Fifty Years

 On the day our country celebrates its 250^th birthday, I will be celebrating another anniversary. It was on the 4^th of July, 1976 that I quit smoking. I figured that if I didn’t slip up and go back to this addiction, I’d always be able to remember the exact day I quit. The two hundredth birthday of our country, fifty years ago!

    I did do some planning. I smoked more than my usual amount of cigarettes on the days proceeding. I wanted my mouth to taste like shit! I smoked one butt after another, opening a new pack as soon as I emptied the last. Lighting a new cigarette off of the one I had just finished, my fingers smelled as bad as my mouth tasted.

    1976, beside the country celebrating its 200^th birthday, lots of things happened during the year. There was a Freedom train that stopped in Pittsburgh for a couple days. The average price of gas was around sixty cents a gallon. NASA landed Viking 1 on the planet Mars and it sent color pictures back to us earthlings. VHS tapes were introduced, changing how we watched TV. The first Rocky movie was released, Alex Haley’s book Roots spent 22 weeks in the number 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and Stephen King was rapidly gaining popularity with two books under his belt. Cigarette prices were soaring up into the fifty cents a pack range. It was getting expensive to smoke in those days!

    Just a couple years out of high school, I was working in a small machine shop in the basement of a building in Blawnox. I was a whole two years into my full-time working life. I rode my motorcycle and enjoyed hiking and camping. In the evenings, I’d get together with my friends, and we’d listen to music, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Kansas, Frampton, Wings and The Eagles to name just a few. We would watch TV and BS, fueled on by herbal and alcoholic spirits. Those were the days! We all smoked. BUT, I can still remember the smell of the room the next day as I cleaned up. Emptying the butts into the trash and washing the ash trays could turn your stomach, but I dealt with it. It was all part of the habit!

    I have to say though, cigarette smoke can smell good, especially if it’s just a slight wisp, and an attractive woman is doing the smoking. A mixture of perfume and cigarette smoke can take you away to a different place. It can add a bit of mystery or intrigue to an evening. It brings to mind, Brigitte Bardot or Uma Thurman, Humphrey Bogart or Clint Eastwood. Smoking was cool, it made me feel cool! It also left a bad taste in my mouth.

    The time had come. I didn’t want that monkey on my back anymore. It was time to quit, while I still could. So, late in the night, as the clock neared midnight, on the 3rd of July 1976, I took my last drag on my last cigarette, crumpled the pack and started anew.

    Now this year, as the country celebrates its 250^th birthday, I will also be celebrating my 50^th year free of tobacco addiction. A half of a century, I’d never have guessed it back in 1976. I haven’t always made the best choices, but this was definitely one of my better!

The Author Within Us All

 

We all dream. Sadly, most of our dreams are forgotten. I, myself, love my dreams. They are one of the reasons I look forward to going to bed. I never know what I’ll dream or even if I’ll remember them, but I always anticipate them. I woke up this morning, in the middle of a dream and scribbled some notes that turned into this short essay.

    Why is it that we dream? There are many thoughts on this and don’t worry, I’m not going to try and explain them. There are plenty of studies that have been done and many books written about the subject. Dreams are not only what we experience at night and during naps, they are also things that we look forward to or goals we hope to achieve.

    Maybe our sleeping dreams are our brains trying to review the events in our day and life. I tend to think that our dreams are a way of entertaining us as we sleep. As I said before, I never know what I’m going to dream. I have tried to influence my dreams (without much luck) and I try my best to remember them. I write down my more memorable dreams.

    Thankfully, nightmares or bad dreams have only been a very small part of my dream life. I experienced some in my childhood but, they are now gone. I still have an occasional uncomfortable dream but never anything that terrorizes me.

    Memory always plays an important part of my dreams. Many of the places I go are places I’ve been to before, either in my life or in my dreams. The places I’ve visited in my waking life are never the same in my dreams, though I always KNOW where the place is. It just never looks the same, but there is no doubt to me, where it is! There are many places that I’ve visited only in my dreams and they always look the same. I’ve met many people from my past in my dreams, most still alive and many who have left this life. I always enjoy these visits! I also participate in many of the activities I used to enjoy. I find it exhilarating to run through the woods, leaping over rocks and logs, and not get tired! Riding my bike up hills without exerting myself, how could I not wake up feeling good after that?

    I love to read. When I do that, I take my imagination to a different place. I experience the world through the eyes of the author and see it through “the eyes” of my imagination. I see the picture they are describing. I think that my dreams are the stories my subconscious mind is writing for me. Perhaps our dreams are the authors inside of our minds, writing the adventures we live each night when we go to sleep!

    I can’t wait to see what I’ll “write” tonight!

It Is Getting Closer...

What is it exactly that gets us interested in trains? For many it is the circle of track running around under our Christmas trees. Or maybe it is from looking at our early picture books or the reciting of The Little Engine That Could, night after night before bedtime. Some of our interests stem from our parents or grandparents who lived through the years when trains seemed to be everywhere.

    I believe my own interests come from a combination of all of the above. Trains were a part of my family in more ways than one. My grandfather worked in the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse in Verona, PA. He later drove a streetcar on the rails through town. My father and my brother made an HO train layout of the Kiski Junction, a location across the river from Freeport. 

     My father had taken many pictures of trains during his lifetime. In 1924 he had the opportunity of riding in the cab of a steam engine, an event he documented in one of his albums. “Over sixty miles an hour!” Some of his pictures grace the walls of my library.

    I imagine that it was inevitable that I would become a rail-fan myself. Being a photographer, I fell right into the hole. There is an anticipation I feel while waiting for a train to come. The feeling rises as the engine comes into sight. The noise increases and the train seems to get faster as it nears. The loud blaring of the whistles sends a shiver through me. It is a rush I feel, one that continues to draw me back time and again. The "pictures" may only be an excuse to hang out at railroad crossings…

    The Union Pacific’s Big Boy, steam engine #4014 has been taking up a lot of space on the internet. Facebook’s algorithms put numerous postings on my pages daily. The train is in the second half of a cross-country trip. It has been to the West Coast and will soon be entering Pennsylvania. It is scheduled to be in Philadelphia for the 4^th of July, our country’s 250^th birthday. It will be returning to its home base later, going through Pittsburgh in the process. (July 11^th)

    This steam engine is a monster! Weighing over a million pounds, it is 133 feet long. It has 16 driving wheels and because of its length, the frame is articulated to allow it to round bends. It was built in the early 40’s, engineered to pull very heavy loads. The 4014 is one of 25 engines built by the American Locomotive Company. (ALCO) Only eight of these massive engines remain and only the 4014 is still in operation.

    The engine worked until 1961, twenty years and during this time it covered over one million miles before it was retired. It was eventually rebuilt, converted from coal to oil and then returned to the rails in 2019.

    Needless to say, there are many, many people looking forward to seeing this engine, myself included!

    While we wait for this monster engine to steam into Pittsburgh, I have been searching for a spot to photograph it. My rail-fan friend Frank and I have been scouting out various places, checking out the lines of sight, the ease of access and whether or not there are any nice background buildings or rail signals. (Having a nice background can make or break a picture!)

    We are looking for a spot where there will be a minimum of people. Spots where the train will be stopping or where it goes through towns and cities will probably be overrun with spectators. Granted, no matter where we see it, it will be worth it, BUT, we would like to get some good pictures at the same time!

    This coming Thursday, we will be going out again on another scouting trip. The weather forecasters are predicting a day of clouds with minimal chance of rain. Hey, we’ve been out in the rain before, a little rain never hurt anyone. Hopefully, rain on the 11^th will be non-existent.

    While I am waiting, I go out and take more pictures of trains, practice, practice, practice! I also search the maps, imagining how shots from along the lines might look. I find that as I sit and watch the TV or read my book while lying in bed, a portion of my brain is thinking about camera speeds, locations to visit, B&W or color, or both, what to bring along and a multitude of other things. I’m not complaining, it’s all part of the fun of being a rail-fan photographer!