A Mellow Saturday Visit To Night Train

“It is a sign of a coward who says, “This is my bad luck and I will have to accept it.” A positive thinker would say, “I will decide my fate and my own destiny.”–Richard “Night Train” Lane

Sometimes as you get older you learn to not sweat the small stuff, take life day by day, and how to take ‘er easy. All cliches, I know, but getting older is somewhat tricky, so I just follow the social cues and mind my own business and it seems to work out for the most part. Pious life advice aside, a friend and I decided to check out one of those breweries that also sells coffee and pastries over on the bohemian/east side of town. Idyllic domesticity. You can sit outside at a table and stare at people or dogs or even the band on stage as you sip your beverage of choice. It’s nothing special, but it was a fine-by-me-activity on a delightful, breezy, and sunny Saturday.

Before the festivities, however, we decided to stop by football/Rams great Dick “Night Train” Lane’s grave and pay homage. Dick was known as one of football’s most fearsome hitters, and when he wasn’t knocking your block off, he was picking your quarterback’s pocket as he holds the single-season NFL record for interceptions with 14 set in 1952. The cemetery, being predominantly black, was vandalized a few years back with spray paint, but the community came together and scrubbed away all the offensive garbage. The story made me angry and sad, but I was also proud of the community for their tenacity and how it bolstered their dauntless and bountiful sense of pride. You’ll find that most knuckleheads like the “graffiti artist” don’t have much determination or bravery, so eventually, they just give up until their decrepit brain and unfounded hatred devours their flimsy psyche.

Dick himself had a rather rocky upbringing as he was thrust into the world by a prostitute and her pimp, and after roughly three months they were irritated by the child so he was simply placed in a garbage can amongst newspapers. Discarded like trash.

Lane later recalled, “My father was called Texas Slim. I never saw him – I don’t know if he’s the one that told my mother to throw me away. A pimp told my mother I had to go. They put me in a trash can and took off. Some people heard me crying. They thought it was a cat.”

Our lives are impacted by forces we cannot explain, often changed for reasons we will never totally understand. Can you call it kismet? Dick survived the trash bin and was thereafter adopted and raised by a loving woman, eventually going on to play minor league baseball before joining the U.S. Army. After serving four years he worked in an aircraft plant in Los Angeles but found the work tedious and unsatisfying. He would ride the bus to the job every day and observed that he was passing by the L.A. Rams offices. Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant: one fine day Lane waltzed in and asked for a tryout and was almost immediately signed. Imagine the cajones on this guy! Night Train, in the course of time, played in the NFL for 14 seasons, and like most old-school players was charming and urbane on the surface with a fierce, smashmouth steeliness below.

Lane was eventually worn down by complications from diabetes and reduced mobility from numerous knee surgeries. He died of a heart attack at an assisted living center in Austin, Texas on January 29, 2002.  He was 74 years old.

RIP ‘Train. 

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