America from the Other Side of the Tracks

This is a very true story. In the 1970s, the author took to the rails and taveled across America. During his travlels, he crossed paths with a fifteen year old homeless boy, Curtis, who had been thrown out of his mothers home, in Yakima, Washington, by her abusive alcoholic boy friend. When their paths crossed at the local rescue mission, in downtown Yakima, Curtis pleaded with Mike to help him get back to get to his fathers house in Dallas, Texas. However, Mike didn't want to take on the responsibility of traveling across the nation, by freight-train with a fifteen year old kid. But after hearing a convicting sermon, delivered by the preacher man, at the mandatory church service that evening, he had a change of heart and decided to take the kid under his wing. The next morning they departed from the Yakima, switch yard on a freight, beginning Curtis's homeward journey, across America, toward Dallas, Texas.