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RONI GALGANO writes:
I laughed and laughed over your 11-year-old granddaugter's admiration for horses. Very funny! I can just see your face!And you were right about the must-see video! Beautiful and fascinating.
But, may I roll in on these train tracks the Gangsters have been riding on? They've made me remember my own train story.
In 1995, with the help of Thane McIntosh and Bill Gaspard, and the approval of Karin Winner and the Senior editors (on the front end and later in the process, experts Currents Editor Suzanne Choney, Photo Editor Dan Trevan and Page Designer Alma Cesena), I accompanied a woman, Lisa Roy and her sister, Sylvia, to China to adopt a baby girl (China has a "one-child only" birth control policy, which sadly results in a lot of girl babies being abandoned and/or aborted). One of the first groups allowed in the country, they were part of 11 families. After the very emotional baby arrival, days later we boarded a 1930's looking "Iron Rooster" for a 32-hour overnight train ride to Guangzhou, where the U.S. Consulate is located, for the last of the paperwork.
It was interesting, but not surprising, that an additional car had been added to the train, just for these families. Two families each were assigned to the 2 bunk-bed cabins. The bathroom was a the far end, complete with a small sink and a hole in the floor. A stack of newspapers between the two.
It was a happy time. The new Moms and Dads left their cabin doors open and milled about, visiting each other like kids in a college dorm. At every stop, they held the babies up to look out the hallway wall of windows, and the people on the docks below waved and smiled. Some shouted "Lucky!"
The dining car crew made a special seven-course meal for their "honored guests". I hurried from cabins and hallway, making photos of all the activity. Then I went to the quiet of the dining car to continue interviewing the adoption agency agents.
Finally, at dinner time, everyone came to the dining car, where white tablecloths had been splayed out. Celebratory toasts, rice and plates of food passed around. I kept shooting and taking notes. I only had time to drink a TsingTao beer and eat a bowl of rice. I didn't care. I was having a blast shooting and taking notes. The kitchen crew bowed to us, telling the girls how very lucky they were that Americans had adopted them. Dinner over, babies were bundled and families cocooned into their cabins.
That's when the interesting part started. As soon as the hallway lights were dimmed, the train car door slammed open and a pounding sound flowed down the hallway. I sat bolt upright in my top bunk. Through the small cabin door window I saw a blur of people. When it was quiet, I opened the door a bit and looked left. Through the dining room car door window, I could see the white tablecloths were gone. Now the tables were topped by sleeping heads. The Chinese passengers in the car behind us, who had nothing but hard wooden seats, thought a hard wooden tabletop to bend their heads on was a more comfortable place to sleep. I soberly turned back inside our now elegant space. My sleep in the rarefied upper bunk air was broken soon after that by both of the "silly sisters" screaming "Cockroaches! Cockroaches!" Lights were flicked on and left on for the rest of the night. None of us slept too soundly after that. By dawn's window light I leaned way over into space to shoot Lisa and baby Wang Jing sleeping. When the groups' "Uncle Shen" flung all the cabin doors open with a "Happy Mother's Day!" everyone cheered. Except me. Missing my 2-year old daughter, Kellen, back home in San Diego, I indulged in a quick quiet cry in the privacy of the upper bunk.
I won't go into detail how the single-hole restroom was by morning. Suffice to say, a mess of newspapers, a strong stench, and holding on to sink and doorknob made my eyes tear up again. Later as we detrained in Guangzhou, I noticed several parents didn't look too good. By the time we schlepped luggage and babies to the hotel, more parents looked pale. By next morning, both "Silly Sisters" were in bed or barfing. Seems that the "honored guests'" train dinner was having its revenge on the not so lucky parents.
By noon, with both sisters in bed sleeping, I had to step out of my objective photojournalist outfit and become babysitter, carrying 9-month-old Wang Jing on an extended hotel inspection while singing Kellen's favorite Sesame Street songs.
BOB LAURENCE writes:
All the talk of trains reminds me of bicycle rides. Actually, it reminds me of an annual train-bike adventure that began with an idea from Charlie Ross, founding father of the 919 Gang.
It was in the late 1970s or early 1980s, as I recall. Charlie and I used to ride together now and again, and one day he strolled by my desk with an idea. You know what we could do, Charlie said. We could ride a train to Los Angeles with our bikes early on a Saturday morning, then spend the weekend riding back to San Diego. Fabulous idea, Charlie, I agreed.
We got in touch with Amtrak to figure out the logistics, spread the idea around the building and got about 15 people together. Charlie reached a guy at AAA who specialized in bike routes, and he drew us a map to get us through and out of Los Angeles. I'm embarrassed to say I don't recall all their names (never kept any records of the trip), but we gathered at the Santa Fe Depot at 6 on a Saturday morning in October, rolled our bikes on the baggage car, and off we went. I do remember that Phil Sousa brought bloody marys, and I recall him reminding us that it was cocktail hour in London. Charlie, alas, could not make it, for reasons I don't recall. So I became the leader by default. Les Williamson of the ad department, one of the nicest guys ever, was also with us. The train rambled up the coast, getting us to Union Station shortly after 9 a.m., and off we went.
Did the trip again the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that. I didn't do it every year forever, but skipped a year or two or three, then picked it up again, now and then. Never got tired of it, could never understand why other people didn't want to do it as often as I did. Enjoyed every bit, all 65 miles each day, including the ride through the L.A. barrio along Whittier Boulevard, the 18 miles of the San Gabriel River bike path, the stretch of beach towns from Seal Beach southward, San Onofre State Park and Camp Pendleton the second day, even the long trudge up Torrey Pines Grade late in the second day.
In some ways, memories of the trip mark the passage of time. My son, Andrew, was too young to make the first few trips. Then he did the ride later in his teens. One year, I fell and broke an arm. Andrew was with me, and by then he lived not far away. He called his roommate, who fortunately had a van. The roommate came and picked us up, took us to a nearby Kaiser where I got x-rayed, then took us and our bikes home to San Diego. The rest of the gang completed the trip without us. Then came the year that Andrew only visited the riders at our Dana Point motel, along with his wife and their small boy, David.
In recent years, changing Amtrak logistics have made the trip more difficult. With traditional baggage cars, we could just roll as many bikes as we wanted aboard and roll them off when we got to L.A. Today, no more baggage cars, but just four racks for bikes on each passenger car. Not nearly enough for a big group. Last time we did the ride (my older son, Peter, came this time), we had to break it into two shifts, with the second group taking the 7 a.m. train. Not bad in itself, but it means we can't leave Union Station until 10 a.m., which means some people may not make the motel before dark. That gets risky.
But the road is still out there, and it beckons.
JIMMY THORNTON writes:
When it comes to transportation, I’m an expert, having been a captain in the Army Transportation Corps. If it had wheels, I drove it, sometimes into the ocean.Trains are OK if your mule is too balky, your bike broke, the car’s out of gas or you can’t get a jet plane. I prefer a car for long trips between Abilene, Texas, and the megapolis that is California.
Of course I was stuck on the train for an eternity between San Antonio and San B’dino back in the 50s, but the cold sandwiches made the trip worthwhile. Loved the way everything on the train appeared to be on its last run before the junk heap. Later, I juggled my kidneys on a train trip across the Pacific Ocean (which requires an explanation). Later, my teen daughter Bridget and I enjoyed an adventure along the rails from San Diego to Bend, Oregon. (And back.) The best part of that train trip was a bike built for two.
The first train trip got me to a job fighting wildfires of Southern California while financing a journalism degree. The train trip across the Pacific was in the early 1960s aboard an Air France airplane to New Zealand by way of Tahiti and Australia. We flew at a low altitude and into a storm or two or three or four (you could sing it) and the aircraft groaned and bucked until I’m sure rivets were flying through the air just above the sharks lurking in black waves with one thought, “Fresh meat.” But we survived. It was similar to a terribly rough train trip without the ground to support you.
My train trip with Bridget was a junket and delightful with beds and a private toilet the size of a tiny linen closet. We dined in what may have been the dining car. I sipped beer and chatted in an observation car you had to climb into and enjoyed scenery that was interrupted by the damned clatter of the train wheels, metal against metal. What a noisy ride through some pretty country. The urban areas brought home two facts: Graffiti painters love the dismal walls around rr tracks and most of the sprayers are the same height. And none had talent.
Trains are OK as a last resort, or if you can share it with your teen daughter. The open road through deserts and canyons of the West, however, are delightfuller. It’s nice to pull into a McDonalds and load up on carbs. And pee. And if you get drowsy, pull to the side of the road and prop your rifle in full sight as you snooze, dreaming of John Wayne with a patch over his eye.
Mark Monday, who has a neat home with a pool in Scottsdale, and I enjoyed a road trip once to the Grand Canyon, that big Arizona gulch cutting into what could be spectacular scenery. Of course, we drove. Love watching the gas indicator as it points to empty when the next gas station is 100 miles up the road. Exciting.
I was a captain in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, and we reluctantly resorted to trains at times. They make fine targets for modern war machines that fly. But trains can haul a lot. In fact, I once engineered a vintage steam engine along a track at Fort Eustis, Va. At that time, we relied more on boats for supplying troops and at one time had more boats and ships than the Navy. Of course, we had the truck that we drove into the surf (see picture of DUCK and ducks) to transport supplies from Army transports off shore to units after a beachhead had been painted in blood by Marines. The DUCK had one key requirement: Before you drove it from the beach into the surf, somebody must check to be sure all the draining outlets were closed. We practiced in DUCKs at night and referred to them as sitting DUCKS. Of course, we went in only after the Marines had secured the beaches and offed the snipers.
Men are probably fascinated by the train because of the marketing success of Lionel, which ridiculously made toy electric trains that ran on three rails.
Of course, in the army we were dedicated to getting the “mostest” to the battlefields. Many historians recognize that it was America’s industrial might that won the wars by being the “firstest with the mostest.” And trains were useful. But if you wanted destruction: you went for the B29 out of Kelly Field and giant bombers out of the Abilene area. Even so somewhere, chugging along, were trains moving troops and supplies to the Front. And in a few mountainous areas, the Army mule served us well, I’m sure.
I mentioned my trip with Bridget on a train, the best part of which was a bike built for two. She had joined me on this very long train ride because we were told the resort had horses she could ride, and Bridget was an expert horse rider, once rescuing a boy on his runaway steed on a beach near Mexico. When we got to the resort in Bend, the stable guys said the horses had been sent down the mountain for the winter and were not available for riding. Bridget and I had planned to ride the trails together. Then we found a bike shop that rented us a bike for two. Bridget rode in front with her blond hair flowing in the breeze as I labored behind her working off the beer of the night before. We rode around 17 miles of bike trails through some country that was beautiful. But none of it measured up to San Antonio and its river walks. Another story.
ELIZABETH GABRIEL writes:
OK, here's my train story. It was in the early '70s and in February. My (now ex) husband had a job-related trip to Washington, D.C., and I went along. We both were rail romantics so decided to fly out from Los Angeles and take the Amtrak back. The station in Washington was everything we hoped for: cavernous and full of ghosts of glorious train riders . Bogart was among them, we were sure. The route back home was D.C. to New York, where we picked up the Broadway Limited to Chicago, then down through the middle of the country to Albuquerque, across the Southwest and into Southern California and our last stop in Glendale, where we were living.In addition to our romantic fantasies about train travel, we were sure of the time tables. A friend who lived in Illinois (some of you will know him -- Bob Eaton, whom I knew from the Copley Arcadia and Monrovia News-Post and who later worked at the Breeze) was driving to Chicago to meet us for the 12-hour layover and train change. Great. We could see a bit of the Hog Butcher of the World, have some laughs with Bob and get a Chicago pizza. We pulled out of DC in the late afternoon and headed north -- slowly. At one point the train was moving through some mountains and there on the breast of the new-fallen snow in crevasses were derailed freight cars gleaming in the moonlight. The train must have been going about 5 mph. In addition, the upper "bed" in our sleeper car needed at least a gallon of WD40 and went squeaky-squeaky-squeaky the whole way. The roadbeds were rough and we did a good deal of swaying and lurching. We got to New York, became the Limited and headed to Chicago. But at a snail's pace.
We got into Chicago with one hour to meet the (I think) Chief. Bob had driven through February snow for three hours to see us for a few minutes in the station. The "meal" in Chicago was buying some palmieres from a deli in the station, giving a quick wave to Bob and boarding the (I think) Chief, pastries in hand. For hours, we passed automobile graveyards and very flat, very snowy land. I had never seen so much flat. After another meal of rubber chicken (dinner in the diner wasn't nearly as elegant as we had hoped), we retired, asking the snooty porter to wake us when we got to the Mississippi, but he didn't. We probably couldn't have seen it anyhow.
In Albuquerque, the train stopped for a while to be washed and we were allowed to get off, wander around and look at overpriced souvenirs. By this time the flaky palmieres had become flaky crumbs that littered the roomette. There was no way to clean them up. Dinner was to be served after we departed Albuquerque, but after the first serving, disaster hit. the Dining car lost power or something and there would be no second seating. Panic ensued. There was a run on the club car for snacks and on the car with vending machines that sold what claimed to be tuna, cheese, beef and ham sandwiches. Everything resembling food was gone within an hour. Passengers were behaving as if they were going to starve to death before we got to LA the next morning. They skittered down the corridors clutching food to their breasts and looking no one else in the eye. We pulled into Glendale the next morning, all hollow cheeks from the hunger and crumb-crusted. And the next year, we took another train from Victoria, B.C., back to Los Angeles. But that's another story.
MICHELE DAVIS writes:
I had to take the train from San Diego to Washington D.C. round trip twice. HORRIBLE! The trains that run from LA to Chicago are not anything like what you take from San Diego to LA. Had to sit up all the way to Chicago as they had no sleeper cars; much like a Greyhound bus. The luggage was downstairs but out in the open for anyone to get to. Food was like on a plane; you could not order individual items, the food came on a pre-wrapped tray. The Chicago to DC leg was okay but nothing special. Could not wait to get home. The second trip was uneventful as I did have a sleeper car, but you could not get off the train at all for a magazine or anything. Would never do this again. LESLIE WOLF BRANSCOMB writes:
I'm sorry to drag out the train theme, but I've been too busy with work this week to respond before tonight (I'm up listening to an endless city council meeting online). While my stories are nowhere near as poetic as some, I would like to add my tales (I'll keep it relatively brief): Sometime in my early years with The San Diego Evening Tribune (circa 1989-1991) I had a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome and like so many others had surgery on both my wrists. Off work on disability for four months, with casts on both my arms, and not having children at the time, I was bored to tears after reading every book I had and watching old movies on TV for weeks on end. So I took a train trip to Portland to visit my brother, and on to Seattle, to visit my best friend at law school, then back to San Francisco for my brother-in-law's wedding. First of all, I couldn't conceive that Amtrak would expect me to heave my own bags on board the train, with both arms in casts. But they did (no customer service here!) Yet, on the way, I heard Amtrak employees complaining about dropping revenues, despite the fact that my train trip cost as much as an airplane flight, yet was much slower. Most train travelers were seniors with time to kill... it was a lovely way to travel, too bad it's just so inefficient. I loved having cheese and wine while watching the ocean scenery on the California coast, and especially the surprise of being awakened in the middle of the night by fellow passengers to see ghost-like deer standing near the train on snowy terrain as the train passed through the Cascade mountains. I must say, however, I had a terrible cold by the time I arrived back in San Francisco for the wedding -- an enclosed train is a great place to contract a virus.Our best train trip was a few years later in Alaska, traveling in style to Denali with fine dining and incredible scenery. But the most memorable one occurred during Spring Break when I was in college, circa 1982. Took an organized trip to Mazatlan, which was great on the way down, with individual seats and air conditioning and full college party atmosphere. On the way back somehow I got separated from the main group, and along with four others I'd only met a few days before; we got a taste of working-class Mexico, riding in coach on wooden benches with the locals, where the cars had no windows. This was a two-day trip, as I recall. Going through the Sonoran desert, the dust was so bad that we followed the lead of locals and wrapped our heads and faces in toilet paper to filter the sand from our eyes and mouths. Eventually, we fell asleep in the aisles, where the locals apparently took joy in tossing onto us the shells of the small shrimp in hot sauce, along with their paper plates, which were purchased at various train stops from local orphans. And that's when we weren't being kicked, with unnecessary force, by the steel-toed cowboy boots of the train conductors as they patrolled the aisles. Ah, youth. How I (don't) miss it. The Mexican sweater I bought on the trip, which served as my pillow and blanket on the journey back, was so covered in dust, dirt, shrimp remains and hot sauce when I returned that I think my mom threw it out. At any rate, I never saw it again, and that's too bad, as I spent my last $5 on it.
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REBER: We have some entertaining quotes from the late Bill Parry.
CLIFF SMITH writes:
Add to Parryisms:(To a visiting flack) I'll put my best man on it.
(To Jim McVicar) If you see a copy kid, give him my best.
(To a copy kid) Did you get one of your athletic colleagues over to Greyhound?
(To no one in particular) You might want to know Neil Ball is sick today.
(Ditto) The whole operation is grinding to a halt.
(Ditto) Have you considered the Temecula Times.
(To Ball) Neil, the days of wine and roses are over.
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MICHELE DAVIS writes:
I found this article and thought some might be interested in it:The New York Times is uploading historic photos to the Tumblr site daily. How many are there? Dunlap writes: "We don’t know. Our best guess is five million to six million prints and contact sheets (each sheet, of course, representing many discrete images) and 300,000 sacks of negatives, ranging in format size from 35 millimeter to 5 by 7 inches — at least 10 million frames in all. The picture archive also includes 13,500 DVDs, each storing about 4.7 gigabytes worth of imagery. If we posted 10 new archival pictures every weekday on Tumblr, just from our print collection, we wouldn’t have the whole thing online until the year 3935."
I tried to get onto Tumblr but was not successful. I tried to register but failed.
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JOE BROWN writes:
The parahawks video you closed with this morning was incredible. I have a feeling from the look of it that it was filmed at Torrey Pines. TOM GABLE writes:
Some of the parahawk footage was from around the San Diego (Torrey Pines?) Glider Port. You can see the Torrey Pines Golf Course in the background in a few scenes.-------------------------------------------------------
TIM WILSON forwards:
Shame on the rich (and Prius drivers). A fascinating study about class, wealth and honesty:http://tinyurl.com/7mptwzt
TIM WILSON forwards:
From butterflies to batman behavior: Norwegian thrill seekers show us base jumping, from planning to execution. An interesting look at what is involved in becoming a human flying squirrel.http://tinyurl.com/7mvt96c
TIM WILSON forwards:
The story goes that an Englishman trained this squirrel over a period of two weeks. He added one section of the obstacle course every few days until the squirrel figured out how to get through the gauntlet to the goodies. An amazing video of critter determination and intelligence (50 sec):http://tinyurl.com/4to36zs
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