Train Man

People wave at trains in the afternoon. A little girl in her daddy's arms, a mother on a bicycle with her little boy perched in the seat over the rear wheel, teaching the next generation that trains are friendlier vehicles than buses.

A decade ago, when I had a brief contract job, I took the train to work. Every day, just north of the Santa Ana station, an old man whose house faced the tracks would come bounding out his front door, waving his arm in one big arc at the train. My train buddies and I called him the Train Man. We found out over time that he had retired from the railroads and had bought his house because it was by the trains.

I'd watch for him, mentally checking off the landmarks before we got to his house. The Sizzler at the main intersection, the residential side streets, the house with the white wrought-iron fence in a scallop shape, and then the Train Man. I'd wave my hand in one arc at him, but I never knew if he saw me.

We got worried for his health when he didn't appear for two weeks around Thanksgiving, but then he came back, so he must have been on vacation.

One time I noticed his street number painted on the curb, and another day I looked for the street sign. We had his address, and I looked up his zipcode online. One of my train buddies, who took the train all the way to L.A.'s Union Station every day, said he'd pick up a postcard with a picture of a train on it at the station if I'd write the message.

We said something like this: "Dear Train Man, We see you every day waving at the trains, and you brighten our ride to work." I may have said a little more, then I signed our first names and wrote which train we were on in the morning. On the shuttle bus to work, I told everyone about the postcard.

A couple days later, the Train Man came bounding out of his house, holding a postcard-sized paper and waving it at the train. And on the shuttle, I was greeted by the clamor of, "Did you see him?"

Such a little thing, a postcard with a brief message. But such a thrill for the Train Man, and his thrill was a thrill for the two of us who sent it and for the people on the shuttle.

As I sit on the train in the afternoon today, looking back out over the beach, I see families and friends gathered in large and small groups, many around concrete rings stenciled with the words, "Caution Hot Coals." From the midst of most of the groups, one or two people wave at the train as it goes by.

And I wave back.