Recall
Author: Qi Xinjun
Read aloud: Wu Yuheng
Now I still clearly remember my father's migratory life when he worked in the railway soldiers. The expectation of my father before the Spring Festival and the parting after the festival are one of the most profound memories of my childhood, and this time is also the happiest and warmest in the year. In this way, this law of life almost accompanied my whole childhood. I also found the answer to my father's feelings when he went home and returned to the team after the festival. It was a complicated mood. My father was like a migratory bird. For more than 30 years, winter has come and spring has returned, as always. In the rest of the season, we and our mother still live our own lives. From all over the world, only through letters can we report peace to each other and ask for warmth. After growing up and getting married, I really felt the hardships of my mother and the helplessness of my father when I was separated by two places.
I didn't have a deep impression on my father when I was a child, but I can always deeply feel his kindness when I get together for a short time every year. I also learned some about my father from the elders and the good news of meritorious service sent home by my father's unit every year. Winter went to spring, year after year, our family finally came to Golmud in the early 1980s to get together with my father. This is something that the whole family has been thinking about and looking forward to for a long time, and it is also the first family reunion since my father joined the army in 1950.
From Qilu, our hometown with green trees and vast plains, to Golmud, a desolate small city located in the hinterland of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, which is full of Gobi sand beaches, I felt somewhat lost and uncomfortable, but finally came to our home in Qinghai, where we can live together. My father's company is a big quadrangle. There is a basketball court, a library, and a TV room in the yard. There is also a large vegetable cellar outside the yard. In the south corner, there is a cluster of Chinese wolfberry trees. It is also the only green plant in the yard. It is full of red Chinese wolfberries every year.
After being settled at home, our children continued their studies, and our father also continued the work of railway construction day after day. In my spare time life, I enjoyed my own happiness. Sometimes I would go to the dormitory of the class platoon to see the uncles of the People's Liberation Army who were clean and tidy. They were dressed in ill fitting 65 style military uniforms, played with 56 type semi-automatic rifles without impact pins, talked with uncles of the Liberation Army who were several years old, and occasionally listened to the uncles' weekly class affairs meeting. Listening to the bugles in the morning, the military songs before dinner and the shouts of basketball games, people are always so passionate and excited.
Getting to know Golmud for the first time is lack of oxygen. I remember that my mother can only use pressure cooker when cooking, and only eat lettuce, potatoes, radishes, cabbage, noodles, kelp and other dishes that are easy to store. If you want to eat some fresh vegetables, you can only eat them after the Spring Festival, but occasionally you can eat lunch meat, canned meat and other special food for the army, Until today, my taste storage still retains the unforgettable meat flavor at that time. Think about how happy it was at that time. I remember when I was a child, I didn't take a nap at noon. Several friends used slippers in the living room to throw mice on the ground in the distance, which were stupefied by the strong response to the plateau. They also succeeded in killing several mice. When the weather is hot in summer, I once swam in the nearby Dasha River. I was so desperate that I came out of the water quickly. When I looked back, I was still walking on the spot. Is it a decline in my level? It should be anoxic reaction. Now when I think about it, I can't help admiring the seniors who constructed in the Kunlun Mountain permafrost test section at a higher altitude. How difficult they are, and how valuable their spirit is.
Know Golmud again, wind and sand. On weekdays, the sand will shine brightly in the sun. When the wind blows, the sky will be yellow and the ground will be yellow. The wind will blow away the sand, and it is hard to see your face even near. When the wind stops, the house will be covered with a thick sand blanket.
Goodbye to Golmud. The day of reunion is always beautiful and short. With the opening of the first phase of the Qinghai Tibet Railway, my father will go to the place where the motherland needs most and continue his migratory life. We will also transfer to other places to continue our studies. Although I am not a participant in the construction of the Qinghai Tibet Railway, I am a witness. For the builders like my father, they are suffering and happy.
Farewell to Golmud, I always miss the small town at the foot of Kunlun Mountain, and think about when to go back to see the changes brought to the towns and villages along the route after the opening of the Tianlu Road; I will meet my former classmates and teachers for a while and wonder if they are well; Take another breath of the land that nourished our growth and life.
In 1984, with the order of changing from military to work, my father and his comrades in arms took off their beloved uniforms. Then, we also went down from Golmud to a place in the east of Datong Lake in Shanxi. My father and his former comrades in arms were involved in the construction of the Datong Qinhuangdao Railway. Daqin Railway is the first heavy haul railway in China, which is also the last railway built by my father as a railway soldier. Shortly after the Daqin Railway was opened to traffic, my father died due to invalid medical treatment. Finally, he failed to realize his long cherished wish of returning to his roots, and his soul must have returned to the land where he was born and raised.
When my father died, I had been working for more than half a year. As a descendant of the railway soldiers, I also became a railway builder and continued his migratory life. After the Datong Qinhuangdao Railway, the "battle" of the group has become less and less, and the projects contracted by the units have spread everywhere. From the initial single railway construction, to roads, airports, docks, and then to the later high-speed railway, overseas projects, etc., they continue to build in the places where the motherland needs most. Our country now has the longest and fastest high-speed railway in the world, an expressway network extending in all directions, and a three-dimensional transportation network with easy access to Sichuan roads and a natural cut. Nowadays, people's travel has changed dramatically, and everyone enjoys comfortable, fast and convenient modern transportation, which is the continuation of the new generation of railway soldiers to inherit the spirit of railway soldiers.
Recalling the past is a tribute to the memory of the past, to the ancestors of the railway soldiers who fought hard, fought ceaselessly and could not be destroyed, and to the ancestors of the iron soldiers who lived and slept in peace.
Recalling the past, the grand pass is like iron, but now we are moving from beginning to end.
Weave the longitude and latitude of the earth to achieve a better future.
(e employees of CRCC)
