When I was a college student, I burned through a couple of majors before embarking on a career as a journalist. I was as surprised as anyone as my career path wound through my initial mathematics major to my eventual undergraduate degree in psychology to a lengthy newspaper career as reporter and editor, with side trips as a personal historian and pop culture author.
But I really shouldn't have been that surprised. I enjoyed my college writing courses -- narrative writing, expository writing and creative writing. But there was a lengthy gap in my writing for pleasure, from the first story I ever wrote, The Go Away Dog, as a kindergartner to the terribly pretentious and dismal attempts at poetry in my college years. My poetry years largely coincided with my railroad years, about 1965 to 1967. Those were the years I worked full-time for Union Pacific while attending Omaha University, full-time as well.
My work hours those years were most often midnight to 8 a.m., at Union Station in Omaha. Those were the hours that U.P. streamliners passed through Omaha and it was my duty to provide drinking water to the passenger and sleeping cars as they paused on their journeys. On any given shift, we'd service 4-6 trains, giving us ample time to ourselves. It was great for a college kid like me to hear stories from railroad men who were mostly of a different era and who were raising families on the same salary I was making to advance my education. Much of my education actually came from those guys trying to stay awake between trains.
I also spent considerable time "upstairs," sometimes in the magnificent Union Station itself but more often in the neighboring Burlington Station, which was just a short over-the-tracks bridge away. If I was going to be seen loitering, I reasoned, better at a rival railroad's station than that of my own employer. So there I sat in Burlington's waiting room at 2, 3, 4 a.m., writing feverishly in a 25 cent stenographer's notebook. I was fairly prolific in those years, filling up one notebook and most of another in 1967 alone. While there are no surviving copies of The Go Away Dog, I do still have those notebooks.
Most of the work is pretty bad, though I did manage to sneak one whimsical poem into my university's literary magazine, The Grain of Sand. My poetry was heavily influenced by two of my favorite singers at the time, Bob Dylan and David Blue. My essays owe their opacity to the wacky styles used by John Lennon in his early books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard In the Works.
I can't tell you much about how Union Pacific trains fared in the wee hours of June 9, 1967, but, according to my notes, I was laboring in the vastness of Omaha's Burlington Station, scribbling out a tale of a go-go dancer:
BRILLIA CONDUSO
High heeled boots and Spanish lace,
Tight blonde hair never out of place,
Graceful movements with marked finesse,
Golden bangles on a golden dress,
And yet you asked me how I guessed.
Brillia Conduso, is she what she seems?
In her long tight nylons with long black seams?
Tattered bikinis all over the place,
Backstage a young girl pleads her case,
Up front, salesmen clap their hands,
And their devious minds make devious plans,
And yet you asked me is it all that bad.
Brillia Conduso has yet to show.
And even when she does, will anyone know?
And if they know, will they let it show?
The spotlight tears through the gaudy balloons,
And casts a sickening glow on the dressing rooms,
Not a very pleasant sight you say,
Brillia Conduso faces it every day,
And yet you asked is it all fun and play.
Brillia Conduso in her cap and gown,
Should have been smiling but you know she frowned,
While everyone looked up, she looked down,
And couldn’t help seeing what she hadn’t found.
Brillia made her entrance, like a queen she appeared,
Everyone in front of her guzzled their beer,
Hands flew, horns blew, she knew what it meant,
The roar that followed came from every shallow gent,
And yet you ask me if you could go to where she’s been.
Brillia Conduso never had a chance,
Brillia Conduso can’t really dance,
Brillia Conduso can’t make it at all,
Brillia Conduso’s had a great fall,
Brillia Conduso’s not like you or me,
Brillia Conduso can never be free,
And yet you ask me if I can really see.
I think it's a good idea for writers to revisit their work, if just to remind them of where they once were and what they may have been thinking about at the time. For me, poetry was just something I once dabbled in. I'm still not much of a poetry guy, but I hugely respect some of the great songwriters of today who take on the twin challenges of creating memorable lyrics that also sound good when you sing them. One of my favorite examples of concise storytelling is in Buddy Holly's I'm Looking for Someone to Love where he tells a complete story in just nine words: "Drunk man, street car, foot slipped, there you are."
Larry Lehmer is an Iowa-based journalist and author. His book, Bandstandland: How dancing teenagers took over America and Dick Clark took over rock & roll, is scheduled to be published in 2019 by Sunbury Press.
