One Saturday in the early summer when I was eight my
brother and my best friend Justin got a hot tip on a little pond
about 3 miles from our house that was said to be chock full of tad
poles. We decided that it bore some investigation, I mean, who among
us can resist the lure of the tadpole El Derado? Not I. We decided
that it would be safer and a shorter route if we followed the train
tracks to the south side of town that was we would cut off about
three-quarters of a mile. We would also not run into any strangers,
which in the children's pantheon of dark gods were the most
dangerous and evil. We walked up the tracks for about an house and
did indeed find the fabled pool, nearly black with precious,
precious, tad poles. We filled up the containers that we had brought
and scrounged around for more to make the trip even more worth-while.
With our cans and jars full of beautiful baby frogs we headed back
down the tracks in high spirits. There are a few places along the
track that the rails pass through small hills that were dug up and
stacked to the side so that the path was level. When we were walking
through one of these hill that was about a quarter mile long we heard
a train which we thought was a ways off, judging from the noise. It
turned out, however, that it was not very far off at all the sound
was just dampened by the convolutions of the track before the train
entered the little valley we were walking through. We didn't realize
our mistake until the train was only a few hundred feet away and
moving fast so we ran as fast as we could up the embankment. That is
when I realized that I had left a coffee can full of tadpoles in
harms way. Against the protestations of my brother and my friend I
ran back down the hill and grabbed the can from the side of the track
seconds before the train past. The train past so closely to me that
the wind flipped me over onto my belly and I crawled out of the way.
It only took me about two second to realize how stupid it was that I
ran back down to get my can. We walked the rest of the way home in a
daze thinking what if I had been a few feet closer or a few seconds
later. Tadpoles didn't seem so important anymore and I am not sure if
I have ever caught tadpoles again.
