This story was published in Trains magazine, December 1996. I always enjoy reading it this time of year.
Grandfather’s Allergy
Did I ever tell you the story about my grandfather’s allergy? He was an engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was a figure of mystery to us children, climbing up into the cab of the locomotive to disappear into the black Canadian night, heading out for Halifax, Nova Scotia, westward into the darkness. A burly, gruff, reserved but kindly man, our grandfather was exciting to us for many reasons, but none was as mysterious as his allergy to oranges.
In those days – it was the depression – oranges were a rare and precious indulgence. When it appeared at Christmas time, an orange was the ultimate stocking present – for good children only. In our family, oranges were particularly remarkable because our grandfather was allergic to them… most of the time. He could neither eat them nor drink the juice without experiencing severe allergic reactions, and in fact, he avoided even touching the orange skin… most of the time.
So it was rather amazing to us that our grandfather’s allergy to oranges disappeared only when he went to work on the train at Christmas. Every year, just at Christmas time, he would extravagantly buy several large bags of oranges. But they did not come to our house – they went with the train. And only at Christmas.
After he swung up into his locomotive, with the bags of bright, orange fruit conspicuous in the sooty, black world of steam power, Grandfather would settle himself into his engineer’s seat, blow the whistle, and wave to us. The train would move majestically down the track, eventually to become just sound and smoke. To us, it was all part of the mysteries of Christmas and the inexplicable ways of grownups. We never thought to wonder how an allergy could disappear on a train.
Some years later, my family moved from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts. That winter, my 17th, I broke my leg in a serious tobogganing accident. I spent most of the winter in a hospital in Newton, my leg in traction, my schoolwork arriving at my bedside via hired tutor and the occasional classmate. Snow fell that winter for me only on the other side of hospital windowpane; sleet and ice storms rattled against the glass. The short winter days and long winter nights were real only through the window.
The hospital nurses were my steady companions, my link to people and the outside world. I got to know many of them well, listening to their stories and sharing their lives. One of them had grown up in Nova Scotia, a fact she gave away with her accent, a clipped Scots-Canadian English that I recognized at once. One evening in December, near Christmas, when the hospital was unusually quiet, she spent some time at my bedside talking of her Canadian childhood and memories of Christmas there.
“Life in Nova Scotia was hard. We were poor, extremely poor – and so was everyone else. We didn't realize how poor we were. We thought that was the way things were. Our parents worked all the time just to survive, to provide the essentials for survival. Everybody had to work, even the children. We lived in one of the poorest sections of town; the railroad ran just in back of our house.”
“In winter, we heated our houses with coal. The job given to us children was to walk along the railroad tracks and pick up the pieces of coal that had fallen from passing trains. We would drag the coal home in cloth sacks.”
“We got to know the trains very well; we knew the local trains and their crews; we knew the big, important trains, the ones that went all the way across Canada. We waved at all the engineers, the firemen and brakemen, the crews in the caboose. Some of the men were friendly and waved back; others were grumpy and stared straight ahead, ignoring us grubby little children, scavenging with frozen fingers in the snow for pieces of coal to stuff into our sacks.”
“There was one engineer who was different. We never knew his name, but we always knew when his train had gone through. We felt he was our friend. He would direct his firetender to throw great shovels full of coal over the side of the coal car, scattering many pieces along the tracks. None of the other engineers did that. We children would run quickly along the tracks and ties, eagerly grabbing the chunks of coal, filling our bags until they were almost too heavy to carry.”
The December sleet rattled against the dark windowpanes of my room. It was a night for telling stories. “Christmas time was always the best,” my nurse recalled. “It was always cold, and always snowing, so sometimes the coal was hard to find. But our favorite engineer did what he could to give us extra coal.”
“And once a year, but only at Christmas time, he also brought us something even more precious than coal – oranges! There in the grimy snow, after his big, powerful train had gone through, would be plenty of coal… and oh, the oranges! Oranges all along the tracks, gleaming brightly amidst the black lumps of coal. I will never forget it. To us, Christmas was the sight of oranges in the snow.”
And then, so many years later, I finally understood my grandfather’s allergy.
– Margaret Betts
Grandfather’s Allergy
Did I ever tell you the story about my grandfather’s allergy? He was an engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was a figure of mystery to us children, climbing up into the cab of the locomotive to disappear into the black Canadian night, heading out for Halifax, Nova Scotia, westward into the darkness. A burly, gruff, reserved but kindly man, our grandfather was exciting to us for many reasons, but none was as mysterious as his allergy to oranges.
In those days – it was the depression – oranges were a rare and precious indulgence. When it appeared at Christmas time, an orange was the ultimate stocking present – for good children only. In our family, oranges were particularly remarkable because our grandfather was allergic to them… most of the time. He could neither eat them nor drink the juice without experiencing severe allergic reactions, and in fact, he avoided even touching the orange skin… most of the time.
So it was rather amazing to us that our grandfather’s allergy to oranges disappeared only when he went to work on the train at Christmas. Every year, just at Christmas time, he would extravagantly buy several large bags of oranges. But they did not come to our house – they went with the train. And only at Christmas.
After he swung up into his locomotive, with the bags of bright, orange fruit conspicuous in the sooty, black world of steam power, Grandfather would settle himself into his engineer’s seat, blow the whistle, and wave to us. The train would move majestically down the track, eventually to become just sound and smoke. To us, it was all part of the mysteries of Christmas and the inexplicable ways of grownups. We never thought to wonder how an allergy could disappear on a train.
Some years later, my family moved from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts. That winter, my 17th, I broke my leg in a serious tobogganing accident. I spent most of the winter in a hospital in Newton, my leg in traction, my schoolwork arriving at my bedside via hired tutor and the occasional classmate. Snow fell that winter for me only on the other side of hospital windowpane; sleet and ice storms rattled against the glass. The short winter days and long winter nights were real only through the window.
The hospital nurses were my steady companions, my link to people and the outside world. I got to know many of them well, listening to their stories and sharing their lives. One of them had grown up in Nova Scotia, a fact she gave away with her accent, a clipped Scots-Canadian English that I recognized at once. One evening in December, near Christmas, when the hospital was unusually quiet, she spent some time at my bedside talking of her Canadian childhood and memories of Christmas there.
“Life in Nova Scotia was hard. We were poor, extremely poor – and so was everyone else. We didn't realize how poor we were. We thought that was the way things were. Our parents worked all the time just to survive, to provide the essentials for survival. Everybody had to work, even the children. We lived in one of the poorest sections of town; the railroad ran just in back of our house.”
“In winter, we heated our houses with coal. The job given to us children was to walk along the railroad tracks and pick up the pieces of coal that had fallen from passing trains. We would drag the coal home in cloth sacks.”
“We got to know the trains very well; we knew the local trains and their crews; we knew the big, important trains, the ones that went all the way across Canada. We waved at all the engineers, the firemen and brakemen, the crews in the caboose. Some of the men were friendly and waved back; others were grumpy and stared straight ahead, ignoring us grubby little children, scavenging with frozen fingers in the snow for pieces of coal to stuff into our sacks.”
“There was one engineer who was different. We never knew his name, but we always knew when his train had gone through. We felt he was our friend. He would direct his firetender to throw great shovels full of coal over the side of the coal car, scattering many pieces along the tracks. None of the other engineers did that. We children would run quickly along the tracks and ties, eagerly grabbing the chunks of coal, filling our bags until they were almost too heavy to carry.”
The December sleet rattled against the dark windowpanes of my room. It was a night for telling stories. “Christmas time was always the best,” my nurse recalled. “It was always cold, and always snowing, so sometimes the coal was hard to find. But our favorite engineer did what he could to give us extra coal.”
“And once a year, but only at Christmas time, he also brought us something even more precious than coal – oranges! There in the grimy snow, after his big, powerful train had gone through, would be plenty of coal… and oh, the oranges! Oranges all along the tracks, gleaming brightly amidst the black lumps of coal. I will never forget it. To us, Christmas was the sight of oranges in the snow.”
And then, so many years later, I finally understood my grandfather’s allergy.
– Margaret Betts
