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We used to have at least one (too young to tell the difference) locomotive that went to the mills in our littleish town when I was a kid. There were chunks of coke along the tracks and we’d have ‘coke fights’ on the way back from school. We didn’t know what it was, it was just fun to throw at each other.
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When we were young, my father’s brother lived in a home by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Ventura, CA. Their backyard property line was probably 20 yards from the raised railroad track.
My sister and I always loved to stay overnight at Uncle Gene’s place so we could watch the trains go by during the night. In the daytime we’d get to wave at the engineer and conductor.
Funny the things that were so simple were also exciting to children in the late 40s.
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Where we live it’s dead quiet. We’re about 6 miles west of the railroad tracks but on a still night with just the right conditions we can hear the trains going north or south in the distance.
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We have tracks running nearby, and they go straight through our small town. At my age, I still get a thrill watching them go by. Especially if I get to hear a toot!
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In the winter of ’93-’94, Grant and I were spending our first winter back on his home territory–after 28 years in SoCal, we moved back to MN (for 18 years). That first winter we were living in a tiny rental house in a tiny town in the middle of Minnesota lakes country.
Three things were right across the street from our tiny house which perched on a tiny hill: the grain elevator and the best country cafe in the county to the south, and the Burlington Northern railway line to the east.
Freight trains came by every day, shaking both us and the house. The track was only about 50 feet from our wall. Because it was a tiny town, the freight trains did not slow down when they flew through about 8 or 9 every night, well after dark in the winter time.
It was worth living there for six months just to get the one visual that my brain captured on one cold and snowy night in December or January.
The snow had been falling heavily for hours. The undisturbed layer across everything, including the railroad tracks, was about 15″ deep.
I heard the westbound evening freight train drawing near and got to the front door just in time to see the lead locomotive, at full speed, barreling through the accumulated snow, the swinging back-n-forth great light on the front silhouetting the still falling snow, and the cow-catcher throwing show about 25-30 feet to each side of the tracks, completely back lit by the headlight.
What a delicious thing I got to see that night.
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I love the visual. Memories like that stay pictures in our minds, captured and held closely.
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I can see it!
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We used to get that in Utah. Back in the early 70s we’d go out west of the Great Salt Lake where the tracks went west through the desert. When it snowed those trains plowing through the snow would create a bow wave of snow that would swirl back the length of the train. Wish I could have seen it at night as you did.
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The Furano Line runs between the lavender fields in Furano, Hokkaido Prefecture, which are filled with bright flowers from late June until early August.
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Just lovely Lucille 🙂
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Mornin’ kids!
https://twitter.com/TheFigen/status/1290980721096568832
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I love Chuck Norris. I don’t like this because those crazies will see it as a suggestion.
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Mornin’ Mom!
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WEED! I feel compelled to acknowledge that I busted up laughing.
Oh, dear.
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(Me, too – LOL) Mornin’ Sharon!
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Mornin’ WeeWeed!
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Mornin’ Stella!
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Could use him around here. Mississippi COVID cases are skyrocketing, I was in a local grocery store yesterday and it was packed. I only saw a few people wearing masks – none of them were staff – and everyone was right in everyone elses’ faces.
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Yupper – the “social distancing” escapes our local Karen squad, as well. Afternoon Z’s! Y’all back home yet?
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Oh yeah, we’re sorta glued to the homestead due to my mom’s sitter wearing out faster than my mom. Can’;t both leave now she’s back out of the hospital.
Czarina’s in NOLA today dealing with the AC in our house there, you can live without a lot of things in NOLA but AC ain’t one of them. Can’t believe that people lived in that fetid swamp for centuries before AC came along.
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I’ve often wondered that myself……but then, they didn’t live very damlong anyway, what with the typhoid, etc.
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Yellow fever was a biggie too. All those skeeters and open windows …
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Yellow fever used to sweep thru NOLA and kill a goodly number of people quite regularly. All part of the problem of living in a fetid swamp.
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Did up here, too – the oldest cemetery in town has a big mound where 25% of S’port died one year and they just had to mound ’em up.
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There’s a small chapel on Rampart Street they call(ed) the yellow fever chapel, it’s where they piled up the victims until they could get them planted. I can just imagine a closed room of dead bodies in NOLA summer.
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NOLA people widda big bux used to vacay or buy houses over on the Gulf Coast from
Pass Christian over to Biloxi. Other option was up in Pearl River County from Picayune up to Poplarville where they’d buy or rent cheaper getaways in the woods. They’d spend as much time outside of NOLA as they could, some with businesses they didn’t need to really be at full time would just live on the coast or in PRC from about June thru September.
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All the diseases and smells mixed together into MALARIA. That is “mal” bad, “aria” air. Add heat. Leave town…
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My father had malaria when he was a boy living in Mobile, AL. He occasionally had a recurrence. I only remember one when I was about 13.
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Oh, man, that was great. I’m still laughing. Good morning, Ms. Wee.
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Afternoon Mike!
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Mornin’ all. Sunny, humid and hot here.
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Not that I like hot AND humid. We are having low humidity days for a few days this week. Blessings!!!
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Morning everyone 🙂
So, I searched for golden age of illustration dogs, and this came up. I could not believe – what a find!
Gustaf Tenggren, Swedish illustrator of the forties-fifties that you probably are very familiar with. You just didn’t know it… He has illustrated many well-known Little Golden Books. Disney prepared for his first full length animated film Snow White, he was wanted John Bauer to be artistic leader and add that very special Old World touch to the project. Due to Bauer’s tragic death, he instead found his conceptual artist in Gustaf Tenggren. Much of the film’s marvellous settings, and the feeling of enchanted forest embedded deep into European folklore is due to Tenggren’s soft, yet meticulous style. Homage to Gustaf Tenggren, 1896-1970. ~ From https://pagefiddler.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/gustaf-tenggren-disneys-chaperone-to-old-world-fairytales-and-illustrator-in-his-own-right/
Here is one we all know, and I have always loved 🙂
So should really be working, but when you’re artsy you have to “art”, it’s in your soul put there by God. So I’m multi-tasking putting my doggity day picture here. She looks like she could be the poky puppies sister, or at least his friend! hahaha
Have a great day everyone! 🙂
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OMG I actually gasped when I scrolled down to this picture. She is so incredibly cute.
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Stella, I wanted you to know I am loving the train pics you have been putting up, I’ve had a great affection for trains since I was about 4 years old, when mom and dad would leave me with my nana and gramps, so they could work longer hours. Nana and Gramps at the time lived in Aberdeen, Md., and every day Gramps would walk me down Old Post Rd. to the train track crossing on Rte. 40.
We’d watch the trains come through, and Gramps would get us lunch, and sometimes, he’d get me a small toy or some ice cream.
This was way before Ol’ lunchbucket Joe would ride the Acela to Wilmington, De., but the same line!
Thanks again, hope I’m not increasing your workload too much. Thanks to all of you hard-workin’ Admins!
P.S. hope Menagerie’s injury is progressing well. I’ve had a similar experience, I trust her when she says it is painful. Mine was two sleepless nights in the hospital, frantically pressing the morphine drip button, to no avail. The overnite nurses liked me anyway…
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Glad you like the trains! One of my best buddies was a train buff, and we enjoyed riding on some of the Colorado trains together. He’s gone now, but I still love them.
Menagerie has had her surgery and is still in the hospital. I’m sure she will check in when she can.
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What a wonderful memory to have. The train……….not the hospital. 🙄
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Thanks for your concern Mike. I am home now and using some heavy duty narcotics. I was given two nerve blocks after the surgery which were supposed to last 12-24 hours. For me it was about 36 or so, a real blessing, but I am struggling with some pain now. I hope that I’ll be over the worst hump with that in a day or two. Until then I plan to take the painkillers as prescribed and ride it out.
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I am very careful about taking any at all unless I am certain I need them. In a case like this, I am certain you need them. I remember reading something about pets healing and that they heal much better if the pain is taken care of. I am sure that is true for humans, too. So, I hope that the pain meds work for you. 🙂 ❤
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Thanks aus.
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❤
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I’m glad you’re home.
Ankle is a real touchy area for injury. They might have gotten the expression, “a bundle of nerves” from ankle injuries.
I know you ain’t having any fun right now, but hang in there.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Prayers up for you.
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Went and spent the money to buy a 2-pack of Fleur de Sel de Guerande. It was a lark, more than anything else, it’s suppposed to be (according to salt experts – now there’s a niche career) THE finishing salt.
The hand harvested sea salt from the marshes of Guerande, France. Now there’s a lot of artisan salt harvesters but, according to the label, this salt is manually harvested sustainably (is the Atlantic in danger of running out of salt?), is harvested off of the tops of the deposits avoiding the mud deposits that might taint the taste AND is harvested with savoir-faire! I’d have used a rake or something but, hey…
I tasted it…it tastes like salt. I tested it against regular sea salt and…they both taste like salt. I Googles ‘what’s the difference between Fleur de Sel and sea salt’ and got the answer: “About $1.50 an ounce, sucker!”. I’m told that the fleur de sel has a much smaller grain size than processed sea salt, it’s the dusty stuff right off of the top of the salt pan and has a taste that’s redolent of higher mineral content abd great chefs in the know use it to finish their dishes.
I’m going to make a Bloody Mary, finish the Belvedere redolent drink with the salt and compliment my fine choice of a finishing salt. 3 or 4 of those and I won’t care about the fact I may have bought something on par with a Chia Pet.
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