"I'm Fred Harris from Elko. May I borrow a dime?"

With these stories about family, you expect them to know your dad and when they hear the story, “They laugh and say, ‘That’s just like Fred.’” About great Aunt Mary, cousin Patti says, “ Aunt Mary was known as being fussy.” She was our dear Granny’s sister. Technically, our great aunt. We cousins always referred to her and her portly husband as “Aunt Mary and Uncle Wilford.”

Aunt Mary was as big as a minute. What is it about some diminutive women who can be dictators at the dinner table? If Aunt Mary came next to you armed with a bowl of mashed potatoes and wielding a serving spoon and if she said, “Fred, would you care for more mashed potatoes?”

“ No thank you.” was not an option. Even though Dad had a delicate stomach.

Here’s the story: Several Christmases after Granny died, Grandpa Harris and widowed Aunt Mary took the Union Pacific from Salt Lake City to Elko to spend the holiday with us. After Christmas, they would continue their train trip to Menlo Park and stay with Uncle Dick and his family.

By the way, I have to ask my sister where I was. But it doesn’t matter. Everyone in our family loves to tell this story.

Here’s the scene: The westward bound Union Pacific train stops in Elko to pick up passengers at 3:03 am. Always has. Amtrak still does. Well, when Dad’s alarm went off, he just put an overcoat over his pajamas and galoshes over his bare feet. I’m sure fussy Aunt Mary and mild-mannered Grandpa were waiting by the door with their suitcases and extra packages to take on to the next Harris family. Probably Aunt Mary wore a hat.

Here’s what happened: Dad boarded the train with the folks, taking orders from Aunt Mary about how to arrange the bags in the overhead compartments. I’m sure she was admonishing him to be careful, Fred, about this and Fred, don’t forget that.

The next thing he knew, the train was moving. It doesn’t take long for a train to get through Elko. By the time Dad found the porter and explained his predicament, the only suggestion the porter could make was to get the engineer to slow down going through Carlin. Dad could jump off.

That's what he did. So there he is. By then it’s four am on a below freezing January morning in Carlin, Nevada, twenty-five miles from home. Being Nevada, there was an all night cafe. Dad goes into the cafe in his overcoat with his pajama bottoms sticking out and galoshes. He realizes he has no money for the payphone to call Mom to come get him. There are no customers. Only a waitress on duty. That’s when he says, “I’m Fred Harris from Elko. May I borrow a dime?”

So, imagine the story from Mom’s end. The phone wakes her up from a sound sleep. Dad says something like, “I’m in Carlin and I need you to come get me.”

Oh, I forgot this part of the story. Back at the railroad station in Elko, Dad left their diesel Mercedes running. After all, he was only going to be there for a couple of minutes.

Mom went next door and woke up her friends Marianne and Dutch Stenovich who took her down to the train station to get the car. She drove to Carlin to fetch Dad and repay the waitress who probably laughed and said, “Forget it.”

The story got around Elko. Probably through Dutch and Marianne. Dutch had been the mayor and he and Marianne knew everybody.

Probably Dad told his brother and when Uncle Dick heard the story, I’m sure he couldn’t help but pass it on to brother Tom and sisters Marian and Alice. My cousin Chris says she’s always known that story about Uncle Fred. We all think that probably Grandpa and Aunt Mary were sort of oblivious about the whole thing.

Anyway, Dad got a good ribbing about that story for a very long time.