THE NEXT DAY I REPORTED FOR WORK. Soon I was trundling heavy boxes and barrels around into and out of an endless series of boxcars along the freight-shed siding. What it was all about, you see, is that west of Denver the railroads all "cross the Divide" - the crest of the Rockies - the ancient Cordillera and "roof" of our country. To do this, the loads they have all pulled west from the Eastern towns and factories, are staged here at Denver first in the immense railyards, and many of the heavy boxcar loads are lightened and redistributed to yet other boxcars. There is an immense and never-ending shuffling of cargo and materiel'. We worked in gangs of six or seven men under the direction of a Foreman. He was a sort of squat little Mexican guy, and his entire grasp of English (and all he really needed for this job) was "Needs more men's!" - usually uttered in a breathless gasp as some immense piece of machinery or deadweight item was in danger of skidding backwards or toppling over. Which was the signal for all of us in earshot to drop what we were trundling and rush to his aid - laying on a grip wherever a hold could be found. It was hot and heavy work, and my companions were not much given to conversation - many being recovering alcoholics, and the rest often on the dodge from wives and sweethearts and sheriffs and other persistent types back somewhere.

Sometimes we had to work "bulk stuff" - and this was for the birds! "Bulk stuff" was any kind of loose, powdery, granular material - like say, a boxcar blown full of granulated cork, which had to be shoveled up in a hell of dust and heat and bagged for further transport. Interestingly (to me) on the insides of these boxcars, painted as marks at various levels on the walls, were the equivalent of "plimsoll marks" on ships Plimsoll Marks. The boxcar "plimsolls" gave the height at which certain goods could be leveled to, with cryptic icons and notations (just like marine plimsolls) - such as " load level pig iron W of Rockies," or "ceiling stage E-bound Denver ONLY". Stuff like that.

Each night we got paid off. Each morning you were back on the dock if you wanted another day's wages. I had worked about ten days in a row, when a "boss" called me into his cubicle.

"Where you from anyway?" he asked.

"Oh," I said. "Around. I live in Connecticut now and go to school back East. But actually I was born right here in Denver!"

"Is that a fact now," he said, seemingly greatly puzzled by it all. "Are you like a college feller maybe or something?"

"Yeah," I said. "Something like that."

"I'm damned!" he said. "We don't hardly never have college fellers here. And you comin' back like day after day. Hell, no one but a real down-and-outer comes back day after day to work like this!"

This seemed to invite some further confession by me - so I said the only other option had been slaughter house knocker - and so I chose this cleaner type work and regular hours here, etc.

This seemed to satisfy him somewhat. (You see, Sheriffs and Police and others often stopped by the sheds all day long and there were often hurried consultations and guys pulled from jobs who never showed again and all that). But I think I roused his suspicions anew again, when he asked,

"Well, that's fine and all. So what you been doing the rest of the summer?"

"Oh," says I. "I been up North a ways - up in South Dakota matter of fact - mostly digging up Indians. Dead ones that is."

"What's that?," he said. "Dead Indians?" "How'd they get dead?". So I gave him a mini-crash course in archaeology - all of which was a wonder and revelation to him, and while he allowed it sure wouldn't be for him nor most of the guys out there on the dock, he could understand how a college feller might mess around with such foolishness.

So at last he accepted me into his group and there were no more questions. I worked for him maybe another ten days. Then I just didn't go back. Vanished like all the others. I'm sure he concluded he had been taken...

It took me another two or three days of Greyhound riding to finally get back home. I hopped a bus headed for Boston out of the New York Port Authority terminal late one night. His route lay up the Boston Post (US 1) at the time (I-95 was not yet a gleam in the eye of its designers). He had no regular stops in Greenwich and the first was maybe Bridgeport or somewhere way beyond where I wanted off: Old Greenwich. But he remembered there was a traffic light at the head of Sound Beach Avenue, and he said if it were red when we got there, and I had my valise of rocks and duffle ready, he would open the door in the interval and I could bail out. But if the light were green...

(I've often wondered where I might have got to if it had been green... Sigh...).

Red it was and he slowed but never fully stopped, and I tumbled out, valise and all, into the Post Road about 1:30 in the morning. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and started to walk down Sound Beach Avenue and had not got too far when a Prowl Car approached from the rear. Slowly. Then pulled alongside while an officer shown a spotlight in my face - and over my beard (they were not yet common back then) and my snakeband headgear. "Howdy," says I. "Howdy" came back a muffled reply. Then the standard cop line the world around: "You not from around here, are you?" "Matter of fact, I am," I said. "I'm on my way back home now - my parents house. Up Wesskum Wood Road from Binney Park there - 'bout a mile to go".

"That a fact?," says the cop. "Well, whadda ya know! Me and my buddy here we was just thinkin' of drivin' up that way. We'll take ya! Hop in the back, please!"

LOL! And so I did and they did, too. And when we reached 11 Wesskum Woods Road, I hopped out and walked up the stairs to Mom's little elevated dooryard she had there, and knocked on the door - while one of the cops stood discreetly out of sight in the bushes down below. And sure enough, a light flashed on in the darkened house and Mom herself answered the door - and gave out an obligatory little scream - at which the cop suddenly stepped out of the bushes below - but she claimed me in the end, vouchsafing I was indeed her son - sort of a prodigal type - and she would claim me and thank you officer for bringing him back to me!

And so she did. And my 80 pounds of fossils in the broken valise too!