The best story he told had to do with trains. It has him in the dining car of what could have been the Pennsylvania Riley run to Chicago. He noted how when he was a kid in bed, he'd hear the whisle blowing and the sound of the train on rails from a spur miles away. He lay there thinking of who was on the train and the places they'd be traveling to....Certainly away from his forgotten depression stunted town and region. The way he described the sound trains make in the plains at night would make my hair stand up on my neck.
I imagined the same thing, laying in bed at night in the middle of Ozaukee County, listening to the train 15 miles away on the Milwaukee river in the deep of the winter night. Only with lots of ice and snow on the ground can a train make noises that reverberate and skip like an AM signal; unexpectedly significant and frightening from such a distance.
Anyway, the story progresses to his being on a troop train and working a 36 hour KP shift. The train makes an unannounced stop in the middle of desert nothingness, save for the fact that down the embankment and a long way off, the fellows make out a neon sign blinking beer, beer, beer. Dare they send somebody off to get some? I won't ruin the story for you, but I wish I could get it on video or cassette.