"Polycarp"

Peter Y. Woo, 9/2000

  On the last day of our stay at Louisiana teaching English to our Chinese friends, the Enemy sent in a poison arrow: Gloria fell. She climbed up a ricketty chair to turn off the air conditioner at the wall, about 6 feet above the floor. In our hurry to go to church, she stepped down on a half open suitcase instead of on the floor, and fell. One of the two protruding legs of the suitcase hit her near the tailbone. The pain was very intense, and for a while she could not get up. Thank God the hit was only half an inch away from fracturing the tail bone. After my rubbing with "Five Towers" oil from Thailand, she managed to climb the church van, which already caused her numerous black and blue spots on the legs, and God gave enough grace for her to finish her teaching that last evening and watched each group did their skits showing off their English proficiency.

  Next Sunday afternoon, we learned that the train is delayed 5 and half hours at San Antonio, so a kind sister drove us all the way to our motel at New Orleans. The next morning we need to go to the Amtrak railway station only 4 blocks away. But it took 20 anxious minutes standing on the street and 4 telephone calls before finally a taxi came. After one block, a second taxi from the same company came also, and both drivers wasted more time about who should have the right to take us. They almost had a fight. Some more precious minutes were lost. By the time we got to the station, Gloria decided we must change our 24 hour trip to DC from coach to sleeper, because of her back. The Amtrak fellow at the ticket counter was very calm, very slow, and scratching his head, squinting his eyes, using his finger to guide his eyes to the computer screen, whose instructions obviously were beyond his comprehension. I was amused at the contrast of such American efficiency with that of workers in an airline counter or supermarket in Hong Kong. After 20 minutes, he could not do a thing, while the whole train was waiting for us. Finally his boss came out and helped, and they had to reissue all our future tickets, (I don't know why), from New Orleans to DC, from DC to New York, from NY to Chicago by coach, and from Chicago to Los Angeles by sleeper. We grapped the tickets, pulled our luggages with the back pains, trekked some 5 box cars, and reached our box car.

  The attendant there looked at our reissued tickets, and yelled, "You can't go on this train. Your tickets are for tomorrow!." It was like the last straw to a disaster.

  "But the mistake was caused by the guy at the ticket counter!" we protested. After some hustle, a higher ranking officer got us on the car, and immediately the train started. We felt like Lot being delivered by the angel out of Sodom.

  We were temporarily placed in a nice family sleeping room on the car. The box car attendant was a gentle elderly man with white hair and white beard, wearing silver rimmed glasses, speaking impeccably refined English. He welcomed us to the car, and told us to rest in that room, and in time they will find a sleeper room for us. "Everything will be well taken care of", he assured us very courteously. He promised to bring our luggages once our room is assigned. He also offered tea, apple juice, or soft drinks. He could even bring us meals to our room at dinner time. All these genteel words were like music in our ears, or soft breeze in the desert. We were overwhelmed. It is as if we suddenly heard from God, "I am here."

  After we settled in our room, which has the newest design, with our own 6 inch TV, our own 18 inch wide toilet, with a drawer over it, which when opened, turned out to be our own wash basin 10 inches wide. After use, you close the drawer, and the water in the sink will flow down to the toilet. I should suggest this design to apartment builders in Hong Kong, where some apartments are only 180 square feet each. The top bunk bed is now 3 feet below the ceiling, and one can even look out of the window from it. (Question: what should you do if your body is wider than 18 inches?)

  The good attendant brought in our dinner to our room, and I asked him, "You look more like a pastor than an Amtrak worker, are you related to the church in any way?" "Thanks for the compliment", he said, "In fact, I just retired from the IRS." (yikes!) "But I need some medical insurance, so I started to work here a few months ago." He explained to us that the big body of water outside our window, with some bridge going all the way beyond the horizon, is Lake Pointchartrain, the largest fresh water lake in USA beyond the Great Lakes, some 26 miles wide, yet it is no more than 11 feet deep anywhere.

  I still insist his gentle manners and refined speech made him more like a pastor than a railroad man. To us that day, it was God's own angel. If IRS can produce such a man, may be IRS isn't all that bad. I nicknamed him Polycarp, the most famous disciple of John the Apostle, who, before the fire pole, said, "For 86 years I served the Lord Jesus, and never did he deny me once. So how can I deny Him now?" In some books Polycarp has that saintly look, white hair and beard, peaceful demeanor, and a smile.

  Afterwards, we got disturbed every a few hours by a knock on our door, "Tickets please!" We were tired of repeating the same long story to a new officer every time. At Atlanta, an officer took away all our tickets, and told us they will reissue the whole pack at DC. But afterwards more officers will knock at our doors, and now we discover they really had no way to check the computer database while on the train. The previous officers had gotten off the train, into oblivion. We were now illegal aliens upon the train. Gloria got exasperated. "Do we have to explain everything again at Washington DC?" "Yes, for one more time. We will have someone there waiting for you, and escort you to the station."

  I wish they did. In fact when the train stopped at the N-th time, I looked out of the window, it did not look like a train station. However, the attendant rushed in, and said, "This is DC, you have to get off!" We hurried off to the platform, it looked like ruins of a slum at Harlem New York. No more passengers. No carts! A few workmen there, but they offered no help. We have to drag our luggages all by ourselves, for 100 yards more, to the main building, which was "undergoing repairs", with few lights, few signs, and if someone mugged us there no one would know. Took me some inquiries before we finally found an elevator to lift us up from the platform to the main floor of Grand Central Station, where Rachelle was waiting for us. Again, it took 30+ minutes for the officials to reissue our tickets for all our future journey, in illegible handwritten messy red-carbon paper forms, like the airline tickets some 5 years ago, and we had to sign a form saying we "lost" our tickets, despite Gloria's protests.

  We had a great time with Rachelle, DJ and little Jeremiah, who would place his little arm around my neck when sitting next to me at a restaurant, because I took him into our swimming pool at the hotel. He called us "Goong-goong" and "Pore pore".

  We also had a good time with Celest our daughter at Jersey City, near New York. The Penn Central station at NY was a much more friendly place, but it was crowded like a shopping mall in Hong Kong.

  Our 24 hour trip to Chicago was hard on Gloria, because the back of the chair, even when leaning down at a good angle, was curved like a wok. She slept with great difficulty, but she discovered her neighbor, a black woman, was reading the Bible. It is as if God was again assuring us, "I am still here." So they had a good chat. I sat across the aisle from her, and my neighbor was a grad student of astrophysics from St Andrews Univ. of Scotland. I learned more astrophysics from him in 2 hours of chatting than I would from taking a whole course. The information I learned only increased my appreciation of the awesomeness of the universe which is His own handiwork.

    The trip from Chicago back home was finally very enjoyable. The Amtrak stations at Chicago and Los Angeles are really very nice tourist places to visit, chat, and relax.

  "God is here," we learned, wherever we may be.