How I Know Hitching a Ride in a Train Boxcar is Not a Good Idea

Elvis, Vicki, Jeff, Tucson & SWT

Dodie and I rode Amtrak to Arizona and back to Texas in November, 2025 and absolutely loved it. Visiting with our grandsons in Phoenix, we of course rode a miniature train and experienced their excitement looking over a gigantic various train exhibits.

My first train ride originated from the old Katy Depot just west of downtown San Antonio in the late 1950s. Although I was not yet 3 years old, my mother and I were destined for Johnstown, Pennsylvania to visit her sister, Aunt Billie Jean and Uncle Bob Cover.

Memories include playing with small metal cars on the train’s seat, looking out as we crossed over the gigantic Mississippi River and playing with cousins Connie and Linda Cober.

Since then, I have enjoyed riding trains and especially the Brackenridge Eagle miniature train near the San Antonio Zoo, Witte Museum and Breckenridge Park in San Antonio. Via Amtrak, I’ve been to such cities as Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Little Rock, Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin and El Paso. But one ride was most unusual.

Other Side of the Mountain

Vicki Highsaw and I went to a theater in 1975 on the San Marcos, Texas town square to watch The Other Side of the Mountain. It was a sentimental movie about a young ski champion, Jill Kinmont, who was left paralyzed after a tragic skiing accident.

Based on the true story of Jill Kinmont, in 1955, eighteen-year-old Jill was a skilled skier and a shoo-in for the 1956 Winter Olympics. But she takes a near fatal fall off a mountain during the last race of the season. Paralyzed from the shoulders down, Jill now has to climb another kind of mountain-working her way up from total helplessness to leading a fulfilling life.

Vicki was touched by the movie and afterwards enjoying a Pizza nearby, she couldn’t quit talking about it.

“I want to enjoy life to the fullest because we never know when it is our time,” she said. The next day, a Saturday, she called and wanted to know if we could go see the movie again.”

“Sure, but let’s go to a salad bar afterwards,” I replied. “That pizza was too feeling.”

After the movie, again, she cried even more than the night before. The months ahead were special times. We were on the staff of the University Star at what was then Southwest Texas State University (SWT).

Now known at Texas State University, the Star staff in our era was likely the most talented group of journalism students to grace the halls of Old Main. With staff such as Terry ‘Tex’ Toler, Janis Johnson, Dawn Donalson, Sherman Durst, Andy Rogers, and Gene Bering, we were constantly winning statewide awards when competing with other universities.

Forgive me as I digress, as this article is more than just about Vicki and me hitching a ride on a train. Yes, indeed, during one of our routine runs, we decided to go jogging near Aquarina Springs one day in the summer of 1976… but we will get to that later.

Journalism Awards

Earler that year, in April, we joined our journalism professor Jeff Henderson, along with fellow classmates University Star editor Rhonda Black, Jana Gower and Polly Ross on a road trip to Tucson, Arizona.

El Paso motel, April 1976, L-R: Rhonda Black, Jana Gower, Polly Ross, Jeff Henderson, Vicki Highsaw

Our Journalism Department had won many awards and earned stellar recognition at a recent Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) competition in Nachodoches. Now we were on our way to participate in the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Press Association (RMCPA).

Vicki, from Midland, and I, raised in San Antonio, had never been this far out west before. We were excited and enchanted by the desolate beauty as we journeyed to El Paso the first day of the trip.

At some point long before El Paso, Jeff pulled over so we could stretch as he pointed to the Davis Mountains in the distance. Vicki and I danced on the yellow stripe of IH-10 while Jeff took our picture. We were mesmorized with West Texas beauty.

It didn’t take too long, back in the Honda car Jeff had rented, that Vicki announced that she needed us to stop for a restroom break.

Friendliest People

“I’ll stop at the next town. The people around here are known for their friendliness and hospitality,” he said. “We’ll have no problem finding a place to go there.”

Just a few minutes passed when Vicki asked, “Jeff how much longer, I really need to go?”

“No worries,” he replied, “I’ll just stop at the first place I can before we get into Van Horn.”

A couple of exits away, Jeff turned off at the access road and drove to the first home on the right.

“Jeff, why are you stopping at these people’s house?” Rhonda asked. “Why not at a gas station?”

“She said she needed to go real bad, so this house is the first place for her to do what she needs to do.”

“Jeff, I can’t go in there,” Vicki interjected in panic. “I don’t even know these people.”

“People around these parts are the friendliest you’ll ever meet” he replied as he stepped out of car. “I’ll go ask.”

Horrified, Vicki was in pain as we watched Jeff knock on a screened side door. A lady opened the door as Jeff pointed at our car and said something to her. She waved us toward her, “Y’all get out and come on in.”

Embarrassed, but desperate, Vicki trotted to the lady who let her in the home. Jeff motioned us to get out and come in.

I jumped out too. Jana, Rhonda and Polly were perplexed also, but I needed that bathroom almost as much as Vicki did.

While we took turns in the bathroom, the kind West Texan insisted we sit down on her couch and living room chairs. She went straight to her kitchen and came right back holding a white cake with coconut icing. The friendly woman proceeded to cut slices and placed them on small plates for each of us. Jeff made himself at home and handed out forks.

“Thank you so much, Mame,” Vicki relaxed as she received her slice.

Jeff helped the lady serve the cake to each of us with polite exchanges of verbal pleasantries.

Then, they both burst out in laughter, and with enchantment, Jeff introduced his lovely Aunt Jenny to us.

They had preplanned this memorable scheme days before the trip. We left Aunt Jenny with handshakes and hugs. Hours later, we arrived tired at the hotel in El Paso and the next morning proceeded to Tucson.

RMCPA convention in downtown Tucson & Old Tucson Studios , 1976

In Arizona, we aced the convention with many awards. I actually took home the Investigative Reporter of the Year award which opened doors for me that would shape my life forever.

Jeff presented a proposal to bid on having the 1977 RMCPA convention in San Marcos. When they later accepted it, Jeff and SWT Journalism Dean Dr. Heber Taylor offered me the chairmanship position as my required senior internship.

Jogging to the Train

In the meantime, that summer of ’76, Vicki and I would go jogging regularly. On one particular afternoon we decided to run down from the hilltop from Old Main to make our way to Aquarina Springs, a tourist water park featuring sky rides, glass bottom boats and an underwater submarine theater with Ralph the Swimming Pig and Mermaids.

For some reason we bypassed the park and jogged away from our football stadium and golf course.

Soon we found ourselves running along the railroad tracks and could hear the deep hum and rumble of a train approaching us from behind in the distance.

We were very near the intersection of Post Road and Uhland Road.

As it approached, it became loud and powerful. The hum became more metallic sounding. Clanging of tracks blended with more steady discelerating clicks.

About the time the train caught up to us, it started slowing down. We heard the train warning signs light up with intensely loud banging. Within less than a minute it completely stopped.

Almost, as if on cue and with perfect timing, right next to us was a reddish-brown boxcar WITH IT’S SIDE DOOR WIDE OPEN.

We looked at each other with simultaneous grins and realized how easy it would be to get in it. This many years later, I can’t recall exactly how we did it, but in hardly no time we were standing in the large empty boxcar looking out. It soon continued to move forward. We were excited and decided to ride it a bit more thinking it would stop again soon.

It didn’t.

The train picked up speed as we looked westward watching the Aquarina Springs golf course begin to disappear behind us.

“Surely, it’s gonna stop,” she half asked and half proclaimed.

I recall trying to determine the possibilities of when it might stop–or at least slow down enough to attempt jumping off.

Seriously, we never thought about where it was going. We assumed maybe Austin and determined possibly in the small communities of Buda or Kyle.

Before Kyle, we did ride over a railroad bridge above a beautiful river along the Balcones Fault Line and the beautiful Texas Hill Country.

It was when we passed Kyle that I began to really be concerned.

Vicki noticed and outright asked, “Where and how will we get off, Jack?”

Spontaneously, I just grinned and said, “You know, I always wanted to float down the Mississippi River like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Never even thought about hitching a ride on a train like this. Maybe we’ll get off in Chicago–or St. Louis if we’re lucky.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth went, “Ohhhhh!”

The 13 Day Boxcar Trip

We had not yet heard about the April 21, 1966 venture of two North Carolina boys who were found alive in Milwaukee after a 13-day trip in a sealed boxcar.

In their case the endured a journey that carried them more than 1,000 miles from Fayetteville, N.C.

The boys, David Harvey, 12, and William Waddell, 13, were discovered in a freight car at a brewery loading area after workers opened the sealed door. Both were reported in good condition after examination at a county emergency hospital.

They were checked out after a meal of poached eggs, toast, and milk. It was their first solid food since April 8, when they sneaked into the boxcar after a man told them it was leaving for Milwaukee that night.

For nearly two weeks, the two boys survived by drinking beer remaining in empty bottles packed inside the car. The freight car, insulated but not refrigerated, had been loaded with empty beer bottles when the boys entered it.

As two workmen, Kenneth Henning and John Stein, were opening the car that morning at the Schlitz Brewing Co. train shed, they heard a voice from inside say: “Thank you, mister. Thank God you opened that door.”

The boys had been reported missing Apr. 9 after leaving home the previous day with a sleeping bag and $40 but no food. They had hidden their bicycles in nearby woods before boarding the freight car.

“We aren’t even supposed to play together because we get into trouble,” the boys said at the hospital.
“We told stories and jokes during the trip to keep from getting scared of the dark,” Harvey recalled.
But it didn’t work very well, he added, as the time passed in complete darkness. Neither had any idea how long they had been locked up.

The Dime in Her Shoe

Vicki and my boxcar journey ended about an hour and a half as the trained pulled into Taylor, Texas, northwest of Austin.

As soon as the train stopped we practically shot out of that boxcar. Relieved, the next challenge was to determine how to we would get back home. We found a pay telephone and we were in luck. Vicki kept a dime in her shoe each time she went out or we jogged. The cost of payphones in Texas would not increase to a quarter until 1979.

We would have to call collect so we decided on trying to reach our University Star editor Rhonda Black. Vicki decided that I would be the one to ask her come get us. Unfortunately, her roommate, Kat, accepted the call so we “would have to wait for Rhonda to get home” to determine if she would be willing to retrieve us. I gave her the payphone’s number so we waited for several hours before Rhonda called.

She wasn’t very happy about it, but she agreed. Relieved, we waited…and waited…and waited.

Hungry, we vowed to go to Jack in the Box for Jack Steak Sandwiches after we finally returned to San Marcos, retrieved my light blue Volkswagen station wagon and wallet, paid her for her gas and thanked her profusely.

Front Row Elvis Tickets

In August 1976, Vicki, Janis Johnson and I drove from San Marcos to meet my parents at their home in south San Antonio. Us three had front row center seat tickets to the Elvis Presley concert that night at Hemisfair Arena.

(I had actually interviewed him in Memphis earlier that year and would be presenting Elvis with several city, county and state awards backstage before his concert. I was president of the Texas Chapter of the Elvis Presley Graceland Fan Club. City councilman and local TV weatherman Gordon Hartman would be with me).

While my dad entertained Vicki and Janis in the den upstairs by playing Elvis on the stereo, I finished dressing for the concert. My mother stopped me before I went upstairs to get them. She quietly asked me if I thought I “would marry one of them?”

“Who?” I grinned. “Which one?”

Mom smiled, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I like Vicki.”

“Me too, Momma and she likes me too,” as I hugged her. “But we have reservations at the Tower of the Americas restaurant before the show. Gotta go!”

Our worlds changed by fate. Vicki didn’t return to college the following semester. After her and I took a trip to visit Rhonda Black (now graduated and living in Dallas) and enjoy Six Flags Over Texas, Vicki soon moved to Austin. Janis and I attended the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Press Association conference hosted in San Marcos in 1977.

In 1988, as an executive for HEB Food-Drugs, I ran into Vicki while she was shopping in one of our Austin grocery stores. We sat for a one hour lunch at a nearby restaurant and caught up on our lives since college. We laughed about our train ride and never saw each other again:

R.I.P. Vicki

Vicki Highsaw Azar of Driftwood, Texas, passed away September 30, 2014 after a courageous and hard fought battle with cancer. She was born on August 10, 1954 in Midland, Texas to William Jackson Highsaw and Nelda Smith Highsaw. She married Anthony E. (Tony) Azar on March 5, 1988 and together they had two beautiful children, Amy, 24, and James, 22.

Vicki graduated from Robert E. Lee High school in Midland in 1972. She attended college at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, as a journalism major. While there, she was Vice-President of the Press Club, PRSSA sect., student paper assistant sports editor, and Most Valuable Staff – Campus Education. For the last twenty years, Vicki was Vice President of Azar Computer Software, where she helped manage the family business with her husband.

Vicki was a truly wonderful and loving wife, mother, daughter and sister. Never one to feel sorry for herself, she faced each day with endless optimism and hope. She was beyond selfless and so inspiring; her bright smile could light up the room.