Youthful defiance

[fbhjr]

For various reasons, my father had the habit of spending a lot of time with his kids until they got to be about 5, and then not having anything else to do with them.

For me, that was expressed as my father taking me on train trips places.
For my 4th birthday, be brought me to New York City. We took the train down in the morning, spent the day looking at things and then flew home in the evening.
51 years ago and I still remember it fairly well, so you can tell it made a big impression on me.

A different trip that made just as big of an impression on me, but not in a good way, was our trip to Providence Rhodes Island.
This was much closer to home. It was less than an hour ride on the train and trains ran back and forth between there and Boston fairly often.
My guess was it would have been around the time I turned 5.

We got of the train and rather than go to see famous sites or whatever as we had in New York, my father set off walking along the train tracks.

A short time later, we came to a train tunnel.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going to walk through that tunnel,” he said.
“No. We aren’t.”
“It will be an adventure! We can see what’s on the other side!”
“No.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of the dark, I’ve got a flashlight!”

I looked into the tunnel. It disappeared into the dark. There was no sign of a light from the other end. It bent to the right, so I had no idea how far the other side might be.

“Shine it in there,” I told him.
My father pointed the light into the dark tunnel. I could see zero feet farther into it.

I looked at the train tracks next to us. The top surface was clearly polished.

“These tracks are still being used,” I said. “What would we do if a train came through the tunnel while we were there?”
“We’d get out of the way!”

He started walking into the tunnel.
I was 5. I didn’t want to be left alone on the side of a railroad in a strange city.
I started after him.

I followed him to the bend where I could’t see the entrance any more.
My father’s flashlight did very little in that dark.
I could feel a deep rumbling through my feet.

“I’m not doing this,” I said.
I turned around and walked back to the entrance, alone in a strange city or not.

I was quite happy to walk out into the light.
A few minutes later, my father emerged.
He didn’t say anything, he just walked off towards the train station.
We took the train home in silence.

My mother later told me how disappointed in me he was. He never mentioned it again.

I’ve tried to find the tunnel in question on google. From what I can tell, it stopped being used about a dozen years after that day with my father.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Railroad_Tunnel
http://www.strange-new-england.com/2017/09/01/dark-shadows-of-eastside-tunnel/

Based on the stuff in those articles, the tunnel was almost a mile long. So, that would have been a two mile round trip in the dark with a five year old.
I’m not sure why my father thought that was a good idea.

It used to be a passenger line. He’s probably been through it on a train. Maybe it didn’t seem that long to him.

But, I still don’t regret turning back from that adventure.