Blowing the Whistle for Trains

 

I love having a railroad running through my yard. Seriously.

 

The whistle blows at least once a day, but it never wakes us up at night. The engine and its rail cars, filled with coal, travel from the Virginia mountains through South Boston to the power plants in nearby North Carolina.

 

Visiting kids love to run to the railroad bridge when they hear the whistle, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Norfolk Southern engine, the 100 cars and the caboose, just a quarter mile from the house in Cluster Springs.

 

Trains must be in my genes. My grandfather was a telegraph operator for the Northern Pacific in Washington state. My father, not getting along with Grandpa, ran away at about age 14 and “rode the rods” during the Depression. That’s a term for dangerously jumping on the ladders of freight cards, perhaps climbing inside, riding for hours and then getting off when the train stopped.

 

He loved to regale us with tales of hobos, railroad police and smoky tunnels. It always sounded terrible to me, but he looked on this period nostalgically as one of the best times of his life.

 

So as a train buff, he persuaded me to go on a month-long train trip around the United States in 1961, near the end of the golden age of rails. From Richmond, Calif., we went to Ogden (Utah), Denver, Omaha, Chicago, Buffalo, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans. Tired of travel we stayed on until Los Angeles. We actually learned to sleep sitting up in coach cars.

 

Some memories: the porter telling my dad that tobacco was not grown in Virginia, only North Carolina. Wrong! The beautiful Vista Dome cars on the Union Pacific from Denver to Omaha. Luxury dining cars. Observation cars. Spending an entire day and night traveling across Texas, it was so big.

 

My dad loved to sing railroad songs. His favorite was “The Wreck of the Old 97.” He had never been to Danville but would have loved visiting memorials to the crash at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History.

 

There have been other great trips in recent years: Speedy rides from Lynchburg to Washington. Scenic rides from Oakland to Reno and from San Francisco to Los Angeles. A short tour from Washington to Harper’s Ferry. And the Auto Train from south of Washington, D.C., into Florida. I always take the train to New York from any point on the East Coast.

 

So many rail lines are planned. Do I think we are going to copy Europe with an extensive rail system? No. We are too spread out and dependent on automobiles. Too bad.

 

The train in our yard may stop running when the Duke Energy power plants south of here are supposed to switch from coal to natural gas, one in 2030 and the other in 2035.

 

Will our train tracks be converted to a bike path? Dream on, Mike!

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions of a 'Frat Rat'

 

Of all things, why would I join a college fraternity?

 

I was never in clubs, not the Boy Scouts, not even the Chess Club. But at UC Berkeley, with 20,000 students, I joined one because I was lonely.

 

The Daily Californian college newspaper wasn’t enough.  It was also a little radical for my taste: we went on strike when the student government tried to control us. Revolutionary songs were sung at our parties. Some writers were arrested at a wild demonstration at the San Francisco City Hall two years before the famous Free Speech movement of 1964.

 

So when I pledged Sigma Pi fraternity, I became an outcast at the newspaper. You’re wearing white socks and getting a short haircut? You have become a frat rat? You have given in to the establishment!  You are a traitor! My mom wasn’t keen on it either: room and board was more expensive than at the student co-op. And I quit my paying student newspaper job.

 

It wasn’t as hard to get into the fraternity as I thought. After being rejected by two cooler societies, I was accepted at one that had fallen on hard times and was accepting just about any boy who could pay the rent.

 

Rather than getting caught up in radicalism, the group practiced sheer foolishness. Hazing? Yes. I was sworn to secrecy. If I told you what we did, I would have to kill you! At one point I was the chief hazer. And drinking? OMG! Embarrassing. I can see why universities are trying to crack down now.

 

So what does a shy, reluctant party goer do? Well, he becomes president. My pledge-mates were considered too immature by the older guys, so they handed the job to this grizzled old 19-year-old who used to be in the enemy camp.

 

What does being president entail? Well, being kidnapped twice by new pledges, dumped in the wilds of the Berkeley Hills wearing a gunny sack for pants. Once the police made me get a taxi. Another time I knocked on someone’s door and called up fraternity brothers to come and get me.

 

And then were the responsibilities: Like talking my roommate, the house manager, out of tossing the belongings of a slow-paying renter out on the street. Or answering an angry letter from the national chapter president after a pledge threw up all over a visiting representative’s clothes. I may not be a leader, but I can write great letters to get us out of trouble.

 

Do I regret this phase? Well, no. My people skills were definitely improved. I made friends. I escaped with a college degree. And I wasn’t lonely!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can I Become a Country Boy?

 

“Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” John Denver used to sing.

How about a Suburban Boy?

 

 Remember the movie “American Graffiti,” about kids in the ‘50s and ‘60s in California? That was my era: Drive-In restaurants and movies, dragging on main streets, cars everywhere. Cul-de-sacs and tract housing. Before shopping malls were so popular across the country.

 

So it was culture shock when I came to Southside Virginia to see Pickett’s ancestral home in 1981. Bugs everywhere.
“I’m sweating—ewww!”  So sticky! People drive their cars on lawns? We never did that in California, where it is dry all summer.

 

On a Fourth of July, the next-door neighbor here came out and fired his shotgun into the air three times. I wanted to jump out of my sneakers! When you hear that sound in the city, it means a murder has taken place.

 

And deer season? I wear bright clothes and sing loudly on our walks to be sure I won’t get shot.

 

A friend came over a few months ago to help us burn old brush in our yard. She sprinkled gasoline all over and proudly granted me the privilege of lighting the match. What? Get me outta here! Arsonists pour gasoline to burn down a house!

 

We used to have a skunk under the house. A skunk! How do to get rid of a skunk? We were told to play loud music on the radio when we were gone. We found a rap radio station, and it did leave.  The skunk probably would have liked country music!

 

Everybody is everybody else’s cousin. And just what is a pig pickin’ anyway?

 

But after three years here full time, I am starting to get into the groove. I do have a pickup truck, though it doesn’t have a gun rack. (I guess Teslas don’t count.) Sometimes I wear a camouflage hat passed out at a parade. And those parades are so neat—small-town pride and kids diving for candy.

 

I never saw fireflies as a kid. And there were too many lights to see a moon shadow. What are those little lights in the sky? Oh, stars!

 

People here are so friendly! If you have dinner, they cook ridiculous amounts of food to show their love. “Y’all come back, hear?”

 

Unlike in the city, you run across people you know all the time. They’ll stay and talk—well, sometimes endlessly.

 

So y’all, I’m staying. Well, “…the Good Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Struggling to Remain Relevant

 

Two university professors’ sons got into an argument when I was a teen. Instead of shouting expletives, one of them sputtered: “You’re irrelevant!”

 

Oh mercy, what an insult! But sometimes I think about that argument. After 15 years in retirement, am I irrelevant? I no longer write about national affairs or publish advice to businesses.   I’m not bringing in newly earned income to our family.

 

The biggest drawback when I hung it all up in 2009 was losing my identity. I could no longer show my press pass or ask embarrassing questions to powerful people in the name of a free press.

 

I think many of us strive to remain relevant. I was afraid I would spend all day watching C-SPAN coverage of political events. Or sit in the library, reading the kind of obsolete publications I used to work for. Or at best, I would write advocacy articles for bicycling. None of these things ever happened. In fact, not once.

 

A week after I retired, I went to a meeting at our church in Washington, D.C., where they were looking for someone to run communications: web page, social media and press. All eyes turned to me. What was I going to say: I’m too busy? So I did that for 11 years.

 

I discovered music, something I had never focused on. Three simultaneous choruses and playing piano in public. And writing to promote my favorite nonprofits. Plus this column.

 

I guess my advice to someone contemplating retirement is: Don’t be afraid of it. Take chances. You don’t need a detailed plan. Things will just happen!

 

Subhead: The Unfriendly Skies

 

OK, time to get up and catch the plane. I know it’s 3:30 in the morning, but what’s a few hours lost sleep to save a few bucks on the flight home?

 

Good thing we got “Pre” boarding to speed our way through TSA! What’s this, Pickett? Your birthday is wrong on your boarding pass? You have to go back and get it fixed before the flight leaves? You give me your bag and say, “You go ahead!” Aw, you’re like Jack in “Titanic,” who magnanimously tells Kate to stay on the floating board while you choose to drown! Oh, but you get the boarding pass fixed fast and are right behind me.

 

Well, how do you plug in your phone on the plane? How do you get wi-fi? The 35-year-old tech wiz glued to his laptop next to us shows us how. Why are half of the people on the flight just like him? And why aren’t there any old people? (Maybe they know better than to fly?)

 

Now that we have landed in Raleigh, where do we catch the parking lot shuttle? And how do we pay the $144 parking bill at the exit gate? I can’t figure it out and get out of the car to put the card in the machine. Don’t put the credit card in the same slot! Argh!

How Can You Not Like This Dog?

 

 

I have never been a fan of dogs. Well….until we got one called Ethos.

 

I lost interest in dogs when I was about 5 and my puppy ran away from home. One cruel kid told me it was my fault.

 

On my paper route, I got chased by dogs. One of them bit me.

 

When I met and later married Pickett, I learned that dogs were part of the package deal. I got along with them OK, but mostly dogs were noisy, demanding creatures to be avoided. When I realized I was allergic, we got hypo-allergenic poodles.

 

I saw more dogs with the arrival of Sara, who was born with a passion for animals.  I kept making her return stray or rescue dogs that needed a home. Later she became a veterinary technician and now runs a thriving dog-grooming business near Blacksburg.

 

Just two years ago, Sara and family were living in the little house next door to our B&B with their three dogs. One of them was a 6-year-old combination coon hound/Doberman named Ethos.

 

How did he get that name? Children and cats had gotten names starting with A-B-C-D, and when Sara looked up E she found that Ethos was related to ethical, a good trait. But Ethos wasn’t so ethical: he tore up a couple of basements in rental homes, angering landlords. Neighbors didn’t like his constant howling. He just didn’t belong there.

 

But next door, Sara could let him loose and he could roam our 400 acres all day, howling almost constantly.  Why do hounds howl? I looked it up on Google. The answer: because they are hounds. Makes sense.

 

What I liked best was he was his own dog, loyal to nobody. You call him and he won’t come. My kind of dog!

 

When Sara moved away, she begged us to keep him. I readily agreed. He belonged on our farm. Probably more than I do. No one knows the land better than he does. And he is super-friendly with guests.

 

Now he roams for hours, inspecting every corner for big game or whatever demons may lurk there. I even enjoy his howling. I read “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Sherlock Holmes and found a hound even louder than Ethos.

 

Maybe he’s not loyal, but he sure likes me. We have developed a certain bond. When we have B&B guests who don’t like howling at night, I will take him out on. a leash. He’ll go just because he likes me. He is my dog!

 

I think I am actually allergic to Ethos. But the house is big enough, so that he doesn’t bother me much. He is worth it.

 

We had two standard poodles, Niko and India, who were inseparable. They would roam the farm together and sleep next to each other, cutely on a dog bed.

 

When Niko died recently at age 12, India (age 7) was understandably heartbroken (I guess. How can you tell?)  She saw the attention I was giving Ethos. She clung a lot more to me. She follows me everywhere.

 

The two dogs don’t get along particularly well, but just before 5 p.m., they find common ground and come to tell me is time to feed them. Kind of like an intervention.

 

Awww. Now I have two dogs.