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      December 4, 2009Hopefully SoonAlvin Aubert

             c. 1940

      Would like to have gotten on board only to realize he’d be told
      he couldn’t, his money no good but there was a slot down
      below for a stoker working next to another “boy” down there in
      the boiler room by the name of (he could have sworn they
      said) Shine and if they worked out OK, the two of them
      together, they might even be allowed on shore with the rest of
      the crew in ports-of-call, maybe even London or Paris.

      Word came of openings on trains and even though he was
      near the top of a hiring list at the post office, having had some
      experience as a waiter and intrigued by the name of one train in
      particular, The City of New Orleans—running between its
      fascinating namesake city and Chicago—he signed on to wait
      tables in its splendiferously new art deco dining car.

      He came to work one morning to find he was no longer a waiter
      but a porter, lugging bags and trailing in behind a pock-faced
      conductor making his rounds through the cars validating tickets—
      close in behind him so the passengers in the white cars might
      be doubly assured of his knowing his place. At bedtime he let
      down the overhead sleeping berths, making them up again
      with fresh white sheets and pillow cases in the morning…

      The pay wasn’t all that bad, only with fewer and smaller tips
      than in the dining car and all the while the ink had yet to dry on
      his diploma from one of the South’s leading Negro colleges
      qualifying him to teach American history in some up-north
      American high school, somewhere hopefully soon.

      from #31 - Summer 2009