Seriously, You're a Train Robber?

"Seriously? You're a train robber?"

That is usually the reaction I get when I tell people that I used to rob trains for a living.

And honestly, I understand the skepticism.

I mean, what kind of joke is this?

People usually start looking at me like they're trying to decide whether I'm a prankster, whether I'm secretly filming them for some bizarre reality show, or whether they should slowly back toward the nearest exit.

But yes.

I really was a train robber.

And in all seriousness, that was my reality.

I just happened to land a job as a professional train robber at a tourist railroad where passengers actually paid money to be robbed.

To enhance their historical experience.

Well...

Maybe not historical accuracy.

Definitely the experience part.

Meet the Gang

The Robbery

My partner in crime was the leader of our gang, Blackjack Raven, aka Sparky. I was Krazy Ani.

Now, when you hear "train robber," your imagination probably goes straight to the romanticized version of the Old West.

You know the picture.

A couple of rugged outlaws on horseback, galloping alongside a moving train, leaping onto the cars while the dust flies behind them.

Yeah.

We didn't have horses.

We didn't even ride alongside the train.

We ran out from behind a bathroom.

A state park bathroom, to be precise.

Then we'd come charging toward the train with our fake guns blazing, climb aboard, and yell,

"GET YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! WHERE'S THE MONEY BOX?"

And proceed to rob the passengers.

For entertainment.

I realize this sounds like the world's strangest job description.

And it was.

Sometimes the people at the golf course near the "stake out" spot didn't even know there was a train robbery scheduled.

They'd see two suspicious-looking outlaws standing next to their cars, apparently preparing to commit some sort of Wild West crime, and occasionally someone would call the police.

Which, honestly, is pretty responsible citizen behavior.

Fortunately for us, Sparky's son happened to be in law enforcement.

So he'd get the call, hear that someone had reported suspicious-looking cowboys preparing to rob a train, and have the distinct pleasure of informing the well-meaning caller:

"Yep. I know about it. Everything's fine."

Nothing says "family business" quite like the sheriff's son getting called because his dad is apparently preparing to rob a train.

Then we'd do the actual robbery.

And I should probably clarify that my firearms were fake, his had blanks, our robbery was scripted, and the passengers had purchased tickets knowing there was a possibility that some lunatic in a mask was going to climb aboard and steal their imaginary money.

Although the children didn't always get that memo.

I made a lot of kids cry.

A LOT.

Occasionally I'd realize I'd gone a little too far and try to reassure them.

I'd pull off my mask and say,

"Don't worry! Everything's going to be okay! We're just having fun!"

And then they would really scream.

So I'd put the mask back on.

"Fine. I get it. I must be ugly."

Apparently, my attempts at emotional reassurance needed some work.

Then we'd find the money box.

And this was always the most devastating part of the robbery.

We'd open it...

And there was no money.

There was a stuffed duck.

A duck.

Imagine being a professional outlaw, risking everything to pull off a daring train robbery, only to discover that your big score is a stuffed waterfowl.

We were not pleased.

So naturally, we'd escalate.

If we couldn't get the money, we'd take hostages.

Now, obviously, we weren't actually going to kidnap anybody.

We were playing bad guys, not trying to become actual criminals.

So we had to find a perfectly legitimate reason why every potential hostage was completely unsuitable for our purposes.

We'd start asking questions.

"Can you cook?"

"Can you sew buckskin?"

"Can you skin a bear?"

That last one was particularly useful.

Sparky would usually pick a lady he knew was married.

He'd point at her and ask:

"Can you skin a bear?"

Then he'd point at the man sitting next to her.

"Well, I know you've seen a bear... but can you skin a bear?"

And there would be the laugh.

Perfect.

Hostage rejected.

Too bad.

We'd leave them right where we found them.

Because apparently our gang had extremely high standards for kidnapping.

And then came the part where my criminal career would inevitably come to an end.

The conductor would capture me.

He'd tie me up and force me to sing for my freedom.

I'd sing.

He'd capture me again.

I'd sing again.

This went on for months.

For about four months, actually.

And somewhere during all of this highly professional criminal activity, I made the unfortunate mistake of falling in love with my captor.

A couple of months later, we got married.

It was only after the wedding that I started wondering if perhaps I had developed a tiny case of Stockholm syndrome.

I mean...

He did spend four months tying me up and forcing me to sing for my freedom.

And then I married him.

The evidence was not exactly in my favor.

But there's one thing that's never really changed.

The first words I ever said to my husband, with a gun pointed at his head, were:

"Get your hands in the air! Where's the money box?"

These days, it's changed just a little.

Now I usually just look at him and say,

"Dear, where's your wallet?"

So apparently, not much has changed.

But as ridiculous as all of this sounds, that job taught me some things that have stayed with me ever since.

Lessons from an Outlaw

What That Job Actually Taught Me

• How to completely commit to a character
• How to capture an audience's attention, and just as importantly, how to keep it
• How to improvise when things didn't go according to plan
• How to solve problems while still staying in character
• How to read an audience and recognize when something wasn't working
• How to entertain people even when I wasn't technically what they'd bought a ticket for

They came for a train ride.

They got a train robbery.

And by the end of the ride, many of them were delighted by the unexpected adventure.

Those skills turned out to be much more useful than I ever imagined.

Because today, I'm still stealing audiences.

I'm just not taking their money anymore.

I'm taking their attention.

And I'm taking it for a very different reason.

The Turn

From Train Robber to Confidence Cowgirl

I now bring those same storytelling, improvisation, and audience-engagement skills into schools.

One of my assemblies is called Unsticking the Sticky Stories: A Cowgirl's Guide to Self-Esteem. The other is Find Your Brave: A Resilience Assembly.

And while I absolutely love making kids laugh by telling them I used to make children pee their pants for a living, that's not actually why I do this. I do it because I used to be a kid like them. A kid who was afraid of a lot of things. A kid who had circumstances that made life harder than I expected it to be.

I was pulled out of school in fifth grade, and if you've ever heard the old saying that getting pulled out of school might eventually lead you into a life of crime...

Well.

In my case, they were technically right.

Just not in the way anybody expected it to be.

I eventually found my way forward. And along the way, I learned that the skills we develop to survive difficult things can sometimes become the very skills we use to help someone else.

The storytelling I learned as a train robber can help a child imagine themselves as the hero of their own story. The improvisation I learned on a moving train can help me teach kids that when life doesn't go according to plan, there is always another way. The confidence I had to develop to stand in front of a train full of strangers can help a child find the courage to stand up to a bully, raise their hand in class, try something they've never tried before, or believe that their dream might actually be possible.

Sometimes we even make a rope dance. Because apparently, if a former train robber can make an ordinary piece of rope do something it has absolutely no business doing, maybe an impossible dream isn't quite as impossible as it looks.

That's what I want kids to discover.

They already have more tools inside them than they realize.

Sometimes they just need someone to help them find the handles.

And that's what I get to do now. I get to take the skills I developed while pretending to be the bad guy and use them to help kids become the heroes of their own stories. I get to teach teachers how to capture an audience's attention and keep it. I get to help students build self-esteem and resilience. I get to help kids find their brave.

And maybe that's the funniest part of the whole story.

I spent years learning how to play a villain.

Now I get to use everything I learned to help kids believe they can be the hero.

Because it doesn't matter what challenges you've been through. If you choose to do something positive with your hardship and your setbacks, you can actually change lives in ways you never thought possible.