"Getting into Trouble"

“YOU BOYS AREN'T GETTING IN TROUBLE, ARE YOU?”

by John B. Anderson

When we were not playing sports, one of our goals was to score some beer. One way to do this was to drive by the Majestic Tavern, (we called it the Magic Stick,) and look for our older Native American friends to procure us a case of beer. The Magic Stick was not a classy bar by any means. Manistique had 21 bars at that time in the late 50's. It was more the truth that Manistique had no classy bars at that time, and still doesn't today, but the Magic Stick was sleazy.

We would give our friends $10 and they would buy the case of beer for the four of us. A case of beer, at that time was $4+, so they would have enough money left over to carry them drinking through the evening.

One evening, after we had transacted our business with our buyers, they asked, “You boys aren't getting in trouble with this beer, are you?”

We said, “Absolutely not! Do you know that the width of a car is the same width of the rail tracks? We boys, simply, drive onto the tracks, let a little air out of our tires, put the car in 'drive', then relax and drink our beer. When the beer is half gone, we will turn abound at the next crossing, and return to Manistique. No one can see us, and we stay out of trouble.”

Our two friends thought, “What a wonderful idea. We can do that too.” They bought some beer to go, jumped into their car, pulled unto the tracks, and sailed along through the woods.

One problem! When we boys drove down the tracks, we had picked the “Haywire” Railroad, (our name for the Ann Arbor Railroad). The haywire made only one trip to Shingleton in the morning to pick up rail cars, turned around, and came back to Manistique in the afternoon to put them on the evening car ferry. At night, there was no danger in encountering a train on the tracks. Our friends, however, drove onto the Soo Line tracks, a much busier railroad.

Our friends traveled on the Soo Line tracks all the way to Cooks, MI, a 10 mile journey, turned around at a crossing and drove back to Manistique. They drove through the west side of town, and started across the trestle over the Manistique River. That's when they spotted the bright light coming at them. “Holy Shit!” Both jumped from the trestle into the river. The train smashed into the car, rendering it into little pieces.

The police fished our two friends out of the river, and kept them overnight in the pokey. At that point, we lived in fear that our friends would tell the cops where they got the idea in the first place. A month later, the local “Pioneer Tribune” listed our two friends in the “Justice of the Peace Report,” that our two friends were fined $35 for, “Trespassing on railroad property.” We didn't go close to the Magic Stick again.