we thought we’d shoot on down to the bowl.”
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Somewhere past Jackson, Miss., the inevitable occurs. An attendant calls for the conductor and a drunk fan is asked to calm down. When he doesn’t he’s escorted off the train at the next stop.
Though Amtrak says the City of New Orleans is one of its most reliable trains, the train is more than two hours behind schedule as the scenery switches from the flat bottom of the Delta to the woods of Central Mississippi to the marshes of Louisiana.
Some of the Tiger fans – especially those whose kids wanted to make the parade – are none too happy. When Amtrak gave away a round-trip for two from New Orleans to Chicago, the winner, Charlotte Ruppelt, traded the voucher with someone for a blue Tiger pillow.
”I wouldn’t go if they paid me,” she says.
Even so, as the City of New Orleans slowed to its final stop, right next to the Superdome, most were in good spirits.
”Go Tigers!” hollers Rick Larson. ”Better late than never!”
Or, as Jimmy Fowlkes (U of M ’64) puts it: ”I’ve been waiting 40 years for this trip. What’s a few more hours?”