A Christmas Gift at the Arcade

A Christmas Gift at the Arcade

by

Deborah Fagan Carpenter

After the death of my father in 1962, my Mother and I began a years-long tradition of traveling to Memphis to spend Christmas with my sister and her young family. Nobody loved Christmas more than my sister, and she made Christmas in her modest, beautifully decorated home utterly enchanting. She took great pride in wrapping the most elegant gifts, which she lovingly and imaginatively placed around the live tree, and, in preparing and presenting the most delicious holiday fare. Her joy for the season literally permeated the air, and her excitement on Christmas Eve was infectious and almost touchable. And, on not-quite-light-yet, early Christmas mornings there was a fairy-tale glow that radiated from the tree lights and numerous candles, including the four short ones that made the angels on a little Swedish Brass Angel Chime turn and delicately tinkle in the early morning quiet. It was magical for me.

Most years we rode the train to Memphis, which we boarded in my hometown, McComb, Mississippi. McComb, located 100 miles north of New Orleans was founded in 1872 by Colonel Henry S. McComb, of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad (later to be the Illinois Central Railroad) when he decided to move the railroad’s maintenance shops away from New Orleans — “for moral reasons.” It seems his workers were a little too involved with the saloons and other “Big Easy” attractions. The town grew around that enormous train and locomotive maintenance industry, and it soon became a regular stop for passenger trains on the line.

Multiple passenger trains ran between New Orleans and Chicago at that time, including the Panama Limited and the City of New Orleans, a train made famous by Arlo Guthrie’s and Willie Nelson’s versions of Steve Goodman’s song by the same name. I loved traveling on the train. Nothing was more exciting to me than hearing the train whistle blowing as we pulled into a station, whether it was in Memphis or at home in McComb on the return trip, to be greeted by whoever was awaiting our arrival. Trains are romantic in a way that other means of travel can never be.

Honestly, I remember very little about our train rides other than the feeling I mentioned above of the excitement I experienced when we’d pull into a station. But, while I can’t remember every detail, the trip on December 22, 1963, and the dilemma we found ourselves in upon our arrival in Memphis is the exception.

As we made our way through North Mississippi late in the afternoon, snow began to fall, which naturally, at thirteen years old, was completely thrilling for me. I was about to have my first white Christmas! But alas, shortly after we crossed into Memphis and began the slow-down for our arrival at Central Station, the train started to slow way before it should and much slower than it should, and then it just stopped, and, not at Central Station.

We and all of the passengers around us assumed there was some simple snafu that would shortly be resolved, a cow on the tracks — whatever— and we’d soon pull into the station. That proved not to be the case.

Anxiety began to build in our train car as our fellow passengers and we realized that something was actually wrong. The train wasn’t going anywhere, and for those people who were connecting with other trains or who had essential deadlines to meet, it posed a real problem. I, for one, viewed the whole situation as a cool adventure — cool, as it turns out, being the operative word.

As luck would have it, we’d been sitting across from a McComb railroad executive and his wife during the trip. We hadn’t been previously acquainted with the handsome couple, but they were gracious people who’d been liberally chatting with us throughout the ride. Realizing there was an uncommon problem, the man, whose name I don’t remember, left our car and went, presumably, to the front of the train to find out what was going on. When he returned, he had good news for us but bad news for the other passengers.

Railroad switches enable trains to be guided from one track to another. But, because of the unexpected cold, the railroad was caught off guard, and the switches in the Memphis train yard had frozen, preventing our train and others from being on the appropriate tracks to finish the last leg into the station. That was the bad news. The good news was that an automobile had been dispatched to collect our new friends and they generously offered to deliver us to the station.

Snow was falling like crazy, making our car ride slow, and the dawn of realization hit us that my sister and/or her husband would have, at the least, a little trouble driving downtown to meet us. And so, it wasn’t surprising to reach the station to find that neither my sister nor brother-in-law was there. This was, of course, before the advent of cell phones, so there was an impressive line of folks waiting to use the pay phones to call their respective rides. Eventually, however, Mother was able to reach my sister who delivered the unwelcome news that my brother-in-law had slid off their street into a curb, and they would be unable to come for us.

Memphis Central Station

Misery enjoys company, and soon Central Station was filled with hundreds of stranded passengers, likely more people than it had ever seen before or has certainly seen since. Among the marooned were an enormous collection of young men in uniform who were scheduled to report for duty by midnight at the Naval Air Station in nearby Millington, TN. Most of the forlorn travelers were weary and a little bit irritable, but those guys were not just a little bit worried. As the evening wore on, with the station grill closed and nothing but vending machines in sight to eat, I, the previously excited teenager, now tired, disappointed, and hungry had begun to join the ranks of the irritable.

Mother seemed to be taking it all in stride, however, and the next few hours revealed a side of my Mother that I had never seen before and that I scarcely saw after. When we sat down on one of the long, wooden station benches, there was a young woman and her infant sitting across from us. Mother’s maternal nature emerged as she moved over and sat and visited with the young Mother. She and her baby had traveled from Texas, but her father, who lived in nearby Arkansas, wasn’t there to meet her. She hadn’t been able to reach him on the phone, but she seemed confident that he would be unable to make it in the bad weather to get to her. She was alone, distraught, and frightened.

Mother tried to laugh with her and add some levity to the situation, comforting her and helping her by holding the baby to give her a break. With no food available in Central Station, Mother sought other options. Across Main Street from the station was — and still is— the Arcade Restaurant, which was established in 1919 by Speros Zepatos, and, is Memphis’ oldest restaurant. By now, there was at least eight or ten inches of snow on the ground, but Mother gingerly, but determinedly, marched us all over to the Arcade to find some warm soup or anything we could get to eat and to get some warm milk for the baby.

The Arcade, indeed the only restaurant open in that part of town at what was getting to be a late hour, was slammed. The few workers and servers who were still there were hurried and harried, and so, when my Mother ordered some milk for the baby and then asked the guy behind the counter if he would mind heating the bottle, he was incredulous, if not disrespectful. “Lady,” he said, “Do I look like I have time to heat up a baby bottle?” And, much to my astonishment, my Mother replied, “Fine, I’ll just come back there and do it myself!” The agitated counter worker responded, “Knock yourself out, Lady,” and with that, my formerly timid Mother took the baby bottle from the young Mother, marched behind the counter at the Arcade Restaurant, found the appropriate pan, filled it with water, and heated the milk. What may seem like a trifling occurrence to most, was, for me, a turning point in the respect that I had for this reserved, quiet lady.

Counter at the Arcade

It was a long night at Central Station, with folks sleeping on available benches, and soldiers sleeping on the floor with their heads on their duffel bags. The tracks were finally in working order, (I don’t know if they poured hot water on them, or what) and trains started moving again in all directions. Although Mother did her best to dissuade her, the sad, young woman decided to head back to Texas, afraid that it would be too long before her father could come for her. I don’t know what happened with the NAS guys, if the base sent transportation for them, or if they, too, got on a train and went back from wince they came, but eventually, they, also, were all gone.

For our part, when morning came, Mother, again to my amazement, went out to the street to see if she could find some way to get us to my sister’s. She located an enterprising young guy who had snow chains on his car and who saw an opportunity in the making. For twenty dollars, a bargain even in 1963, he drove us to East Memphis to the warmth and Christmas comfort of my sister’s home.

Memphis snow storm, 1963

Fourteen inches of snow fell in Memphis on the night and early morning of December 22 and 23, 1963, and on Christmas Eve there was a record temperature of 13 degrees. It was a memorable few days before Christmas for meteorologists, and for me, it was also a Christmas for the records.

Merry Christmas, Y’all!

Wind chime image: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

All other images from: Google Images