Season2RBRSEpisode29 - Podcast.mp3
Transcript
Welcome to Episode 29 of the Rubber Biscuit Rd. show I am your host, the Gypsy. Well, I hope you are having a good Memorial Day weekend. I hope that you have honored and remembered all of those vets that have gone before us to protect the freedoms of this country. They gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we can be free and for that we are eternally grateful and we say thank you, not only to the vets that have passed on, but also to those living today that continue to keep our freedoms intact. Well, with everything going on in the world. I've been getting depressed recently. I really have. It's been getting me really down and between the shootings in Buffalo and the shootings in Uvalde, TX and Donald Trump running his lip again and the Republicans failure to want to do anything about gun control, I just, I keep getting down in the mouth. And I'm tired of. Getting down in the mouth. OK, I I'm really tired of it, so I'm going to think happy thoughts today and we're going to talk about happy memories for me anyway. And what they mean so. Trains. Trains, planes and automobiles, but trains is what we're going to talk about. I love trains. I have loved trains ever since I was a child. Some of my earliest memories are associated with trains. When I was a child living in Kansas City and we're talking about when I say child, I'm talking about before the age of 6 years old. Like between my earliest memory and five years old. My mother would take me down to Union Station in Kansas City all the time to see the trains come in. Now Union Station today is a lot different than it was when I was a kid. There were building platforms down below you. Could you take these stairs down there where these loading platforms and you could see all these trains come in. There was a Causeway bridge, one across the tracks. You can watch the trains come in and it was just a fun afternoon out. We grab something to eat and go watch the trains. She would try about once a month or every other month, to take us on a train journey. We would go to Chicago, we would go to New Orleans just wherever on the train, and then we turn around, come right back. We wouldn't stay, we wouldn't sightsee. It was kind of strange. If you stop and think about it, we just take the train there and take the train back, just so that we could take a journey. And I still remember those trips. And I have real fond memories of. I remember one time that we went down to Union Station and there was a diesel locomotive at the platform and there was this man in a engineers cap. You know them striped those blue and white striped caps. This man in this engineer cap is waving and he's leaning over the rail and he's shaking hands. Big smile on his face and my mom's there and she's all excited and she's trying to get her way forward so that I can shake hands with this man and. Whoever this man was, and she couldn't get far enough forward for me to shake hands with him. But I do remember her saying this, she said. Jimmy, you see that man up there? See that man on the train? That's President Eisenhower. That's the President of the United States. That's the President Eisenhower. You can tell everybody some day, even your children, that you got to see President Eisenhower. So I guess today I'm telling everybody, my children included, I saw President Eisenhower, he was on a diesel locomotive in Union Station. I don't know if it was a reelection campaign that he was doing or what was going on. I have no idea whatsoever. But I did see President Eisenhower at Union Station. So now you know too. Union Station was a fantastic place when I was a kid. Now later on it fell into disrepair and they ended up having to go in and they almost. Destroyed it. OK, which was really sad, but they have preserved it and it is 100 times better than it was back in the 1970s. So I guess it was really bad from the pictures I seen. I mean, pigeons were living in there. It was, it was hot. But anyway, Union Station has always, you know, had a place in my life. It's played a role in my life. My son Ricky left for college at Boston Conservatory from Union Station. I when saw the Auschwitz exhibit at Union Station, I took my grandchildren to the Science Museum. At Union Station, it's just. A fantastic place I took. I took my. Wife Rachel's little nephew Max to see the trains that are set up the Ho N scale G scale model trains that are set up at Union Station at Christmas time. He was absolutely enthralled and fascinated. It's just. If you've never been to Union Station in Kansas City and I sound like I'm doing a commercial here and I guess maybe in a way I am, it's definitely worth your time. To go down there and check it out it it's it's an amazing place. They've done a fantastic job. Kudos to them. Hats off to them. Way to go guys, but get chance to go to Union Station and you've never been. Definitely do it. Oh, I forgot to mention. And if you haven't been to Union Station when you go go to the front of the building and check out the bullet holes in the front of the building. There was a big gun battle between police and mobsters there back in the 1930s, and there's still bullet holes in in the front of the building. So go check it out. You'll have a good time, I guarantee. Now moving on to where I am with trains you just heard how you know, I spent a lot of time at Union Station, how it kind of wraps around. My life well. Also another one of my earliest memories was getting a train set from my biological father. Don't know much about my biological father, honestly. I mean, just what I've been told and what have you. And I got very, very few memories of him. But I do remember getting that train set from him. And I remember playing with it in the apartment that we were living in in Kansas City. Don't really know what happened to him after that. I think I know. But you know that that's not a story for today. OK. What I do know is that I had this train set, and I must have played with it ceaselessly. Well, later on in my life when I was about, oh, I don't know, six or seven years old, somewhere in there. My uncle Carl. At Christmas time built me a Lionel. Train set on an 8 by 4 board. It was painted green. He it wasn't just on the board itself, but he actually made a frame for the board and I got that at Christmas time. It was a Christmas present. The whole family went in on it for me. Now Lionel trains are old scale. They're like this area between. HO&G scale and a lot of people swear by them. You've seen them before. They're the ones that have three rails on the track system. Anyway, Lionel trains are pretty famous and pretty well known, and I loved my Lionel train as a matter of fact. To this day I am still looking for the locomotive that I had with that train set, and if you ever see it somewhere, let me know. It is a blue Santa Fe locomotive with. White letter. Not yellow lettering. OK, it has white lettering, so if you ever see it someplace, you know, if we mark it or something, you might snag it for me. And then I will reimburse you. Or you might tell me where it's at because I'd sure like to get it. I don't not. I don't want to play with the train set. I just want to have that locomotive because I had such fond memories. What was funny is I went on this board. The screen board that the train set was set up on and he set it up really nice. It was a Figure 8 and it had trestle going over the top of the track and he he he did a really nice job on it. I went in and painted streets on it and I got some little construction sets and I made some houses and put on it and I played with this for like forever. I remember laying on the floor with the lights out in the room and the train running on the track and looking down the track, my face almost right on the track as the train came around so I could see that light. Heading towards me and then just sit, you know, just lay there and watch the train zoom right on by me. Oh, it was thrilling. Absolutely thrilling. For a 7 year old. I mean, what more could you ask for, right? Anyway, there came a time when, like most children, you know, I kind of grew bored with it and I needed to move on to something else. So I remember taking this 8 foot by 4 foot board and I leaned it up against the wall so that it made kind of a triangle shape. And then I created a mad scientist laboratory. Underneath there I had little toy mouse and some dried out cheese in there and I had some. Glasses and some colored water and I had a mad scientist laboratory set up in there. Yeah, I'm going to invent a creature, but uh, I continued. I mean, when I got done with the mad Scientist laboratory, I brought it back down again, continued play with my train set. Somewhere along the line, that train set went the way of all. Childhood toys. It just disappeared. I don't know. Whatever happened to it. I don't know what happened to the 8 by 4 foot board. I don't know any of that. You know what I do know is that I enjoyed it while I had it. Well. As I became an adult, trains kind of fell into the background. Now, whenever I'd see a train, I'd stop and look at it. Or uh, you know, if I saw there's places all around the country, they have old steam locomotives and they're set up on display and parks and what have you. And I I always stop and I take a look to steam locomotives just because I like them. But.
I.
I would continue to admire trains and I still wanted to go on train trips the way I had when I was a child with my mom and it never came about happening. I mean, it just didn't happen. Really, really upset me. Well, then this movie came out. Very good movie. It starred Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and Joe Claiborne. You've probably seen it. It's called Silver streak. Are you aware of that movie? If you have not seen silver streak, you need to put it on your must see list. It's one of those movies. OK. One of the best adventure romantic comedies that I have ever seen in my entire life is so well done. It would remind you of a Hitchcock film, except it's a comedy. And I mean, Richard Byrne Wilder, what would you expect? But one of the things that fascinated me about the silver streak. Was that they actually filmed on location it takes. It takes place on an Amtrak train, and it's a mystery. OK, it's a murder mystery is what it is. And this Amtrak train, when they did the filming, they filmed it in the actual locations where that Amtrak train would have been and won. Those locations was Kansas City at Union Station. And you get one last look. In your entire life at Union Station. As it looked before, it deteriorated and before they remodeled it and everything else. Now what I will tell you is there's a scene that takes place in a men's rests. In this movie. And Gene Wilder's trying to get into disguise so they can get past the police at the turnstiles. The restroom if you want to see which restroom it is, it's still there. It's on the 1st floor. You go past the the information booth. And there's a hallway off to your right. Right before you go down the stairs to go to the lower level and there's restrooms at the end of the hallway. That men's restroom at the end of that hall. Way that is the restroom that you see Gene Wilder in in Silver Streak, trying to get into the skies, to slip past the police. So just a little tiny piece of trivia there for you so that she can go check it out and stand in the restroom and say out loud. Oh, Gene Wilder was here and have. Every single person standing in that restroom think you're weird. Don't move away from you. But you know that's the price you pay for a fan point fanboying over a bathroom. Anyway, own women if you want to go in there and see you know where Gene Wilder stood at to, you know, film, part of Silver Streak, that's fine. Just don't be surprised by anything you see in there. OK, just fair warning. Anyway. That silver streak repeats my interest in trains again and. For a while there, I got on this kick to where every train movie I could get my hands on I was. I was seeing at North by Northwest. Gosh, I can't even name all of them. There was a bunch of them, you know, that were trained related, including murder on the Orient Express, which every incarnation of that movie I've ever seen. I've absolutely loved the most recent one is really, really done well. And if you haven't seen it, you definitely need to see it started. And it's Bragg all, and I don't know if you know who he is or not. But if you saw the wild, Wild West with Will Smith and Kevin Kline. He plays Doctor Loveless in there and but as Hercule Perot he does an excellent job. He's he's a wonderful actor, wonderful director. So if you haven't seen the most recent incarnation of Murder on the Orient Express it it put that on your to watch list also, along with Silver Streak. I am the type of person. That when I get to a train track and the trains going across the track, I don't get impatient. I don't get bummed out on my God, it's a train. Ohh. I gotta sit here and wait for this train to go. I enjoy it. I roll down the window and I listen and I listen to quack, quack, quack, quack, quack of the train going by and I enjoy the movement and I like looking at the artwork. All the tagging that's done on the sides of the box cars. I like watching the tagging as it goes by, you know. When I was younger. The tagging that was done was hobos, leaving their mark on the side of a boxcar. I remember I remember 1 hope I used to watch for his mark all the time. It was a it was a quick little sketch of a palm tree with a garden, a sombrero sleep underneath it and that was his mark and I would watch for it on the box cars. And I'd go. Oh, there goes the sombrero dude, you know? And it was kind of fun to look for that mark. But now all this tagging, it's it's art. It's literal art, honestly.
Really.
I think it would be amazing to see a boxcar in a museum that was totally tagged by different artists and completely covered, and I mean what an art piece that would be, what an art statement that would be. It would just be something to see. I'm telling you what? But yeah, I don't get them. Patient waiting for the train to go by. I I enjoy watching them. People by the people that get impatient. I don't understand it at all. They. You know, they try to beat the train. Big mistake. They try to go around the the drop bars crossfires there. Big mistake, OK. People would get impatient, end up in accidents with trains and that's not a good thing. I saw a bad one up in Chicago one time I was driving semi truck and it was on Christmas Eve and. I'm going down this drop yard to drop this trailer, and the traffic's backed up and I'm like, what's going on. It shouldn't be like this on Christmas Eve. I've been in this drop yard before and the road was generally abandoned, so I'm sitting there seeing there, sitting there and. Nothing's moving. I get out of the truck. And I walked down the road, see what's going on and a car full of people had tried to beat a train and they didn't make it. Not only did they not beat the train, they did not beat death either. Death took them that night on Christmas. See. It was senseless. It was a useless waste of life. Their family has to always remember now that you know their loved ones died on Christmas Eve. But it was a it was a horrendous scene. How badly mangled the car was and had to sit there for a long time before they were able to clear the area, you know, to where we could get by. I don't say that to bring you down because I want this to be a happy thing. It's just take this as a warning from me. OK, keep it happy when you come up to a train when you're at a, you know, cross rail and railroad crossing and that that bar is down that gates down. So what? Sit there, enjoy the train going by. Listen to quack, quack, quack. Look at the artwork on the side of the cars. Don't get in a hurry. Don't be impatient. There's nothing in this world that you have to get too quick enough that involves your wife, OK? So anyway, getting past that because we want happy, happy joy, joy here. I had a. Well, a lot of you that listen to the podcast, you know that I used to have a mobile unit and I'd go do the shows all over the country every year. And one of the places that I went was Laconia, NH, one of the people that was one of my regulars, I worked on all the time. Was this guy? That was an engineer on the New York City to Washington, DC, run on AMC. Track and he come up and he get work done for me all the time. And we talked trains and he found out how interested I was in trains. But before he was an engineer, he was a railroad accident scene investigator. And he had gone on one investigation up in Chicago. Not the same. Not the same wreck that I witnesses was something different. A little more major than my deal. I don't know if you recall it or not. I can't remember the exact year that it happened, but the city of New Orleans. Uh. Spring. It crashed in Chicago. It derailed a bunch of people were killed. It was a pretty, pretty bad accident. He was the investigator on that. And. About a year after it happened, he had to go back up there with the team and they had to comb the area again just to see if there was any evidence that they overlooked. I don't know what the procedure on that is, but they whatever the reason, they had to comb the. Area again well. He found something, and when he found it, he asked his supervisor what they want to do with him. They said we'll just toss it. Well, he held on to it and he had it. And then when he found out, I like trains, he thought about me. So this one year when he came up to Laconia, he had this present for me and he handed it to me. And he says, do you know what that is? And I said, yeah, it's a throttle handle off a locomotive. And he says, well, that's for you. And I said thanks, he said. But it isn't just any throttle handle. I said, oh, he said that is the throttle handle from the city of New Orleans. The derailed in Chicago. And my jaw hit the ground. I was holding in my hand. The actual throttle handle from the city of New Orleans, the derail in Chicago. And I said, Are you sure you want to give this to me? And he laughed. He says, yeah, he says I'm absolutely, 100% positively sure that is yours. And so I still have it to this day. It means a lot to me. It's very special and God rests the souls of the people that died in that accident. But I honor you folks you know by excuse me, by keeping that handle safe and sound. And uh. You know, I always will. Anyway, moving on from that, see, I told you this was going to be all about trains. Then I, I I wasn't kidding up there. Laconia NH They have a train that goes around the outside of Lake Winnipesaukee. And it's use kind of like a commuter train, but it's really cool because the skims the edge of the lake and I bet you can't guess who used to ride that train every single year when he went up there to Laconia to work. Yeah, that's right. Yours truly. I just. I'd get on the train, just ride it completely around, like not going anywhere. I'm not commuting anywhere. I just. I just wanted to train. Right. And I got the. Right. And I mean, train rides are fantastic. I remember taking my boys on a train ride down in Branson, MO, and this train goes down in dark. It's on, then turns around and comes back. It reverses direction and it's just, I don't know, it's about an hour train ride, but my boys were absolutely. Thrilled, Michael and Ricky oh, they absolutely loved it. I loved it. We had a great time. It was too much fun. I don't know if their mom loved it or not. I think she had a good time. I'm not sure, but I know the I know the boys loved it and they probably loved it just as much as I did. And of course I go on other trains. Too like I. The one at Silver Dollar City. I've been on that one several times and you know, just a little tiny, you know, fun train, but still train regardless. And the one out of gauge park here in Topeka, Charlie, the Choo Choo, I've been on him several times. You know anything about Charlie? The Choo Choo here, let me catch you up. The book The dark. Tower by Stephen King. He talks about the strain and he talks about this tunnel in the book. Now, if you haven't read the book, I'm not going to. I'm not going to be a buzzkill and, you know, plot destroyer for you. But I will tell you that he talks about Charlie, the Choo Choo, and he talks about this train. This tunnel and Charlie the Choo Choo on the tunnel he's referring to, is out of gauge. Spark Charlie. The Choo Choo is the gauge park train and the tunnel he strung about his little tunnel as the train goes through where they store the actually store the train at when they're not using it. But what I think is funny is he makes it sound like this is a deep, dark long tunnel. And it's just this little short tunnel that you could walk through in about 5 minutes. It's it's it's not very big at all. But anyway, yes, we got us will ever be a gauge park here in Topeka. We have, Charlie, that shoot you of all things. And I've wrote him. Gosh, I think since day one since he was first, you know, put into the park, which he's always been a lot of fun to ride. And. I just ohh man, I tell you what I I'm almost a nut when it comes to strange. You know, I have the G scale model. Emmett Kelly. Circus sets one and two. I got both sets and about half of them are actually signed by Emmett Kelly Junior. And it's funny. I used to go to the Mckelly Clown Festival every year. And I'd get a couple of them signed by him and this one year that I went up there, I had this, I took the locomotive with me from set one and I took the cold tender and I wanted to get the locomotive and the cold tender sign. Plus there was one of the baggage cars I wanted to get signed too. And for some reason he had always been really nice about signing these. For some reason, he copped an attitude and he wasn't going to sign him and he just, I don't know what the problem there was. So I talked to you, son, Joy and Joy said he'd talked to him. And. That night, after the banquet which I had tickets to. Aye, joy came up, he says. Do you have those with you? I said, well, yeah, they're on my car. He says go get them. I talked to dad. He's going to sign them for you. I said OK. So I went and got him. And Emmett signed him. And he says that's it. I'm not signing any more. And he turned around, walked off, and it was just really odd for me that he had acted like that because the year before, when they had made the mistake of moving the festival out to the fairgrounds, we were watching some of the seminars, and Emmitt was out there in the tent, and he came over and sat down next to me. And we sat there and we talked and it was friendly and we were talking about the train sets and just, I don't know, it was just really odd. His sudden turn the next year into, you know. Being anti social I guess is the term used. I don't know what it was but anyway I got half of them signed. I wish I could have eventually got all of them signed, but that didn't happen and he passed away several years ago. But I do have such one and two and they are signed. There's somebody in my will that's going to be very, very happy someday because I've left those to this person and I'm not going to say who the person is because it's none of their business and they'll find out when the time comes, which will be after I am 100 years old and they'll get over it. So anyway, I do have that Emma Kelly train set. Back here. Ohh. Goodness. Two years ago, I think it was. I put together an HO scale train set and I had plans to build this thing up. I was going to do all the buildings and what have you. I had it up in the breezeway and I played with it for a while. I started realizing that I really didn't have time to devote to this hobby, and that's what it is. It's a hobby. When you get in trains and it's a rewarding hobby if you don't have anything else that you're doing in your life. It's a great hobby to have, but unfortunately I am a busy guy and there's a lot of things I do so I knew I was going to have to go ahead and sell the set. So this past spring I put set up for sale on on marketplace on Facebook and this guy who's a who's a professor up at, I think it's K state or the little college that's up there. I can't remember. Anyway he he contacted me. And he wanted to buy the set for his. Children. And I said sure. And he asked if I could deliver it. And I said yes, I can deliver it for you, which I did. I took it to him there in Manhattan, and we carried it inside, put in his basement, got set up. I explained how to use it and everything. And he thanked me very much. He said his kids have been wanting to train set and the next day, he sent me. Video of his boy. Nice girl's children playing with the train set and he said thank you so much. You made two little children. So very happy. And I'm telling you what that made me so very happy. The fact I could put a smile on a child's face was. Something that I love. Trains that was that was great. That was fantastic. Any time you can drop a smile onto a child's face and do it with something that you love. And that they now love that same thing also where you've accomplished a lot, because what you've done is you've passed on. A well, I don't know what the term would be you'd use here, but you've passed on a piece of you I guess is what you've done and you've given someone a piece of you that's a happy piece of you, not a sad piece of you, not an angry piece of you, not a grieving piece of you. It's a happy piece of you and it's a happy piece of you that you've. There. And it is always so very important to share those happy moments that mean something in your life with others. Because when you share them with others. Those people you share them with, they'll pass them on again someday and they'll make other people happy. And boy, I'm telling you what that has more value than anything else in the world to make. People happy. And I don't use the term to help people be happy, no. You're making people be happy because they may have been sad. So you make them do something different, you make them happy. But. It is a valuable gift and it's one that everybody should strive to do is to make sure that you spread the happy. And I hope that's what I've done today is, I hope I've spread the happy with my story about trains because like I said I what can I say? I love trains and I always will love trains and you know. If someone out there wants to buy me a buy me my own railroad, you know that I can travel around the country on. Hey, I'd appreciate that, but if you can't do that, that's OK. Just next time you're at a railroad crossing and you see the train go by. Take a moment, listen to the quack, quack, quack and look at the view before artwork on the side of the cars and think about me, your friendly neighborhood Gipsy who is saying until next time may you and yours be blessed later Gators bye bye now.
