Polk County Pokey(c) 2015
The train was an hour late. A local car service dropped me off at The Tampa, Florida train station.
Suitcase, my cane & me.
The station’s barn-like structure was vintage …early 1900’s.
The interior was a huge, cavernous green and white-checkered tile depot with very worn mahogany pews. Its floors were chipped records of generations of feet passing thru. The place now was sparsely occupied…but passengers the likes of which you see in period TMC movies…from pre- World War 2 were hanging about. Patiently awaiting the late train as this seemed a regular occurrence in its tardiness.
Scrubbed faced rural folk…not the scrubby tough crowds of my big city Manhattan I noted.
Being a native New Yorker …I had never ridden any other train but The Subway.
So, this adventure constituted a virgin experience for this big city gal! I was doing this because I’m stubborn. I thought it adventurous to ride an old -fashion train route to the other coast of Florida, to visit a girlfriend.
I left my family, to visit with her, mad because I was not taking the airplane with them.
The people looked and acted so different than the impatient, irritable crowds I bumped into daily, on my Subway commute.
To me they looked like out of a sweet Rockwell painting in the plain dated atmosphere of this rail station.
Most of the folks were rural Southerners who were farm workers, students, or old folks going to the other rural towns of Florida.
The story I will tell is of a heavy-set, middle-aged woman who came on the train, a stop after me, Lakeland station. She had a sobbing baby in her arms.
I had been reading the local newspaper, and sipping hot coffee, from a Styrofoam cup. I did not see her until with a heavy, clumsy thud, she plopped down in the seat in front of me.
“Excuse me”, I cried out instinctively, as her hard drop, into her seat shook, my cup causing it to spill some of its scalding contents onto my lap. Ouch!
“I’m so sorry, sorry Mam” She apologized profusely.
“That’s Okay”, I accepted her apology… noting her over-whelmed state.
The babe in her arms was squirming & whinnying.
A sympathetic, older woman seated across the aisle from the cranky child, tried entertaining it with animal sounds, moos & oinks, whilst making funny faces.
Truth be told, she didn’t have to try too hard. This woman was in her 60’s was toothless, her thin gray hair was pulled tightly into a small bun on top of her head. On her weather leathered face were black rhinestone Harlequin glasses. Coveralls and army boots completed her Lil Abner’s Ma’s appearance.
(All she was missing was a corn cob pipe hanging from her mouth).
When the child quit squawking, & began grinning a juicy toothless smile, this passenger asked, “How old is the youngun”?
I’ms his grandma, he’s but 11months old” offered the woman.
“Whata big boy he is. I thought him well over 2-year-old”.
“My boy, his daddy, is 6'6” & his mama is 6'1"…so that’s why he’s such a nice big fella”. The proud grandmother beamed giving him a smothering squeeze.
I was fascinated by this home-grown neighborly chat, so I put away my paper to listen.
“What’s his name” …what’s he called”?
“He named CASH”.
“CASH “? questioned the surprised woman turning her head to better hear the child’s name.
The grandmother repeated, “Yeah, CASH it is…cause his daddy loves money, so he named him, CASH” …after the stuff”.
This made the curious passenger that mooed & clucked, now even more interested in the baby with, (to her), such a strange name.
“Where are baby CASH’s parents now, and where I you taking the young'un’ to”?
“This here boy is one of my 21 grandkids. I’m taking him to a funeral with me in Miami”. (Miami is this train’s last stop 4–5 hours from their Lakeland Station).
“CASH’s Daddy & Momma is both in jail… 8 years in the pokey. They was a sellin’ pills to teen druggies by the schools… arrested they was! The darn Polk County judge threw the book at both of ‘em…so I gets their boy name of CASH”.
Then she planted a loud, wet kiss on his cheek!
