Rails in Rust and Grass

Facebook gallery is here.

As noted elsewhere I have a fascination with old rail lines - spikes, rails, bridges, ladders, engines and other detritus.

My favorite summer job was in the 1975 where I supported myself in marching with the Valiant Knights of Enid, OK by working for the local Kiwanis club.  

My task was to help rebuild a huge miniature railroad in Meadowlake Park in the South of Enid.  The line had been washed away by a flood the Summer before and our job was to restore it.

The man in charge was a crusty old ex-railman named Bill Haney.  You could tell he had worked his way around the West by swinging a sledge and had the work ethic of a man whose paycheck grew based on how much steel he laid in the course of a day.

We didn't stand around a lot.

The neat thing was Bill's insistence that we make it "look pretty" - that just getting the job done shouldn't be enough.  There was more to this than the paycheck.  Or, more precisely, the cash he doled out at the end of each day.  

Now that I think of it it strikes me that maybe he was trying to teach us something, pass on wisdom as an elder - or a father - conscious or not. I never heard that there was a "Mrs. Bill Haney" - I'm sure there probably was and I'm equally sure that it's no damned business of mine.

Still, he made it a point to give us a chance to do really good work.  Maybe I learned more from that job than I thought.  The Valiant Knights won second place in the 1975 VFW nationals in LA that year, though everyone else was at DCI in Philadelphia, the first PBS broadcast - but my first thought, when my parents came to collect me afterwards, was to take them to ride on that silly train.

I still think well of the experience - a Google satellite photo is here.  You can just make out the train line.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the fascination with trains I've had since childhood.  

I suppose it all served to move me to head down to the Fore River waterfront - the part along Commercial Street that has no lobster pounds, no boat chandleries, no antique shops - the part that has pretty much nothing but scrub growth and rusting metal left from it's days as a switching yard for the Grand Trunk Railroad.

A warm day, a very clear day.  The railyard lies below the level of Commercial Street, next to the river.  One rusted spur leads to a gas tank farm but I don't see that it's been used in a long, long time.  Looking close at the rails will show one set with just a touch less rust.  Just a touch.

You can see where multiple lines used to be.  Certain sections twist and turn - one striking section is a series of "S" curves.  

The yard expands out for a quarter-mile - then condenses again, down by the Merril Docks, heading under Route One and the Veteran's Bridge.  The bridge pilings are covered in impressive graffiti - lost declarative artworks seen only by other taggers, wharf rats and the occasional nosy-parker with a camera and a free afternoon.

I wonder at how much traffic those lines must have carried - they represent a substantial infrastructural investment.  And now they are falling to ruin - I'd say "seed" if they weren't all made of cast steel.

Set aside the question of what we have gained or lost by industrialization.  Just think about the good work of the ones who laid that rail, who made it "look pretty".

I wonder at what Bill Haney would have said about it.

TML 10, Audience 8

Facebook Gallery is here.

So here I am, liveblogging from the NorthStar.  

M and Professor L gave a great lesson and as I write there are 5 couples on the floor, all of them with at least one beginner.

A very nice crowd - and more so, since our local tango orchestra, Tango Much Labia, seems to be taking the night off.

I am not surprised as this is the first full week of school; the violinist teaches at the local school system and if it were me I'd take the night off too.  They will be back in two weeks.  

I hope.

TML is a game bunch and very talented, to boot.  I've written seven or eight tangos with them in mind - or ear.  Not all are performed but they are seriously considered.  There isn't time to play every clever piece that comes down the pike.

My friends played a part in last weekend's shennanigans up in Thomaston.  They provided the first night of music for Saltwater Tango and also played on Labor Day at the Picnic for Alternative Energy in Union.

I suppose there are lot's of reasons to take an alternative approach to Labor Day.  Anything that takes away from an holiday ("a holiday"?) meant to make American celebrations of labor a part of the agenda of industrialists is a good thing in my book.

This particular event was about as alternative as they come.  For one thing it was so alternative that no-one seemed to know about it.  For another it struck me as strange that the second thing set up (besides a rather nice portable stage/sound system) was a large gas-fired outdoor barbecue immediately employed to start scorching beef for alternative burgers.

Or maybe they were cleverly disguised ears of corn.  I don't know.  I suppose they were using propane as an alternative to using wood.  I never would have thought of that.  Perhaps if I thought less then global warming would go away.

Or not.

TML played a solid set very much like those we hear at the NorthStar - considering the venue that seemed a good choice.  Additional support came in the form of 6 demonstration dancers (a demonstration - you see, it really was "alternative") who danced to the music.

I was thinking fast enough to set my laptop up in front of a speaker in an attempt to capture some audio from the gig.  The sound was not the best, of course, but the parts were all there.

It was one of those strange affairs made up of having a crowd smaller than the performing ensemble.

There was every good chance that more people would have shown up in time, I mean, what with the barbecue and all, but I didn't have time to wait.  Sadly TML opted to be foolishly professional, both starting and ending on time, leaving the potential for a larger crowd for later groups.

What is the moral of this story? 

Hell, I have no idea.

Let us pause for a moment ...

Many of my students will know this name - Don, you only became famous in the last few years, but we're still gonna miss you.  Vaya con Dios, amigo.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Things I look at on the way to someplace else

Facebook gallery is here.

Labor Day - actually, the Sunday before Labor Day - was spent in Rockland, as I said before.  The weather was perfect, breathtaking; almost - almost - making up for all of the scrabulous weekends that had gone before it, for almost the entire Summer.

I'd had to work Saturday, a very productive and enjoyable session.  For better or ill it kept me from being in the mix of Saltwater Tango from the beginning.  Had it been a more formal occasion - had there been any hint of formality from the beginning - I might have reacted differently.

But, everyone was so comfortable with each other by Sunday that a powerful sense of intrusion overcame me.  A great part of my psyche is invested in seeing myself as an "other".  This feeling has been with me from early, early childhood.

This can be a tremendous source of strength.  My imagination is free to see outside corners, around boxes - something like that.  It's hard to institutionalize myself purely for the sake of institutionalization.

This doesn't mean being insensitive to any team I'm on - I'm just an individual first, a team member second - a team is a context for me to be myself.

But in social situations this is sometimes a little hard to pull off.   Like last Sunday.

So, rather than suffer from my own discomfort (I'm sure everyone else was OK with me, I just wasn't OK with myself being there) I hied my way out of there.

And that brings us to the subject of this particular post.  

Since childhood, comma, I've also had a fascination with trains and train tracks, switches and gondola cars.  I suppose it all traces back to my uncle Louis Benge, on my dad's side, the one who married Aunt Aunie (or Aunniseekit, to use the full Cherokee).

Uncle Louis worked for the Midland Valley Railroad as a brakeman.  It was he who gave me a genuine brakeman's lantern when I was a child; two bulbs, red and white on the bottom, a space for a huge nine-volt battery inside, which we could never afford to fill.

There was a train track in our neighborhood in Tulsa, the Midland Valley line running behind Lee School and into downtown.  

I loved walking it, looking at the bridge and ladders crossing 15th Street, the incredible switches that moved whole sections of track.

So saying, I'd noticed the Maine Eastern Railroad yard - or more of a "wide spot" - from the street leading to and from the tango site and my digs in Rockland.  Couldn't resist.  There was brilliant sun, lots of old metal to see, an engine, tank cars, a snow plow and a genuine roundhouse with a table.

It was lovely - and engaging in a solitary way.  Enough so that I'd had my fill of being by myself and was ready for the socialization of the evening.  My pal Adira had to drag me into the mix but it was easy to cross that line back into the human race.

There are many places for me to be - with my friends, my new co-workers, my close friends and with myself.  It has to be that way or I cannot be the person I'm capable of.  

If there is a simpler way to live one's life, I don't think I have time to hear it.

The Last Beach Day

I admit it.  Sometimes this whole "new job" thing seems really weird.  

It's a great deal of fun, even if it's not the most sensible financial decision I've ever made - and that is saying something.

There was a discussion of this earlier this evening.

Myself, aged 52, my German friend E, aged 42. and his daughter J. aged 7.  The three of us sat in their garden in  the deepening twilight, toasting the day and our return from Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth.

E. and I had adult beverages, J. was toasting with a bottle of imported orange soda.

It was a very interesting conversation - at least between J. and I.  She was just entering 2nd. grade - I was entering the first Fall since the age of 5 without a school to go to.

Forty-seven years in school.  She said she could count to forty seven.  I instantly took her word, cutting her off in mid-demonstration.

I told them both it felt very strange, kind of neat - and also kind of scary.

J. nodded and took a contemplative sip of her orange soda.

We had spent the previous couple of hours at the beach.  Today was the first day of classes for all three of the kids - J. being the middle, M. being older and T. just starting in nursery school.  Their father suggested we all go in order to enjoy such a lovely, clear day - and to give his wife a much-deserved rest.

The sky at Crescent beach was cloudless - I enjoyed lying on the warm sand, listening to the waves, looking at imaginary animals in the sky.  

It was very warm and I'd not been to the beach at all this Summer.  Not having a bike has made it more difficult.

If I have time over the next few days - Saturday and Sunday look to be rainy - I'm going to head back out and see what I've been missing.

To top it all I had finished my training today.  The next time we meet is in the store, starting the process of final stocking, getting ready for what is guaranteed to be a complete riot of an opening.  

So tomorrow is more cleaning, then some friends are playing at the Longfellow - I and another friend are going to record and photograph the show.  Nice way to say goodbye to wearing white trousers.

Summer, thy name is Rockland

Facebook gallery is here.

I have driven through Rockland over the years, mostly on my way to Camden which, besides being the film location for the movie "Peyton Place", is more "beautiful" in a kind of Disneyland New England kind of way; Rockland is still very much a working seaport and the starting point for ferry trips to Vinalhaven and other islands.

The Labor Day weekend provided a good excuse to run from Portland ("Silicon Harbor") and the intense training sessions we've been having.  The Store is gearing up.  The tension is palpable.

I'm having the best time I've had in years.

TImes being what they are I wouldn't be caught dead in the town during any other time.  Ah, but Labor Day - or during the quiet season when the leaves are gone and the snows have not yet fallen - those are different matters. 

Now is that magic time that is the very last clear time of Summer.  We've had a notoriously soggy Summer up here - rain almost every weekend; the farmers are afraid for certain crops.

Lettuce seems to have been particularly hard-hit.

TML and BigB hosted an event called "Saltwater Tango", a sort of Summer camp for tangueros - two nights of dancing with camping in the yard of our host, an affable fellow named George.

It was held in a combination house and boathouse on the waterfront of Thomaston.  The top level was for living - and dancing - and the bottom held the business-end of a good carpentry shop.

George and I had a good chat about how our particular stomping grounds had changed - his being Rockland, mine being Tulsa - over the years.  

Change is change - some of it bad, some good - and I hope it's all welcome change.

I also did get a chance to browse around the town.  There is a boardwalk around part of the harbor and it afforded some dramatic views.

You can see much the same from places in Portland, of course - but the context and land were different.

Besides an evening of wonderful dancing I had a chance to indulge my interest in old trains.

Seeing TML play at the Picnic for Alternative Energy was also a not-to-be-missed experience.

Have to run to work now - more later.  This is fun.

Nothing Kills a Man Faster Than Leisure

Thank you, Oscar Wilde.

Work has been an endless series of enlightening challenges.  I'm glad I have a Farmer's Market to run to.

There is a decidedly different feel to the Farmer's Market today.  The energy is a little more diffuse - though the prices on tomatoes have dropped (at some dealers) and corn is slightly cheaper. 

It feels as if the Market is coasting - that the motor has lost it's Summer-sun source of power.  I like it, it's that strange moment of transition again, the moment when the waters hang between ebb and flow, the tide is neither in nor out.

At work we are now past the offcial training stage and getting into things that are specific to our particular store - and the community within it.

I like this kind of stuff.  Sharing with people, the process of getting to know them is pleasant - the way a hot bath feels after you've been doing a lot of hot work - the very feeling is refreshing and you become better at using your energy.

If I have time here I'll post about the Labor Day weekend.  It was filled with work and with fun - and a bit of travel - the only travel I've done all summer.

Still, for just this moment - the one that passed between the "t's" and the "-" I am quiet and struck by the diversity and activity that surrounds me.