The Parable of the Train Engineer and the Train Conductor

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, with its paralysis removed, what can Congress achieve in the rest of the year?”

Josh spoke thus:

A train engineer was angry with a herd of buffalo blocking the track.

“If it ain’t one thing,” the engineer said to the conductor, “It’s another.  I’m a busy man!  I don’t have time for these interruptions!”

“We’ve got a schedule to keep,” the conductor said, “We have places we have to get.”

“First there was that bad signal just outside Chicago,” the engineer said, “That took forever to fix.  And it took me forever to get back in my groove after that.”

“It didn’t need to have been a problem, neither,” the conductor said, “If they’d not diverted us to the other track.”

“Just because they had to service another signal,” the engineer said, “It’s like they got a list of things that got to go wrong and they got to fix, and if them things don’t go wrong, they fix them anyways, even though they don’t need fixing.  Least ways, that’s the way it looks.”

“It keeps them in a job, don’t it?” the conductor said, “They can’t get paid for fixing nothing if nothing’s broke.”

“So they break it?” the engineer asked.

“Like firemen setting fires,” the conductor said, “Or soldiers shooting indians to start an uprising.”

“Or ladies going out of doors, just so as you got to open a door for them,” the engineer said, “A lady did that just the other day.”

“That was no lady,” the engineer said, “That was my wife!”

“Is that how the joke goes?” the engineer asked.

“Beats me,” the conductor said, “What do I look like, a comedian?”

“I wish you looked like Buffalo Bill and got these buffalos out of my way,” the engineer said.

“Blast the whistle,” the conductor said.

The engineer blasted the whistle.  The nearest group of buffalo looked up.  The engineer blasted again. The buffalo shied away from the whistle.

“You might have something there,” the engineer said.  The engineer blasted the whistle a third time, and more buffalo moved away from the tracks.

“Start her up,” the conductor said, “I’ll keep blasting the whistle.

The conductor blasted the whistle while the engineer started the train moving.  Eventually the combination of the oncoming train and the blasting whistle moved the buffalo off the track, and the train could proceed.

“I can finally concentrate on my job!” the engineer said, and the engineer stared straight ahead at the miles of straight track ahead.

“I love the freedom of the rails,” the conductor said.  The conductor stared ahead along with the engineer.

“The freedom to act,” the engineer said, eyes ahead, “That’s all a man wants.”