Book Review: Waiting for the Morning Train - An American Boyhood by Bruce Catton

Civil War historian Bruce Catton tells a delightful story of a carefree childhood in Benzonia, Michigan, from 1899 to 1916. He later realized (book was written when he was 72 or 73) that the delight in his childhood was totally oblivious to the realty of the situation. During this period, the last of the virgin forest of the northern lower peninsula of Michigan was being harvested for lumber and shipped out. And that when the virgin forests were gone, the economy collapsed. The land was poor for farming and the vacation/resort industry was just getting started. 

Benzonia was established around an academy that was founded by committed Christians who purposed to bring enlightenment to the workers and residents in the boondocks. He tells of his childhood activities in this environment, playing with his friends in a small town and in the wilderness. He talks about his schooling, his classmates, being in the band, and various church activities. Bruce Catton’s father taught for some years, eventually ran the academy for a few years. In 1916 the author left for Oberlin College. One year after his father’s departure departure from the academy, it closed.

Bruce Catton was two years younger than my grandfather, also born in Michigan. A completely different story - his father was a lighthouse keeper and he was raised by his aunts. He worked as an accountant raising his family through the Great Depression, and ultimately was quite successful in the world of business. But I never heard any stories from him about an idyllic childhood. Catton was privileged to enjoy the childhood he had

In his retirement, Bruce Catton wrote this memoir (published in 1972) to ruminate on parallel themes. In youth, we have no idea what lies ahead, and the world is full of possibilities. In mankind’s early days, the world was unlimited in space, in resources, in opportunity. At the cusp of the transition from adolescence to manhood, the future seems bright. In Catton’s experience, the First World War, the collapse of the Benzonia academy were realities that broke in. (He never finished college and was awarded an honorary degree in 1956). Mankind has been systematically using the resources of the earth, using them up, and some day there will be a reckoning, as with the collapse of the lumber industry in northern Michigan. He vaguely alludes to using up resources such as minerals, etc., but 50 years later, with the climate inching towards a warmer worldwide temperature with a higher frequency of severe storms, droughts, and the like, he seems like a prophet. He never referenced scriptures like Luke 21:11 or Revelation 6:8.

And so the author wraps up his metaphor of childhood being like waiting for the morning train, which he would board to an exciting adventure in life. The ending is the night train, old age, having seen the failure of dreams, boarding the sleeper car. Regrettably, he apparently lacked the belief, or did not want to proselytize, about the glorious hope recorded in Revelation 19.