I wolf down my supper and race up the street to the house two doors from ours. The welcome mat says “Home of the Howes.” As I enter the house, grandma is in the kitchen, doing the dishes. Gramp is in the dining room, watching the end of the nightly news.

“Hello, Joey.” They both greet me with a smile. Grandma quickly dries her hands with a towel, then hands me a chocolate chip cookie, baked that afternoon.

“How was school today?” she asks.

“Fine,” I mumble, my mouth already full of cookie. I walk through the kitchen to the dining room.

“You’re gonna need that tonight,” gramp says as he notices the jacket draped over my shoulder. Then he slips his own jacket from a peg of the coat rack before going out on this crisp autumn evening.

“See you later, boys,” grandma says.

“We won’t be late,” gramp replies, raising his gruff voice above the gurgling sound of the draining dishwater.

Entering the garage, we climb into my grandparents’ big, yellow 1963 Edsel. It’s several years old and gramp talks about trading it. He has just installed plastic seat covers. I hate them because I get static-electric shock when I slide across the seat.

We drive down Cadet Street and turn left on 15th Street. We pass my school, East Heights Elementary. Continuing on Massachusetts Street, we take a right. I’m fidgety in my excitement as we drive north. At Sixth and Massachusetts, we cross the old bridge spanning the Kansas River. On the other side, gramp takes a right, then heads up a long driveway to the parking lot of the Union Pacific train station.

We walk around to the other side of the little, brick building. Stopping for a moment, we gaze at the high water mark etched in the side of the building. The mark indicates the water level of the incredible 1951 flood that submerged much of the north end of town.

Entering the building, we are greeted by the elderly clerk behind the counter. He looks as though he’s worked here for 100 years. A blackboard hangs on the wall, with arrival and departure times written in chalk.

Joe Wettengel remembers going to the Union Pacific Depot in North Lawrence in the '60s to watch the passing trains with his grandfather.

“Trains on time tonight?” gramp inquires.

“Yep, one’ll be rollin’ through shortly,” the old man responds as he squints through his bifocals.

The two chatter for a while, mostly about the ’51 flood. They exchange stories of how they each volunteered in the cleanup effort and how they had to have tetanus shots because of the polluted waters.

Suddenly, the faint sound of a train whistle catches our attention and we remember what we came for. We rush out the door and stand on the concrete platform beside the tracks. It is getting dark, and the moonlight illuminates the shiny steel rails.

Gramp pulls his pipe from the pocket of his jacket and lights a match, which glows brightly in the night. Another light appears in the distance, on down the tracks. Gramp puffs on his pipe, and through the smoke, I can see the massive outline of a train’s engine, its single headlight getting brighter and brighter as it approaches from the west.

This is the freight train, and it won’t stop for passengers. It will just kept rollin’ east, probably to St. Louis. Car after car roars by. Large, white letters are a blur before my eyes, spelling the same words over and over again: Rock Island, Rock Island, Rock Island. The ground trembles beneath my feet. And as the cool rush of air blows across my face, I just know this has to be the greatest experience in the world.

Before I know it, the caboose is a red dot in the night, fading away, like that sad, wailing whistle. We stay to watch one or two more trains that night. Then it’s time to go home.

The old Union Pacific station has since been remodeled and is now the Lawrence Visitor’s Center. And though my grandparents are gone, many memories remain. Now, when I see a passing train or hear a distant whistle, I think of gramp and me and our trips to the train station.

” Lawrence resident Joe Wettengel is an occasional contributor to the Journal-World. He writes about memories from his childhood.