The Second World War ended five years before you were even born, and that seems very, very long ago, doesn’t it? But that’s only because time moves very slowly when you’re little. It’s the opposite when you’re big. Believe me! Someday, many years from now, you’ll wish you could slow things down a bit, but by then it will be too late. When you are older, the years will start to race by like minutes. And when you are as old as I am now, five years will pass by in the blink of an eye. And that’s how it is now for Mom and Dad, and everyone else who lived through the war. The memories for them are very fresh. Maybe too fresh for the men who fought it.

There are lots of movies and television shows about the war and these all make it seem thrilling. For a while, you almost felt cheated, didn’t you? You found yourself wishing sometimes that you could have been around for all the excitement. You dreamed of being a hero yourself, like those you see on TV, and you and your buddies spent hours pretending to be combat soldiers, fighter pilots, paratroopers, and frogmen. Mostly you wished you could have been in the Navy like Dad. And when you see pictures of him in his uniform you see the hero you’d like to be someday.

But Dad talks very little about the war and when he does it’s rarely about the fighting. Instead, he tells you how clearly one can see the Milky Way when at sea, and how beautiful the sunsets are. He mesmerizes you with his description of the lagoon at Ulithi Atoll in the South Pacific: how the sand was as white as freshly-fallen snow and how the color of the water went from brilliant turquoise at the shoreline to deep midnight blue at the center, with about every possible shade of blue in-between. But he’d rather not talk about the stuff you see in the movies. And he always insists that there are other ways to become a hero.

Dad says that the war was unavoidable this time. But he also says that the world doesn’t seem to be working hard enough to avoid more wars in the future. Years from now when you are a grown up with kids of your own you’ll see that Dad was right…on both counts.

Your relationship with Dad will be a complicated one as you grow into adulthood, as it is for most fathers and their sons, but you will always look up to him for guidance and wisdom. And you’ll always appreciate him for setting you straight on the topic of war.

When the war finally ended in victory for the United States and its allies, Dad was sent back to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, Illinois. And when all the paperwork was completed he was thanked for his service and honorably discharged back into civilian life. So with his few worldly possessions stuffed into a duffel bag, and still wearing his uniform he bought a ticket on a North Shore Line Electroliner, and made his way back home to Milwaukee.

Because you love passenger rail, the sight of the Electroliner today, thrills you. You haven’t ridden it yourself yet, and Grandma McCarthy never uses it when she comes to visit each summer, but you know that Dad’s route to the Milwaukee Road Depot always takes you past the North Shore terminal, and that means at least a quick glance at one of these beautiful, sleek, otherworldly trains. And that’s usually enough.

This love of passenger trains will remain with you the rest of your life and the memories you are storing right now will remain as vivid and clear as photographs. But the memory of the Electroliner will always be special, won’t it? And it will always be more than just a dynamic and fluid vision in blue-green and orange. It will also be a symbol of a time when the world looked ahead to peace.

Sadly, you will never get to ride the Electroliner, and one day it will vanish entirely from the American landscape.  But it’s a part of your story nevertheless, and one day you’ll share that story with the world. The story of the train that brought your Daddy home from the war.

“Electroliner”   1991    John T. McCarthy, Jr.    8-color silkscreen