A Train Ride From My Past

A reflection On My Past

I first wrote this account in 2010 when I was still writing for the Chico
Enterprise Record. I did edit some of it to reflect more accurately the years
since the events took place, but otherwise it is as I originally wrote it.

Chuck Ness

Have you ever wondered how people get from point A to point B? I don't mean in a physical mileage way, but rather an emotional, phycological, and spiritual way. We all take in our surroundings and make decisions based upon the way we see things happening, and the way we feel. Then we get to a certain point in our life when we take an inventory of how we are doing. Sometimes we're relatively satisfied, other times we're disappointed, but do we ever really reflect upon the decisions we made that ultimately got us to point B?

Some do, if we realize we are dissatisfied with our lot in life. However, how many of us truly revisit those moments with the desire to understand what it was that made us take the choices we did? If we understood why, then we could possibly make better choices in the future, and maybe help others make better choices. As parents we do it all the time, but as our own lives prove children seldom learn from their parents' mistakes.

In our journey from point A to point B, we are always making critical choices that can have dire consequences on our future. If the choice is a bad one, the damage we cause to our future can seldom be fixed. Some will go on trying to do the best they can without ever wondering would be if they had made a different choice. Most humans however will reflect back in time to try and understand how their actions may have led them to the place they are at any given moment? I know I do.

This is one of the reasons I keep a journal. It's not something I have done my whole life, but it's something I have been doing off and on for about 17 years now. I start my day by reading my Bible early in the morning, before the World has a chance to get into my head. The early morning quiet hours I spend with the LORD allow me to read and meditate on the Scriptures, and thus the Holy Spirit is free to speak to my heart without any Worldly interruptions. When I finish, I write what ever thoughts I have, Sometimes I'll write about the Scriptures I read, or maybe what I did yesterday and what I plan on doing today.

Later, whether it be Months or years, I will go back and read through my entries to see what progress I made in my life. I may have a problem, and by going through my writings, I can see how I handled a certain situation in the past. Oftentimes I will just read my journal and reflect upon the choices I made in the past. As I read my old thoughts and ponder my current surroundings and position in life, I cannot help but wonder, what If? 

Like the time 48 years ago when I was in the Army and stationed in Mannheim Germany. 

What if I never agreed to go to Amsterdam with Mike? What if we never missed our stop on the way back to base? What would my life be like today if, on our train ride in 1974, we had not missed our stop in Mannheim Germany.

This was a time in my life when I gave little thought as to what God wanted from me, and truly believed He could care less about me. God was truly the furthest thing from my mind. Yet looking back today, I now that while HE was far from my mind, I wasn't too far from HIS. Truth is, I now know that HE was a lot closer to me than I could ever have guessed.

  Ever since I was a young child I constantly went back and forth from doing what's right and doing what's wrong. Martin Luther King stated one time that Christians can be schizophrenic in our walk with Christ. For me, I know Christ was working on me for many years, even though I was not yet a Christian. I just didn't realize that the battle I felt being waged inside me had anything to do with Him fighting for me. I would one day get down on bended knee and ask the LORD to come into my life. My life has changed since, and it now reflects how I do it HIS way. What I offer here is from a time in my past, when I was still doing it my way.

It was September 9, 1974, and we were on our way back to Mannheim after a weekend trip to Amsterdam. It was around 1:00 am, and we had about 4 hours to get back to base before we missed 5:00 am roll call  We had no choice but to board the train and hope that we didn’t get turned into the authorities. I sat in silence looking out the window wondering why I allowed myself to get talked into such a risky deal. In the distance I could see small lights beyond the darkness, but they just seemed to highlight my reflection in the window. I felt like my head was frozen in the same position for hours, because I couldn’t turn away from the window. All I could think to say to Mike’s constant ranting and murmuring was the single phrase, “Uhuh.”

I don’t really know how long I looked out the window before I fell asleep, but I was surprised when the conductor nudged my shoulder and woke me up. It took a few moments before I realized what he was trying to tell me. My German wasn’t great but it was good enough to understand that the train had reached its final destination, and we had to get off. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I asked him where we were and what time it was. Unfortunately, his reply was not what I wanted to hear.

He told us we were in Speyer, as he waved towards the doors. We grabbed our only possessions, a small paper bag with dried bread, and a half-empty bottle of soda water, and headed for the doors. I looked at Mike and saw the same sleepy look in his eyes, as he must have seen in mine. The conductor either failed to tell me what the time was or my brain never registered his answer. It didn’t much matter though, because the light of day told me we already missed roll call.

As we got off the train, I saw a big clock above the train station exit. It was 7:45 am, we had not only missed our stop by more than 20 kilometers, but we also missed roll call by almost 3 hours. Walking out the station doors and looking at the quiet town of Speyer Germany, I felt Mike's hand grab my shoulder as he pulled me to his side. My body tilted awkwardly towards him, as he hooked his arm around my neck. He then stated in a manner of voice that was on the verge of laughter, “Clarence? I do believe we're AWOL”.

With those words still echoing in my head, Mike and I began our journey to anywhere but back to Mannheim. As we walked down Main Street, we decided aliases would be needed for our adventure. I chose the name Chuck, because it was a nickname given to me in school by a kid who couldn't pronounce Clarence. Mike chose the name Dave, but I can't remember why he picked that name.

Speyer Germany was an interesting place for us to begin our journey, since we had some German and French friends we met a few Months earlier while touring the town who lived there. We hung out with our friends in Speyer for about a week before we decided to head West to Bad Dürkheim so we could enjoy the Oktoberfest. After a few days of partying, we hitchhiked back to Speyer where a friend had offered to drive us to Switzerland. Unfortunately, our friend Daniel ended up in the hospital after he wrecked his car.

Since we lost our ride, we decided to go to France instead. While going South through France, we ended up in a small town in France's Northern Wine country called Peuget Ville. We decided to spend the night there, but first we wanted to have a few beers. So we went to a pub. While there we met a man named Pierre Chaumes. After a few hours of talking, we learned he was a member of the French Underground Resistance during WWII. He now owned a vineyard, and offered us a job.

For the next three weeks we picked grapes for him and a few other orchards to make money. There's much I could write about the time we worked for Pierre, the talks we had about his exploits against the NAZI's in WWII, the loss of his son in Vietnam before the US got into the War, and our travels along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. However, that's not the point for me writing this today. I'll save my memories about our journey in Southern France for another time.

So what began as a weekend trip to Amsterdam to buy a kilo of hashish, ended up with us being “AWOL” from the US Army. When we eventually returned for our punishment two Months later, Dave became Mike again. While I on the other hand liked my new name. Now you know how I became Chuck.

That's a time in my life that many things changed, to start with, I turned 18 while we were AWOL. I eventually paid my dues for my wayward act of taking an extended vacation from the Army. My penalty for my unauthorized leave was two Months of hard labor at Coleman Barracks Stockade. I also lost three Months pay, and all the stripes I had earned. However, I was able to keep my nose clean and thus work my way back into the good graces of Uncle Sam, and even earned an honorable discharge a few years later. Through it all, my time away from my unit gave me a lifetime of memories I will never forget.

I could write a book about the things we did in those two Months, but probably never will. I do feel as though I grew up some, yet I still had a long way to go before I would ever reach the potential God gave me. As I look back at point A, I wonder what would be different had I not fallen asleep while I was on that train ride from the past. Well, to start with, I would probably still be going by the name of Clarence. The rest I will leave for another day of reflection.

Speyer on the Rhine River

Speyer Cathederal, built in 1030 by Conrad II