Texas State Historical Association - My Texas

Read a story

Boys Will Be Boys

In the summer of 1936, when I was about twelve years old, we lived in Portland, Texas, at the site of a cotton gin that was no longer in operation. What fun my brother Leroy and some of our friends had exploring every inch of that gin. As I recall, we had to climb through a window to gain entry into the gin. In the main part of the gin we found evidence of old fires that people had built to keep warm and cook their food, I suppose. Even back then there were homeless people. In front of this gin there was a railroad track that passenger and freight trains ran on. The trains traveled both ways, from Corpus Christi to Gregory and points north, and from Gregory to Corpus Christi. Now the town of Portland was situated on a high bluff overlooking Corpus Christi Bay and the trains had to gain speed to make it up the hill. We learned the times that a particular freight train was coming from Corpus Christi with many boxcars. We scrounged old grease we found in the gin and went to the bottom of the hill and greased the tracks all the way to the top. What a crazy thing to do. But we were boys, and everyone knows boys will be boys. Anyway, we would lie in wait for the next trains to come. Sure enough, if we had accomplished our devious project effectively, the engine would spin its wheels and not make it up the hill. At the time it seemed like so much fun to see the train engineers and others have to shovel sand on the tracks so that the wheels could make better contact with the rails. Fortunately, no one was injured in that crazy prank. But it was fun at that time to hear others say, "Did you hear about another grease job on the train tracks last night?" It made us proud! Boys will be boys, they would say.

Ralph Bodemann
Aransas Pass, Texas
Published: January 23, 2006