From A Wide Spot In The Road
- Thread starter drifter
- Start date
drifter
Well-known Member
Have spent the morning reading about and researching hearing aids online.
My wife needs a hearing aid. Hers quit working a couple months ago. A local
hearing aid place fixed hers but it didn't last long and now she without. She's
had hearing problems all her life. Now she needs another. But hearing aids are
expensive.
So is insurance in Oklahome, both home owners and auto. Cancelled my auto
insurance. My home owners went up considerably. All my stuff coming due about
the same time. I keep checking the mail, thinking the Millionaire of old might have
misplaced my address back when he was mailing out million dollar checksand
found it recently and mailed me a check. To date, no such luck.
My wife gave me an old cap she 's had in storage about forty years. I never did like
it back when. She kept it back when because it celebrated a dying industry. I now
have been wearing it because the wind has been blowing so. I never liked baseball
caps but now for the first time ever, I own one. The brim is too large for the cap.
But I'm wearing it. Take a look.
My wife needs a hearing aid. Hers quit working a couple months ago. A local
hearing aid place fixed hers but it didn't last long and now she without. She's
had hearing problems all her life. Now she needs another. But hearing aids are
expensive.
So is insurance in Oklahome, both home owners and auto. Cancelled my auto
insurance. My home owners went up considerably. All my stuff coming due about
the same time. I keep checking the mail, thinking the Millionaire of old might have
misplaced my address back when he was mailing out million dollar checksand
found it recently and mailed me a check. To date, no such luck.
My wife gave me an old cap she 's had in storage about forty years. I never did like
it back when. She kept it back when because it celebrated a dying industry. I now
have been wearing it because the wind has been blowing so. I never liked baseball
caps but now for the first time ever, I own one. The brim is too large for the cap.
But I'm wearing it. Take a look.
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
Something just occurred to me, something that has made me think and say over the years since the internet made its debut.
It is a temporary storage facility. I've lost so much stuff, stuff I dinn't want to lose notnot printing it out and kedeping a hard copy.
I was looking at a photo at a railroad crossing and thinking back to those times I stood at those tracks, lunch box in hand watching
passengers on the used to be Texas Zephyr and that remninded me of a story i wrote one about that train. I went to look for it and all my stories are gone, all the documents. That makes me sad. It's not that they were good stories or bad stories it is that they together pictured my life in words. All my memories went into those documents. Now all gone. Dang it!
It is a temporary storage facility. I've lost so much stuff, stuff I dinn't want to lose notnot printing it out and kedeping a hard copy.
I was looking at a photo at a railroad crossing and thinking back to those times I stood at those tracks, lunch box in hand watching
passengers on the used to be Texas Zephyr and that remninded me of a story i wrote one about that train. I went to look for it and all my stories are gone, all the documents. That makes me sad. It's not that they were good stories or bad stories it is that they together pictured my life in words. All my memories went into those documents. Now all gone. Dang it!
Last edited:
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Drifter could you do a System Restore on your computer to get the stories back again? Maybe you backed them up on a disc or a drive and forgot?
That plant link had something called cellular therapy in it. They take your good blood cells and separate them and push the red ones back into you where they wind up inside your lungs to help heal the damaged cells in there. Something like that.
drifter
Well-known Member
I don’t how but I’ll look into it.
Meanderer
Supreme Member
The Texas Zephyr
by drifter - Jan 15, 2016
When I was growing up in north central Texas I walked to school every day. The most vivid memories I have of that time were those memories associated with junior high school and waiting on a passenger train to load and unload its passengers. Now the school I attended was about three and a half miles from my house and it took about an hour to walk if I just struck out and walked, which I couldn’t do that because I had to cross a railroad tracks. From my section of town there were two streets that crossed the tracks on the way up town and on across town to my school. One of those streets crossed the tracts far to the north of where I lived and that route added an extra half hour of walking time. The other route was Seventh Street, a major traffic artery to the east side of town where I lived and most mornings Seventh Street was blocked by a passenger train. I would wait on that train ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes each morning. Some boys in a hurry to cross would crawl under the train.
One morning as I stood by the tracts waiting for the train to load its passengers and move on, an ambulance came up on the blocked crossing. It sat there several minutes with its lights flashing and its siren wailing but the train did not move. Finally the driver turned around and went off to find another passage across the tracts. Another time, a boy about my own age became impatient and started to crawl under the train just as it lurched forward, moving. I held my breath and turned away because I had done this several times and I knew how hard it was to crawl under the train in a hurry. The boy didn’t make it. The train ran over his leg, severing it just below the knee. After that I was afraid to try again.
On my way to school most days the train blocking my path was a long silver train with a silver engine and a black streak that ran its entire length. It was the longest passenger train to come through our town. It was said to be one of the fastest trains on the tracts.
I would stand there beside those tracts, my lunch box in hand, looking at the people seated behind those windows staring back at me. Sometimes one of them would wave and I would wave back and I wondered to what far off destinations they were going. I could see myself seated behind those windows, in the club car, having my breakfast, impatient that the train did not get under way again, taking me to some distant place.
The newest trains had names and this sleek, shining train was the Texas Zephyr. One morning standing there looking in, I saw a porter in his neatly pressed uniform and his distinctive cap lean over and light the cigarettes of a gentleman and his lady. How I longed to ride that train.
Some years later, en-route to Ft. Lewis, Washington I rode the Texas Zephyr. The trip took almost four days and it was a royal experience. Out northwest of Denver the train struggled as we climbed ever higher, seeking out a pass that would let us cross over those majestic mountains. In Wyoming west of Laramie the train was halted by deep snow. We sat there one evening and all night waiting for a repair train to come from the west to clear the tracts. We got off the train and threw snowballs at each other and some of us walked back down the tracks several hundred yards and were amazed how steep the grade was. Off in the valley below we could see a herd of elk and a stream that ran through the valley and from where we stood the stream was no bigger than a string and there were a dozen shades of green among the grasses and the shrubbery and the trees and I marveled at such beauty and God’s grand creation.
I did not sleep that night, instead I played gin with some colonel‘s wife. We would play gin for an hour or so then get up and stretch our legs then play some more. Occasionally, the porter would come by to refresh our drinks and to light my cigar. All night there was a party-like atmosphere on the train with much drinking and singing and merry-making. The passengers got to know each other. At one point that night I got off the train again and walked forward to the engine. The engineer invited me up and he showed me around his domain there in the engine compartment and we talked a while. He told me about his job, how long it took to stop the train when he had a full head of steam and how boring it was to constantly keep his eyes on the track ahead of him. I asked him if he had ever seen anything on the tracks blocking his way. He said he’d seen trees pushed over on the tracks by rock slides and an occasional boulder on the tracts, and once a stalled vehicle. That had caused an accident; he had hit the stalled car but no one was hurt because its occupants had crawled out of the car when they saw him coming. He said he was gone from home days at a time and he didn’t like that. He gave me a different perspective on trains and railroading. Later that morning as we passed through a small town in Utah, I saw a small boy, lunchbox in hand, standing by the tracts peering in at us. I waved to him and he waved back. I could imagine what he might be thinking.
I rode the Texas Zephyr several times and it was always a grand experience, yet no other ride on the Zephyr was quite as memorable as that first journey. But that long silver streak with all its comfort and all its speed had somehow lost its mystique. My earlier memories faded and it became just another mode of transportation. Still, when I heard the railroad was retiring the Zephyr I was glad I had experienced those rides for I knew there would never be another.
by drifter - Jan 15, 2016
by drifter - Jan 15, 2016
When I was growing up in north central Texas I walked to school every day. The most vivid memories I have of that time were those memories associated with junior high school and waiting on a passenger train to load and unload its passengers. Now the school I attended was about three and a half miles from my house and it took about an hour to walk if I just struck out and walked, which I couldn’t do that because I had to cross a railroad tracks. From my section of town there were two streets that crossed the tracks on the way up town and on across town to my school. One of those streets crossed the tracts far to the north of where I lived and that route added an extra half hour of walking time. The other route was Seventh Street, a major traffic artery to the east side of town where I lived and most mornings Seventh Street was blocked by a passenger train. I would wait on that train ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes each morning. Some boys in a hurry to cross would crawl under the train.
One morning as I stood by the tracts waiting for the train to load its passengers and move on, an ambulance came up on the blocked crossing. It sat there several minutes with its lights flashing and its siren wailing but the train did not move. Finally the driver turned around and went off to find another passage across the tracts. Another time, a boy about my own age became impatient and started to crawl under the train just as it lurched forward, moving. I held my breath and turned away because I had done this several times and I knew how hard it was to crawl under the train in a hurry. The boy didn’t make it. The train ran over his leg, severing it just below the knee. After that I was afraid to try again.
On my way to school most days the train blocking my path was a long silver train with a silver engine and a black streak that ran its entire length. It was the longest passenger train to come through our town. It was said to be one of the fastest trains on the tracts.
I would stand there beside those tracts, my lunch box in hand, looking at the people seated behind those windows staring back at me. Sometimes one of them would wave and I would wave back and I wondered to what far off destinations they were going. I could see myself seated behind those windows, in the club car, having my breakfast, impatient that the train did not get under way again, taking me to some distant place.
The newest trains had names and this sleek, shining train was the Texas Zephyr. One morning standing there looking in, I saw a porter in his neatly pressed uniform and his distinctive cap lean over and light the cigarettes of a gentleman and his lady. How I longed to ride that train.
Some years later, en-route to Ft. Lewis, Washington I rode the Texas Zephyr. The trip took almost four days and it was a royal experience. Out northwest of Denver the train struggled as we climbed ever higher, seeking out a pass that would let us cross over those majestic mountains. In Wyoming west of Laramie the train was halted by deep snow. We sat there one evening and all night waiting for a repair train to come from the west to clear the tracts. We got off the train and threw snowballs at each other and some of us walked back down the tracks several hundred yards and were amazed how steep the grade was. Off in the valley below we could see a herd of elk and a stream that ran through the valley and from where we stood the stream was no bigger than a string and there were a dozen shades of green among the grasses and the shrubbery and the trees and I marveled at such beauty and God’s grand creation.
I did not sleep that night, instead I played gin with some colonel‘s wife. We would play gin for an hour or so then get up and stretch our legs then play some more. Occasionally, the porter would come by to refresh our drinks and to light my cigar. All night there was a party-like atmosphere on the train with much drinking and singing and merry-making. The passengers got to know each other. At one point that night I got off the train again and walked forward to the engine. The engineer invited me up and he showed me around his domain there in the engine compartment and we talked a while. He told me about his job, how long it took to stop the train when he had a full head of steam and how boring it was to constantly keep his eyes on the track ahead of him. I asked him if he had ever seen anything on the tracks blocking his way. He said he’d seen trees pushed over on the tracks by rock slides and an occasional boulder on the tracts, and once a stalled vehicle. That had caused an accident; he had hit the stalled car but no one was hurt because its occupants had crawled out of the car when they saw him coming. He said he was gone from home days at a time and he didn’t like that. He gave me a different perspective on trains and railroading. Later that morning as we passed through a small town in Utah, I saw a small boy, lunchbox in hand, standing by the tracts peering in at us. I waved to him and he waved back. I could imagine what he might be thinking.
I rode the Texas Zephyr several times and it was always a grand experience, yet no other ride on the Zephyr was quite as memorable as that first journey. But that long silver streak with all its comfort and all its speed had somehow lost its mystique. My earlier memories faded and it became just another mode of transportation. Still, when I heard the railroad was retiring the Zephyr I was glad I had experienced those rides for I knew there would never be another.
by drifter - Jan 15, 2016
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
Thanks, Meanderer, greatly appreciate your efforts and help.
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
Through your efforts @Meanderer and a suggestion from friend, @RadishRose,
I was able to find my lost files, stories etc. Unfortunately, I also found i had deleted
some of them. Thanks to you both.
I was able to find my lost files, stories etc. Unfortunately, I also found i had deleted
some of them. Thanks to you both.
drifter
Well-known Member
Sometimes I'm just a dumb bunny but that's the way the cookie crumbles. It's funny how memories spring to the fore and what causes them to pop into the conscious mind. I was thinking about a lost folder and how one of those who helped me find it was from Pennsylvania and then what popped into my mind was a memory from times past, actually two of them.
Back in my younger days Pitney Bowles sent a few of their new hires to Philadelphia to a sales management school for two weeks. I was one of those lucky rascals they sent. Recent hires came there from all over the country. One of the first of those new hires I met was a fellow from Reading, Pennsylvania. Wed sorta of fell in with each other like pancakes and syrup, and we studied together got along well. He had a car
and on that first weekend (we were off) he asked if I had been to Pennsylvania before? Told him no. We had breakfast on a boat which was a first for me being a landlubber from the flat plains of west Texas. After breakfast he asked if I wanted to take a ride? Sure, I said, why not? We drove around and drove around as he showed me interesting sites of this, that, and the other. All interesting and worthwhile. We stopped at a wood, got out of the car and walked a way in the trees and he started talking about a battle that took place 'here' in this area, this very spot.
He talked and I became more interested as he told me about the battle of Gettysburg, how it unfolded and he detailed the scenes so that I
became completely fascinated. Until then i had not realized where we were. I had never had a bit of hisgtory told me in such a way.
We left Gettysburg and in a short while stopped at a crossroad where a two story house occupied one cornner. This is a famous resturant, he told me. It has been here for many generations. We had a late lunch there and lingered and talked abougt what each had done in life, where we had worked, about family, etc. He had been a high school history teacher. There is little doubt in me that he had not been a very good history teacher, so impressed had I been earlier. We stayed in touch fora year or so then ties faded. He had not been on my mind for ages. Thge tie-in to his memory seem to be Pennsylvania. Oddly, I have forgotten his name but I still remember that history lession and that he haled from Reading.
Back in my younger days Pitney Bowles sent a few of their new hires to Philadelphia to a sales management school for two weeks. I was one of those lucky rascals they sent. Recent hires came there from all over the country. One of the first of those new hires I met was a fellow from Reading, Pennsylvania. Wed sorta of fell in with each other like pancakes and syrup, and we studied together got along well. He had a car
and on that first weekend (we were off) he asked if I had been to Pennsylvania before? Told him no. We had breakfast on a boat which was a first for me being a landlubber from the flat plains of west Texas. After breakfast he asked if I wanted to take a ride? Sure, I said, why not? We drove around and drove around as he showed me interesting sites of this, that, and the other. All interesting and worthwhile. We stopped at a wood, got out of the car and walked a way in the trees and he started talking about a battle that took place 'here' in this area, this very spot.
He talked and I became more interested as he told me about the battle of Gettysburg, how it unfolded and he detailed the scenes so that I
became completely fascinated. Until then i had not realized where we were. I had never had a bit of hisgtory told me in such a way.
We left Gettysburg and in a short while stopped at a crossroad where a two story house occupied one cornner. This is a famous resturant, he told me. It has been here for many generations. We had a late lunch there and lingered and talked abougt what each had done in life, where we had worked, about family, etc. He had been a high school history teacher. There is little doubt in me that he had not been a very good history teacher, so impressed had I been earlier. We stayed in touch fora year or so then ties faded. He had not been on my mind for ages. Thge tie-in to his memory seem to be Pennsylvania. Oddly, I have forgotten his name but I still remember that history lession and that he haled from Reading.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
drifter
Well-known Member
Today is my grandson's birthday. He turned twenty-one. His bigmother gave him socks, socks covered with math formulas, socks for his collection and because he's a math major. He's got enough credits to graduate this summer but with the economy as it is and the virus floating around the country, he said there's a few more things he wants to learn. I gave him a book, one I had read. He may or may not read it, he may not know the author or the subjects the author writes about but if he does examine those pages some day he will discover some quality writing and may even apprecite some of the stories. The book is The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits and Encounters, one of the better non-fiction writers of his day. His grandmother stuffed his socks with twenty-one five dollar bills. We didn't go over for cake and drink because of the virus. In our town, us old folks, are not supposed to get out of our houses. My favorite granddaughter did message me and sent a picture of the cake she had baked him and this shot with his socks.
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
Posible
Maybe only a cloudy sky.
Checking the weather a short while ago. It's cloudy here and they say it will rain today here in central Oklahoma.
And that storms with tornados may break out in the South from east Texas, east, in those states along the gulf coast.
Sometime they are wrong in their forecast.
Maybe only a cloudy sky.
Checking the weather a short while ago. It's cloudy here and they say it will rain today here in central Oklahoma.
And that storms with tornados may break out in the South from east Texas, east, in those states along the gulf coast.
Sometime they are wrong in their forecast.
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
Got a jungle back there.
My bamboo.
And behind the banmboo...
More trees and bamboo. When I first moved here we would
occasionally see raccoons climbing the back fence. No more
though. Of course I don't really know. These guys opeate at
night, prowling around while we sleep.
My bamboo.
And behind the banmboo...
More trees and bamboo. When I first moved here we would
occasionally see raccoons climbing the back fence. No more
though. Of course I don't really know. These guys opeate at
night, prowling around while we sleep.
Last edited:
drifter
Well-known Member
I think we've had our last freeze. The shoots on my long grass are beginnintg to turn green. Won't be long until we'll be mowing the yard every two weeks. I expect my yard man will be happy to have some work and no doubt I'll be complaining about all the rain and how fast the grass grows.
drifter
Well-known Member
Thoughts that cross your mind when you don't know anything: Would a Polarizing Filter work with a digital
camera or is that feature built in to the digitals? @Grampa Don
I suspect it would be useless except to darken the image and the digital would try to compensate.
camera or is that feature built in to the digitals? @Grampa Don
I suspect it would be useless except to darken the image and the digital would try to compensate.
Last edited:
Em in Ohio
Senior Member
- Location
- OH HI OH
Stunning, dramatic sky, with a rainbow bonus! Love this image!