Night Stage in New Smyrna Beach
I took out the garbage and saw the brightly lit star in the sky. I could hear the night crickets chirping away. They sounded like the string section of an orchestra. In the distance, I could hear a changing tune of the train running down the east coast track. The track was across the Inter coastal Waterway. I was wondering what kind of lifestyle the engineer must have running a train at night when it seems most everyone is at home tucked away for the night. Does he get to sleep during the day? Is the salary worth his time and effort to ride the rails at night? Is this a family man's job or does it take a special kind of person? Why don't you hear about any female train engineers? There are female commercial plane pilots, but this is rare. One argument to keep the train is that much can be moved across the states for one price. The freight train has been around for ages. The people train has had many changes over the years. The night is very peaceful outside. I am including an old photo taken on my birthday when I turned 40 years old. This is my former boss Charles and I the one time he came out here to visit. I was suprised and pleased. I hope he is doing well now.
posted by seaside @ 6:08 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:35 AM,
Lew said…
Joe. Joe was an x-ray student at the hospital in Phoenix when I was an x-ray technician. As it turned out he lived around the corner from me. Joe was born in this country but his parents were of Mexican descent. His father worked on the railroad in Phoenix. He use to refer to his father as a Mexican Archie Bunker because in his fathers eyes if you weren't Mexican then you were lower than cow plop. He invited me over to his hopuse one week-end since all that I had to do was walk around the corner and there I was. When I entered the house and he introduced me to his father, the reception was cold and the look in his eyes told me that I was peronna non grata (latin for person not welcome). Although we remained friends, I never went back to his house. His father is the only person that I have ever met who worked on the railroad trains but unfortunately I wasn't able to ask him any questions of what it was like. But working at night is tough because it is so unnatural for the body. When I use to have to work a second shift at the hospital from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am I always found battling the fatigue to be tough. From 1:00 am to about 2:30 am was the toughest time to stay awake. But I had the two janitors who would come and keep me company, Karl and Tom. Karl was the janitor for the x-ray department and Tom was the janitor for the medical laboratory which was adjacent to the x-ray department. Tom would bring me a giant glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a bunch of glazed donuts that were just delivered because they were still warm. How good that was. He and I would sit there drinking the orange juice and eating a couple of nice warm glazed donuts. One day he told Karl that if anything ever happened to him that he wanted me to be one of his pall bearers. Three weeks later he died from a stroke and I was one of the pall bearers. Kind of spooky as if he had a premonition of the future. Mary and I went to see the movie Valkyrie yesterday and it was pretty good. It was about a true story of a failed plot by some of Hitler's generals to assisinate him. Of course I had my popcorn and soda which is traditional. A movie just isn't the same without the soda and popcorn (with lots of salt and butter). The admission price was $ 5.00 because it was Tuesday but the overpriced popcorn and soda offset the ticket savings somewhat. The problem is that I just can't get the popcorn at home to taste the same as the movie theater popcorn. I have tried all of the different kinds of popcorn kernels in the store but it just isn't the same. Jiffy Pop is fun because everything is already in a little small pan and the aluminum foil top puffs up with the expanding popcorn inside. But once again, it is the taste. Just not the same. I have tried kettle corn at a fair once and it is pretty good with the carmalized sugar coating. Reminds me of cracker jacks but without the peanuts and toy. The cracker jack peanuts are so hard, you could break a tooth on them. And the toys in the package are now made of paper. Gone are the secret decoder rings and little plastic toy soldier, and tiny compass. The neat stuff. But getting back to the trains, I like going to the train station in Orlando and watch the train come in. I like to stand on the platform as it pulls in because the ground seems to shake beneath my feet and the rumble of the noise from the engines is very impressive. And the train station here in Orlando is still of the old style modeled after Grand Station in New York. They even have a couple of the old wooden telephone booths from fifty years ago with working phones in them. It is an adventure and best of all it is free to go watch much like you're going to the beach is free and a fun thing to do. Well, enjoy the coming cool front. Have a good day. Lew
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