Pat & Dean (and Willy) — Amtrak, April 2016

Tony Contreras
Aug 25, 2017 · 6 min read

I wrote this over a year ago, and just found it stashed away on Dropbox.

It was in the goddamn cloud! Imagine that.


Pat and Dean have been married for over 60 years. She is a classic Pacific Northwestern gal, and he is a red blooded American, and they both grew up in Oregon. I met them over breakfast on the dining car at around 6am. We were approximately at the halfway point between the SF and Portland on the surprisingly awesome Coast Starlight train.

Myself, Dean and Pat

Pat had big blonde hair, amazing vintage looking jewelry, and looked remarkably chipper compared to the three males at her table. Dean, her husband, was a big fellah, very courteous and old school, dressed in a beige button down short-sleeve shirt that looked exactly like mine. He had a big ring on his right hand that had a tremendous diamond in the middle.

I was shown a seat across from them on the four top table, next to another solo traveller like myself named Willy. Things are very different on a long haul train than in real life, and being told to sit with 3 strangers is one of those unexpected twists to regular life that the train offers.

It was a glorious bright sunny morning as we rounded Mount Shasta in Northern California, about 2 hours south away from the Oregon border.

Pat and Dean had better tickets than Willy and I, who were both on the $87 coach ones. They had spent $150 each for the privilege to be in a 2 person sleep room-ette.

“How is it?” I asked. Dean said it reminded him of a submarine, with barely anyplace to do anything.

“It was tight, like this,” he said, motioning with his hands a distance that was a little wider than his shoulders. “One of my elbows kept falling off. And it was hard, I mean the mattress was really hard!

“Could you roll over?” I asked.

“Oh yes, but very narrow.”

Pat, who had the bottom of the bunk was far more graceful, and was delighted that Dean had not fallen off. She did express some concern about Dean having trouble getting up and down from the top. “We are not young,” they reminded us.

This was the first time they had taken a train, and after spending a few days in SF enjoying the sights (“we went to Alcatraz” she said with delight), were now going home, and Portland was their last stop and destination.

They were a charming couple, and Willy, the guy sitting next to me was pretty awesome too. In the hour that we spent together having breakfast, I learned quite a bit about them.

Pat and Dean had a nice piece of land, where they raised their children and had some steers and horses. The horses were a pain in the butt, and Dean recalled vividly the story of when one of the horses got their foot infected. Not having a proper barn of their own, they had to board the horse in an indoor stable elsewhere, then go to see this horse daily to soak the beast’s foot in warm water and Epsom salt.

“It’s not like you can just stick a horse’s foot in a bucket and tell him to wait, you know,” said Dean. “You gotta take a bag, and fill it up, and carefully put his foot in there, then you gotta tape it. It’s difficult.”

Pat nodded, then picked up the livestock stories, and recalled a time when the cows got loose.

“And remember how we found out?” asked Pat to Dean, as he nodded and nibbled on his pancakes. She continued, “we had a blind boy staying over with us for the weekend, and one morning he came up to us and said that the cows were loose! Because he couldn’t hear them no more.”

“Wow! Maybe he smelled them? Or rather didn’t smell them?” was my clumsy addition to the tale. They ignored my comment (I was thinking of Daredevil. Maybe this guy was a superhero!)

Pat continued, “I had to go down the mountain and fetch those cows. Down the mountain, then back up the mountain. Well they have four legs and had a much easier time than I did!”

After my smell comment, I didn’t want to add any more dumb city talk to this part of the tale.

They asked about me, I told them about my family, and my dog, then we talked to Willy, who has the only one at the table with experience riding Amtraks. He was a young man in his mid to late twenties, and he loved the rails. He was on his way to Seattle to see his female friend, who he hadn’t seen in over a year. They had met in North Carolina, where they worked at an outdoor focused rehab center for teens. He said he loved the work, but it took its toll, and needed some time to recharge. The friend he was visiting was in school, getting her masters around psycho-rehab-blabitty-blabbity. It sounded cool, but I can’t remember the specifics of it.

When our food arrived (Willy and I got 2 breakfast sandwiches, and Pat and Dean got heartier breakfasts of omelets and pancakes, because they were included with their superior tickets), Willy said… “Hmm. I need some hot sauce!”

“I love hot sauce,” I told him. Willy motioned to the waitress, and got her to bring over a bottle of Tabasco, the only hot sauce they had. Willy made due, but said, “there’s this hot sauce from North Carolina, vinegar based, that is the best. It’s called Texas Pete’s. I highly recommend it.”

As Pat reached over and put one or two drops on her omelet she said, “I used to love hot sauce. Used to put it on everything, just like my son did. But when he passed away, I lost the appetite for it.”

Boom.

“I am so sorry Pat. Sorry Dean,” I say. Willy echoes my condolences. “How did he pass away?”

“Heart attack,” she says. “He was 50 years old.”

“That must have been difficult. I am very sorry for your loss. He probably had a family?” I ask.

“Oh yes, he had children with his first wife, and his second wife,” said Pat.

A shadow came across their faces, as Dean then said, “his daughter, my granddaughter, is getting married in Hawaii in a few months, and I have to walk her down the isle.” He choked up as he was saying this, and I thought I saw his eyes water up, just a little.

“When did he pass away?” I ask.

“Oh, 2008,” said Pat. “And I haven’t been able to eat hot sauce since. This here I put on my eggs is just a little bit, and it’s been a while.”

“Strange how that happened,” I said, “it’s like he took that taste you had with him.” Pat nodded in agreement. “Did he leave anything behind for you?, like, in its place?” Not sure why I asked that.

Pat thought for a while, got a little twinkle in her eye and smiled, then Willy jumped in, “Well you are traveling on a train! That’s something.”

I don’t know what Pat was going to say if she had more time to answer, but something did cross her mind. Eight years later, the pain of losing a child was still very fresh in Dean’s mind, but Pat seemed to be more at ease than him.

She took a bite of her omelet “oh, that’s hot!” She said, with a smile.

)

Tony Contreras

Written by

Husband, dad, troublemaker, and an almost perfect drinking buddy.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade