This Train

There is something about trains that is a part of American culture, and history. Even before there were cars and freeways, which are now the chosen mode of transportation and modern culture, there were trains...
There is a certain romanticism about trains, songs and stories written about them down through the years, the sound of a lonesome train whistle in the middle of the night, songs like "Midnight Train" by Elvis Presley, or "City of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie, "I Walk the Line" by Johnny Cash...and 'hobo songs' like "King of the Road" by Roger Miller, they immediately conjure up an image of a long train ride through the heart of America.....I thought of these things when I took a train ride last week....
I took a ride on Amtrak from Oakland to Hanford, California over the Christmas holiday, which I have done many times, but this time I seemed to be more acutely aware of the never-ending panorama of people, and places that a simple train ride can showcase. A ride in a plane is somewhat the same thing, a small collection of people gathered together at one point in time, their various lives and destinations all bundled up in an aluminum tube at 30,000 feet, though somewhat confined to their seats, unless the seatbelt sign is off....but you get there quicker!
Riding the train is more pourous and fluid, it takes longer to get to your destination, and along the way people get off, and new people get on, like an evolution of a journey. And the people you see are less restrained by seat belts, as you can roam among the train.
The two greatest things about riding the train is, again, the never-ending panorama, and the people on the train itself.
As it winds through landscapes not normally seen by car, it reveals a window view of fields, farms, stockyards, graveyards of ancient machinery and tractors, as if it was a museum of what things were like back in the 40's, because indeed, some of those things look like they haven't been touched since then.
As you approach a town, you can see people's back-yards, doughboy swimming pools, swing sets, gardens, derelict cars, junkyards, then you realize that the tracks usually pass through the 'poor side of town' and here's a front row view. But then you realize that each of these homes, and the people who live in them each have a story.
And then there's the people on the train itself, the passengers. Each of them have a story, and it was striking to me how I noticed, as I people-watched, that no matter how outlandish, or cliche'd people seemed, maybe it was because it was Christmas, everyone seemed endearing to me on that train ride...
I got on the train in Oakland, which was the origination, so I had my pick of seats...I chose a single seat by the door of the coach, so that no one would invade 'my space' based on previous experiences, ha!
The seat was a great vantage point to observe every one who would subsequently get on and off the train.
A family of 5 sat in the row in front of me, the mother, father, and three teenagers, the teens sat across from the parents on seats that had a table. They played card games, and then would bicker like children until the parents told them to pipe down, I smiled at how this family digressed, like the teens hadn't changed a bit since they were little.
At the Richmond Station, a group of gangsta looking black youths got on the train, they looked hard, and I noticed the family somewhat intimidated by their presence....
It is here that I made that certain observation that you 'Can't Always Judge a Book by its Cover'.... when the train pulled into Stockton, the Gangstas got up and gathered their bags, on of 'hard guys' dropped a shopping bag and a bunch of Christmas presesnts spilled out. Some of them were unwrapped, there was a Spiderman Action set, a Harry Potter book, and various other toys, with bows on them. They were obviously presents for his little nephews or cousins....or someone...he replaced the presents with care, making sure the bows were intact. Beneath this Hip-Hop, tough guy exterior, there was a kind and generous soul in there...
I noticed this again later, when I was in Tulare. My mom and I went out to breakfast in a Mexican restaurant, where the food was delicious! It was the kind of place where the staff are Mexican, and you'd be lucky if your waitress spoke English, but the owner waited on us, my mom had the green chile omellete, I had the chorizo with eggs, with flour tortillas, it was wonderful.
In walked two oversized ranchers with cowboy hats, they sat at the counter and talked about cattle feed, the recent rains and how they're gonna get that "god damn truck outta the mud" ...their polyester shirts spilled way over their belts. I instantly thought of the Hip-Hop guys and how this was a 180 degree extreme, these guys were obviously 'rednecks' who had a disdain for minorities, gays, or anything else....but that was my own prejudice, just my watching people and pre-judging them by their appearance....
After listening to (overhearing) them for awhile, I came to the conclusion that they were good men, who took care of their families and friends, like if I needed help on the road, they wouldn't hesitate to help. This was confirmed when one of them jumped out of his seat to help an old Mexican guy on a walker out the door...
I think I could go on and on about everyone I see, like how everyone has a story, and everyone could be a passenger on a train at any time and observe...and be observed...and how everyone's life is like a long train ride, but a train ride itself I found to be a perfect metaphor....
All Aboard!

The Matterhorn

matterhorn
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

When I was about 5 years old, I took a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. I remember being in the parking lot and seeing this majestic shape, "look Danny, there's the Matterhorn!"
That was my first experience in observing majestic sights. A few years later, my dad and I would go to a barber, Phil, who displayed travel posters from around the world, one of which was the real Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border. The photo was shot from a village in the springtime with the Matterhorn in the background. I would stare and stare at that poster, amazed at the sight of this incredible and magical looking mountain. I became somewhat obsessed with the Matterhorn and read encyclopedia entries about it....It seems the first guy to conquor its summit was an Englishman, Edward Whymper, with a party of seven men, they reached the summit in 1869....but on the way down four of them slipped and fell to their deaths.
Whymper survived, but on the way down the survivors swore they saw four crosses in the clouds....
These stories fascinate me. I have hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney in California which is actually higher, but that was a hike on a ridge, not a climb up a real mountain like this one....
So when I actually went to Europe I wanted to go to Zermatt, Switzerland...
When I got there, I had already been amazed to find that this quaint village that I had seen in the barber's poster was not something out of some archaic scene, but I realized as I had before that Europe was just as modern, just as up to date as we Americans are, in my ignorance at the time.
Even more modern perhaps here in Zermatt, NO automobiles were allowed there, only a train from down the mountain, but yet it there was, a wonderful tourist town with a wonderful 'vibe' maybe from the mountain itself...and there IT was...it was about 6 PM when I got there but when I walked up the road and saw the Matterhorn, all could say was "Wow.... here I am, and there it is"

Illustration Friday: Imagine

SFMATTE3
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

Imagine if, in the near future, San Francisco was hit by another major earthquake. It's not a matter of If...but When, really.
It's plate tectonics, it's bound to happen. Though many highrises are built to code, imagine most buildings gone, and instead of re-building the City, park lands instead. Also imagine a dome to protect this new City against increased ultraviolet rays, due to decreases in the ozone layer. Perhaps in about 50-100 years, this what San Francisco would look like.

I Believe in Father Christmas

There's a song by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer called "I Believe in Father Christmas"...it's a very sweet and Christmassy sounding song, with chimes and sound effects....It's about a child and his profound memories of a very special time of year....Christmas...
For me, the Christmas season was magical when I was a child....anticipating the presents I would get on Christmas Eve when our families and cousins would get together, the Christmas Tree smell in the house, I would go up and just smell the tree and hug myself, I loved the time of year, the music, the spirit in the air really....And, quite frankly as a kid, I would wonder what presents I was gonna get, I would snoop around under the tree looking for my name on them...
As I got older, the tradition changed...as my cousins moved on, it was just me and my parents who celebrated Christmas together, but always in a fun way, whether it was San Francisco or Las Vegas....I remember a Christmas Eve in Vegas in '92 or so, when my dad sang along to Gene Autry's "Here Comes Santa Claus" at the Fremont Street Experience....

Then it comes, we lose the people we love...my dad had a heart attack on December 10, then died on the 18th....my friend Shawn lost her dad also on the 10th, and recently we heard of another who lost HER dad...and there has been a tragic car crash locally in which four kids...teenagers, lost their lives....
What a terrible thing to happen, right before Christmas....It will change the holiday for their families forever, right before Christmas, of all times...
And it's changed ours...
But still, the spirit of the Holiday itself, like a never-ending sprout from the ground, it makes its way through sadness and cynicism, when you can still decorate a tree, or drive by a neighborhood with a ton of lights and smile, or see a Santa Claus....or 'Father Christmas' as the British call him....then yes, I Believe in Father Christmas.
And a Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to You All!

The Teachers I Had

Since I'm still on a nostalgia kick, I got to thinking about the people that all of us have known, the teachers we had in school.
Some with extreme fondness, others with certain derision. I tried doing a google search on some of them, I was astonished to learn that my first grade teacher, Mrs. Nakatani, had written several books on the tragic loss of all three of her sons. I even 'met' one of them one day when she brought him into class when he was an infant.
Here's the teachers I had....

Kindergarten - Mrs. Whitmeyer - If there was ever a quintessential image of what a traditional 'teacher' should look like, she was it. Beehive hairdo, horn-rimmed glasses, and sweaters. She was somewhat strict, but deep down she was kind. She made me stay after school one time for singing Beatles tunes, which seemed to particularly annoy her. I was terrified, because I had never been in trouble before, I even started whimpering. After a gentle lecture, she got some tissues and dried my tears, then actually walked me home! But I didn't live far, just across the street really.

First Grade - Mrs. Nakatani - As stated above, she raised three boys who all died tragically. Back then, I remember her as very bright and energetic, very funny...but also had her moments when she would snap and the entire class would fall silent.

Second Grade - Miss Maddox - She got married over Christmas vacation and then she became Mrs. Ross...Looking back, I realize that she must have been young, in her 20's. She was very charming and sweet, with a certain Jackie Kennedy manner about her.

Third Grade - Mrs. Pyle - Oh man! She was a tough one, a stern disciplinarian and quite frankly, not very well liked by the kids. She just didn't seem well suited to be a teacher, very short of temper and seemed to be more interested in seeking out and exposing every fault and weakness of the kids, instead of being kind and nurturing.

Fourth Grade - Mrs. Lumley - One of my favorites, she was a real salt-of-the-earth type of person, full of life and energy, with a charming twang, being from Amarillo, Texas. She loved music, and some of the classrooms had pianos in them, so we would have singing sessions in class that would sometimes last as long as two hours. I remember she had a wonderful singing voice and played the piano really well.

Fifth Grade - Mr. Bayer - My first male teacher, so that was a different dynamic, automatically expecting a male teacher to be more of a father-type disciplinarian. But he was a very interesting and intelligent man. A world traveller, he would show us slides of his trips to Europe, Africa, Japan, Australia, and would explain in great detail the culture and history of those places. He was genuinely interested in exposing new things about the world to us. This was also in 1968, an election year, so he had us run an election for class president, and made us go through the whole election process, with speeches, campaigns, debates, etc.

Sixth Grade - Mr. Carsrud - He was a young man, I think this was his first teaching assignment. He was a nice guy, there's nothing really notable about him, but I do remember him sweating it out about being drafted.

In the 7th and 8th grades, the format changed at Cypress School to a 'junior high' format, and kids from other elementary schools were transferred over to Cypress, and classes became hourly with different teachers in specific courses. There were more memorable teachers then too, as well as high school teachers.
I will continue in Teachers Part II.

Lakeside Park

There's an old song written back in the 70's about an old amusement park called Lakeside Park. It was written by one of my favorite lyricists, Neil Peart. The song is basically reminiscing about old childhood experiences. Lately I've noticed myself and many others having those same kinds of memories. And there are plenty of websites dedicated to Baby Boomer nostalgia, a generation of which I am a part. It seems to be a growing phenomenon, I wonder if this is the onset of middle age...though I don't 'feel' middle aged. It's a look back with fondness to a more innocent time. Maybe even a yearning to go back to that time.
Nostalgia is not limited to my generation, I remember my parents, and even grandparents in their reverie, talking about what it was like when they were kids, and some of their fondest memories....
Maybe that's why we have cameras, super 8 movie cameras, video recorders...we want to keep those memories, and when we get older, they become more and more precious and valuable, that's why the older photos seem to be the best.
Like Neil, he had his Lakeside Park...I had Disneyland, Santa Cruz, Frontier Village (a rediscovered memory), and a host of childhood memories that seemed mundane then, but magical now. Though they're all just memories, some memories last forever.

Illustration Friday: Blue

blue
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

Here's our whale friends again,
feeling kind of blue this time.

That Clean Cut Kid

A long time ago, when I was a little kid, my parents moved into a new house in San Jose. It wasn't brand new, but it was 'their' new house. Over a while, in getting to know the neighborhood, they frequented an old fashioned ice cream parlor on Stevens Creek Boulevard, and they always brought me along. This was around 1965, 1966....My parents would get an ice cream cone and I always got a root beer float.
There was a guy who worked the counter there named Steve. To me he was grown up, but actually he was 18 or 19. He was a tremendously funny, polite, and friendly guy. He would say, "and what would YOU like sir?" to me....and I would do that look around thing and go "huh? sir? me?"
He loved to go fishing, and I remember he and my dad would go on and on about certain baits, the best times to go out fishing, etc...they talked about going deep sea fishing together, but they never did........and he loved baseball, the Giants.
My parents loved him. He was a Clean Cut Kid as my mom always would comment, "boy I sure like that Steve, he's a clean cut kid!..."
This was during a time when young people began to grow their hair long, and there was a certain anti-hippy sentiment, and a war was heating up in a faraway place called Vietnam.
One evening we went over there and Steve said, "well, I guess this will be last time...I got drafted"
All I remember is my mom gasping and my dad saying, "you be careful over there, you hear me?"
After Steve left, we stopped going to that ice cream place, and we never learned what became of him.
I hope that he came home safe.