R and J in the USA

We met Dave at the Eldon Depot Museum in Eldon, Iowa. And we loved every second of it.

How we came to be at this train museum in Eldon, Iowa, is a story all in itself, and is one of our favorite stories thus far on the trip. If you haven’t read about our first 0.5K of the trip (yes, you read that right – POINT five – meaning half of one kilometer), you can read about it HERE. 

Once getting the tip to stop in the wonderful little train museum in this teeny little Iowa town, we were eager to see it. We were immediately taking pictures of it and its murals as soon as we came upon it. Though not the smallest museum we’ve seen on the trip so far, it was no bigger than a car wash, long and lean, but big enough to drive a dirty truck through. We stepped in and were surrounded by all sorts of train paraphernalia, on the walls and in little glass cases. 

The first gentleman to greet us was a somewhat frail and weathered looking gentleman with a lived-in face and a warm smile and a beer in his hand. It didn’t take long to surmise this wasn’t his first beer of the day, his words a little slurred and his demeanor as welcoming as can be. We never got his name, but found out, of all places, he was a Santa Barbara, California, transplant. Once a professional surfer crushing the waves out west, thanks to years of living and playing hard, back pain kept him off the waves and so, retiring to this teeny town in the middle of southeast Iowa seemed like the right thing to do. Inexpensive on any scale, much less compared to Santa Barbara, California, he returned here when surfing was off the table thanks to a memory of a summer spent here twenty years prior. 

We ourselves had only been in Eldon for under an hour, but were already starting to understand how a stop here twenty years prior could stick in someone’s mind long enough to make them want to return to live out their golden years in this quiet spot.

That’s when we met Dave. Dave came barreling through the hallway from a desk a few sections of the long museum away to greet us as part of his formal role as volunteer staff for the museum.

While Ryan continued his conversation with the retired surfer, Julie was in the process of falling in deep smit with this character named Dave.

“Hi. I’m Dave. I worked for the railroad company for 40 years, so I know everything and I love the sound of my own voice.”

And so it began.

“I can relate.” Julie claimed – accurately.

“Most people can.” Dave retorted – another likely accurate observation.

Julie gestured to the postcards and noticed one of them said The Rock Island Line.

“Oh!” Julie exclaimed. “This is the Rock Island Line – like from that Peter, Paul and Mary song!” 

Dave began to sing the song and Julie joined in. “The Rock Island Line it is a mighty good road…” they both sang, until Dave stopped the singing and said, “Well, not anymore it’s not.”

Julie chuckled at what she would come to know as Dave’s refreshing and hilarious honest takes.

(Julie has since looked it up, and she was remembering wrong, the version she was remembering was by the Weavers, not Peter, Paul, and Mary, for those looking for some good old fact checking.) 

Regardless of Julie’s musical inaccuracies, the conversation carried on.

“You don’t look old enough to know Peter, Paul, and Mary.”

“Oh, my dad played me all sorts of music from before my time.”

“Oh, your dad was a hippie?” Dave inquired

“Was Peter, Paul, and Mary music that the hippies liked?” Julie asked, remembering documentaries that had said that Peter, Paul, and Mary were more traditional than the counterculture music prevalent at that time. 

“Oh, yes.” He said.

“Well, no. My dad was never a hippie. But he did like Peter, Paul, and Mary.”

The conversation traveled down that path a little more before it circled around to one of the most standard questions while traveling out and about away from home.

“Where are you from?” Dave wanted to know.

“Rochester, NY.”

“Oh, I used to live in Philadelphia. I know Rochester.”

Then came the second of Dave’s fantastic quotables.

“What brought you to Eldon, Iowa, Dave?” Julie asked. Not just as a rote question, but indeed quite curious about how one goes from Philadelphia to Eldon, Iowa.

Without skipping a beat, Dave replied in all earnestness and with a little glimmer of self-deprecating charm.

“Oh, a lifetime of bad decisions, misinformation, and mistakes.”

Julie let out an involuntary laugh while simultaneously repeating the sentence in her head over and over desperate to remember it perfectly and share it with Ryan when he came around and, eventually, to get it written down for posterity’s sake.

“That’s fantastic and deeply honest.” Julie replied with a smile.

Dave then proceeded to start to relay bits of his life story that our surfer would chime in on every once in a while. Before the conversation was done, we knew he had lived all over the country as a result of working for the railroad, had had hundreds of girlfriends, was an active member of alcoholics and narcotics anonymous (though he made it clear he was fine with being not so anonymous when we asked him for permission to write about him on our blog and take a picture), had four ex-wives, no children, and was forty years sober (way to go, Dave!). He was self-proclaimed as not a good drunk, and said if he was a good drunk, he’d probably be holding a beer right now – to which our surfer smiled big and raised the can in his hand high. 

Dave had mentioned with the first of his looks of solemness that he never had kids and it’s too late now. He didn’t come right out and say he regretted it, but you could see that this might fall into one of his “mistakes” categories.

“We don’t have children either.” Julie said.

“It’s not too late!” Dave exclaimed

The surfer jumped in, “Heck no, we’ll clear out the caboose (he said pointing to the train outside) and you can take twenty minutes and get it done right now!” There was nothing menacing or offensive in his tone. Both men were purely jovial and excited at the prospect of becoming uncles right then and there. Julie and Ryan were laughing and touched by the enthusiastic support from the crew.

“No, I’m afraid we’re probably a bit old for that.” Julie said.

This is where Dave went from endearing to Julie’s new best friend.

“Too old?! No way you are. He might be old, but not you.”

“How old do you think I am?” Julie inquired, expecting a guess of 35, which she had grown accustomed to. She still gets guessed to be younger than she is, but the wrong guesses have increased in age steadily over the last five years. While she used to be guessed to be a good twenty years younger than she is, now she’s lucky if she gets a gap over five years. But Dave was here to bring it all back around.

”25!” He exclaimed confidently.

“Dave, you are my new best friend.” Julie replied. “I’m 45.”

“No you are not!”

To Julie’s great delight, even after they left the train museum and were walking through town waving to Dave back at the museum, he was grabbing a buddy and saying, “Do you know that woman is 45? Not possible right?” and then screaming out to Julie, “You are not 45!” Ryan was grinning knowing his wife’s day was currently being made. Not that age or aging is ever something that particularly bothers her. But being a regular human being, such comments tend to go over well.

Once they accepted that Julie might be a bit late to start reproducing, or at least that doing so at such a stage presents new risks, Dave began to talk about all the kids out there needing homes and his time in Jamaica where he spends a month per year. “If you want to have a kid, but are past the age for it, there are plenty of kids out there.” Clearly a man who has a lot of compassion and had seen a lot in his life and travels, as filled with bad decisions, misinformation, and mistakes though it may have been. 

The conversation took one interesting turn after another.

It was about time to wrap up, but Dave wasn’t done charming us.

Dave gave us another golden line. “Folks come in here and wanna talk. That’s fine. I’ll listen.” Then he paused and with charm and a complete absence of apology said, “But I tell my stories first.”

Indeed you do, Dave. And we are glad for it. 

As we chuckled on our way out the door, we thanked Dave for the good conversation and mentioned some of our favorite lines of his.

“I got a lot to say, but it makes good copy,” he said.

Indeed it does, Dave. Indeed it does.