(Another installation in the Little Johnny series… stories, mostly true, that I tell June based on things from my childhood. This one is very true. I still feel a little sick when I remember it… one of the first of the several times in my life when I came very close to death.)

Little Johnny and the train crossing

Once upon a time, when Little Johnny was a teenager, he was driving around in Daddy’s station wagon after Church one Sunday night with a bunch of his friends and a really scary thing happened.

Johnny and his friends had the radio on loud, and they were all talking and laughing and being loud, which they usually did when they were riding around—which was a favorite thing to do in those small, South Georgia towns where there was really not much to do but ride around, and the radio was truth… but that’s a whole ‘nother story!

This particular night, they were cruising down East Main Street (Highway 280) toward Spring Street, where Johnny lived with his family, so they could stop by and see if Mom had some snacks for them.

Now Spring Street crosses the railroad tracks that run through Claxton right at the point where the tracks come up next to Main Street, with Railroad Street on the other side of the tracks, and just before Spring Street there are several businesses — the Coke Plant and the NeSmith Gas Station — between the highway and the tracks, so nobody in the car saw the train that was running along the tracks beside them heading into town just like they were, and because they were being so loud, nobody heard that train whistle blowing.

So when Johnny got to Spring Street, he just rolled around that left turn that took them across the tracks without even slowing down a whole lot and not even looking to see if there was a train coming — and of course, in those days there was no crossing guard on any of those small town railroad crossings — so they just bounced right up onto the tracks full speed. And then— and then— they heard the whistle and saw that train headlight beaming right in the passenger window!

Johnny jammed on the gas real hard and that old Ford just leaped over those tracks with a big bump and then, zoom, roar, that train flew right by them, just barely missing the tail end of the station wagon as the flew over the tracks and bumped down across Railroad Avenue!

Everybody screamed all at once and then as the crossed the street and Johnny stopped the car, they got real quiet, ‘cuz they all knew they had just almost died that night. They sat there on the side of Spring Street for a few minutes breathing real hard and talking to each other about how lucky they were, and some of them were crying a little bit and Johnny was saying how sorry he was that he didn’t see that train and everybody was saying oh my gosh, how sorry they were for being so loud and it was all very crazy.

And then they drove on down Spring Street to Johnny’s house — it was only a block away — and got out and went really quietly into the house. Somehow they told Johnny’s mom about what had happened, though they tried to make it sound like it wasn’t so bad, but they all knew they were lucky to still be walking around, and they kept looking at each other, like, don’t ever tell anybody else what really happened or we’ll never get out of the house again!