Where No Road Goes (Initiation to freight trains and trainhopping) - Alan Wiebe

Summer had not, by any accounts, gotten so far, June 2007. The Golden Boy slept beneath swollen clouds choked with tears, the night Chuck B and I “caught-out” of town. I would never be the same again – and sometimes, on restless nights, I’ll take a drive down to Fort Rouge to watch the trains roll by. I ran into Chuck a few weeks back on one of these such nights. It was four o’clock in the morning and the streets were deserted – but there we were, the two of us wandering alongside the track reliving memories of our Winnipeg’s most Winnipeg.

             

Note: This story is not intended to encourage people to ride freight trains or trespass as trainhopping is an illegal and dangerous activity.

 ***

 

We waited all night in the Canadian Pacific rail yard, located on the wrong side of Winnipeg’s tracks, where dingy warehouses with graffiti stained walls littered the Streets of Nowhere. From the shadows beneath the Slaw Rebchuck Bridge I watched as a gypsy gale accosted a haggard prostitute soliciting in the eerie glow of a buzzing neon sign. Seems we weren’t the only ones waiting to catch-out that night.

And while my eyes tried to process the beleaguered scene, I couldn’t help but wonder what we were really doing out here amidst the decay of Winnipeg’s north end. We were a long ways from home yet the lonely cry of the midnight freight train beckoned us – transients on the open rail.

             

“This is bunk!” whispered Chuck in a throaty rasp. An undertone of failure lingered in his voice as he shuffled impatiently on the ballast, “We’ve been here all night.”

               

“Just wait.” I hushed. “Something’s coming in over there.”

I hunched myself lower on the limestone footing and peered in the space between a string of cars and the track bed. Across the yard, an imposing chain of rolling steel drifted along one of the mainlines. The silence in the sullen alleys of rustic junker cars was broken by the sound of a deep rumbling that echoed off the walls of decomposing boxcars and empty forty-eights.

              

I glanced over at Chuck. He was urinating in a pile of scrap metal.

“So, uh…whaddya say, check it out?” he asked, and then: realizing that despite the nonchalance in his voice there really was no question in the matter, he muttered, “The sun’s comin’ up, man.” Chuck did up his fly and fumbled with his belt which jangled in the wake of daybreak. Then, with a sweep of his arms, he bent his lanky frame downwards, scooped up his sac and heaved it over his shoulders as if he hadn’t a moment to spare. I suppose that was his point, but then, there wasn’t much time to spare – and so we prodded onwards through the vacant corridors and dark places between long strings of cars.

As we advanced into the depths of yard, we spotted a railway cop taking a lazy foray around the yard. The ‘bull’s’ white pick-up crunched along an old service road in lookout for prowlers, lurkers, skulkers and tramps; which is to say a host of derelict folk traverse these parts under cover of night. And it was not until we crossed the expanse of the gravel road that the runaway beat of the midnight freight train picked up its slack and thundered down the track.

Clickity-clack, don’t ya look back;

Clickity-clack, them jolts of slack!

C’mon!” yelled Chuck, “Before she gets away!”

A maniacal grin spread across his face as he scrambled over a flat deck and splashed into a puddle of muddy water on the other side. He quickened his pace like a footloose cowboy eying the passing cars. His long, thin legs strode alongside the stampeding herd of freight cars before the rustler made his move. 

Chuck reached for the ladder rung of a westbound hopper car while visions of dismemberment flashed before my mind. He swung himself aboard the platform deck and extended his arm to take my hand. The murderous whine of squelching steel pierced my heart with great suspense and I could have bent to the ground and begged, “Chuck, don’t leave!” But oh, there was a freedom in the distance and an aching in my bones to find my home where no road goes. So I took to my last with every breath until step by step the sweetly rush of the warm June air caressed my face like tender kisses as thereupon the open rails we were dancing with the trains.

Inspired by the song “Where No Road Goes” (anonymous)

The answer my friends is (garbage) blowin’ in the wind - Cassin Elliot & Toby Gillies

Wake up, shower, shave, dress myself and walk to work.

This is how roughly 231 out of 365 mornings a year start for me.

I walk to work past the giant Great West Life parking lot smack in the middle of what could be one of Winnipeg’s highest housing density neighborhoods, past the huge heritage houses of Balmoral St. always keeping an eye out for ghosts in the windows to explain how deserted most of them seem.

Past the rooming houses with tenants littered across the front lawns like last nights empties and past the drug houses with young kids playing in the front lawns and older ones stumbling out into the back alley.

Today started the same as most with the addition of a strong garbage wind.

I’m far from a expert on the garbage winds, but they seem to start in the spring, after the snow has melted and exposed all the remnants of our winter’s excess: Chocolate bar and condoms wrappers, but mostly Slurpee cups and plastic bags.

Once the thaw is complete the wind seems to pick up whatever is still intact and light enough to fly through the sky. Its mostly plastic bags that the wind picks up and launches into the sky like its scattering garbage seeds through our neighborhood.

This morning somewhere between the heritage houses and the rooming houses I was standing minding my own business waiting for the longest light of my commute. Listening to music, distracted by a potential morning break and enter happenings across the street, I turned my head at the last second and there it was - the garbage wind’s had exacted their revenge on me for my lack of garbage sacrificed through the winter.

Wet and dirty, stuck to the side of my face with the force of the garbage wind. I got bagged by a Giant Tiger plastic bag that looked to still have the receipt inside.

The garbage wind’s once again have showed who is in charge and I’m left wiping a wet plastic bag off my face while onlookers honk.

Good morning.

-------------------------------

Words: Cassin Elliot

Artwork: Toby Gillies

The U-Turn Light. - Arleen An

If you've ever headed down mcphillips towards Topo Gigio,
You know what I'm talking about.

Coming soon: confusion corner Yield to the right and do a loopity loop if you wanna turn left blinking traffic light.

Mascara-smear horror (aka: outdoor-to-indoor transition eyelash thaw)

It makes you look and feel oogly and scary after all of the care taken to look beautiful and sweet... Eyelashes icicled over by the condensation of your own morning breath melt as you make the outdoor-to-indoor transition at school or work.

Mascara-smear is common to every seemingly respectable woman as they strike up a conversation with other respectable people around them. Their confidence of a beautiful appearance identifies their obliviousness to looking like a psychotic, snot-faced, horror-flick-scream-princess.

To tell or not to tell? That is the question. I recommend that during a daytime encounter, the answer is 'probably'. We certainly don't need to be trying to talk to that with a straight face all day. This person should be held accountable to look after their creep-eyes and make themselves presentable. They should make a point to stop in the bathroom and clean that mess up off of their frozen cheeks. In one fell swoop, gone is all of the good concealer/blush/bronzer that underlays the smear.

An experienced mascara wearer will use the lash tip dab-dry method during the melting process before the face-smear issue even arises. Or, better yet, avoid mascara application altogether until arrival at their destination.

As for evening occurrences of this unfortunate situation - all is fair game, so to each their own. If some chick didn't think of this before she went out and happens to be sporting the appearance of the '2 a.m. Drunk Chick' - yet it's only 7 p.m., too bad for her.

Good luck Ladies.
k.

The Jaw-Jacket Avoidance Technique.

 

For anyone who spent their childhood walking to school, you are a pro at this. Even for drive-everywhere people, this is the set up for the warm up routine you do when you jump in your car (someone else draw that diagram). It’s up there with scarf-condensation-avoidance but I like this one the best because it’s so subtle yet (I believe) widely engaged – like when everyone started talking about the other side of the pillow.

If you are an appropriately dressed winter person, you’ll only really do this when you run out for something real quick, or lose/forget your scarf/neckwarmer/balaclava at home that day; for most of us Winnipegers though, this is a multiple-times-a-day thing. We think it’s a sign of hardness and defiance to dress inappropriately. “Cold is cold” we say “what I wear in October will just adjust somehow”. Obviously the inappropriate dress thing hits its height in teenage years but that stuff lingers, man. We hold on. And techniques like this allow for that.

The trick is to keep as much of your face out of harm’s way as possible while avoiding the parts of your outdoor ensemble that freeze up on you – like your zipper. I know some of you are saying “yeah but MY jacket has a guard so I don’t touch the zipper”. Good for you I guess, then all you have to deal with is the awful jacket material that makes a rashy irritated mess of the tip of your nose and your chin. Either way, you’re back at square one with the jaw-jacket avoidance, making it an essential learned skill for Winnipeg winters.

There’s some variations to the pursed lips too. Like you can do some hot-breaths in there, but you still have to move your jaw back. And then you get into condensation-avoidance/ rashy territory. So… just be careful okay?

xo e.

Y'all know what we're talking about

What's happening here
Making good on promises to ex-Peggers and Peggers-in-Residence, Esther and I have a social obligation to fulfill with the "Winnipeg's MOST Winnipeg" blog. I'm getting this going for all y'all to add on to - so give us what you got.

Where this came from
Originally concocted when Esther walked into the office after a cold winter morning walk to work in the dark at 8 a.m., it was unanimously decided that there are a serious number of idiosyncrasies particular to, or identifiable with, our great city that deserved documentation. The PC crew spouted off a few and then Esther looked to her FB buddies for feedback - a few more spilled to the fore. I promised drawings for each...lost to the void of empty promises. Now, with the heat on from Cass, it seems that this has got to get did!!!

What we need from you
Send an email (see the Get at us page) including your most winnipeg thing along with some visual representation of it.... a sketch, sculpture, photograph, youtube of an interpretive dance? no matter how terrible an artist you might be, or how terribly you fail with ms paint, give it a shot - if you just can't hack the visual part, hand it over to us and we'll find someone else to fill in that half.


Love & XO,
K & E