{"id":98,"date":"2010-01-18T08:40:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T08:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucebramson.com\/2010\/01\/18\/trains-at-m-y-o-b-2\/"},"modified":"2010-01-18T08:40:30","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T08:40:30","slug":"trains-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/?p=98","title":{"rendered":"Trains"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARD TO BELIEVE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite growing up on a farm, watching animals being bred, watching Betty\u2019s horses, and working with Carl, the notion of doing something other than taking a leak with my own little wiener never occurred to me. Even after an older Cousin, who must have been about 15 at the time, let me watch him jack off and reach an orgasm (he was into keeping his loads in a little bottle in the refrigerator for some reason) I did not put \u201ctwo and two together\u201d. Throughout my extended youth (I would turn out to be a \u201clate bloomer\u201d) not one person of any age ever touched me \u2014 dammit! [Why, if I\u2019d known then what I know now, I\u2019d have joined the Catholic Church<\/em> (except there wasn\u2019t one in Carmichael then)]. The blessed event that was my own first orgasm came much later. Meanwhile\u2026<\/p>\n

BACK TO A CITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dad took a new job in Modesto, roughly 90 miles south of Sacramento, so all our stuff got packed up and shipped in a huge van to a new house in a small corner of Modesto. There were a number of adaptations that had to be made, not the least of which was receiving milk by delivery in quart<\/em> bottles: like, 20 at a time<\/em>? On the farm, we had our own cows, and kept their milk in gallon jugs: my bothers and I would polish off an entire one at every meal, and that was whole milk, not pasteurized or skimmed. But the stuff we got in the bottles was<\/strong> skimmed milk, and we thought it was like drinking water: our intake of milk dropped off rapidly.<\/p>\n

JUNIOR HIGH<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 7th grade was a whole new experience for me, much of it quite negative. For one thing, I was a natural hellion, and disliked regimen in almost any form. I also disliked sports, since I was very uncoordinated, but also could not see any real point to the kinds of sports we were required to play: baseball? I couldn\u2019t hit the ball even off a stand! Football? I couldn\u2019t hang on to it and run at the same time. And so it went. But the real problem was the requirement to dress<\/em> for PE. Actually, we had to UNdress<\/em>, put our clothes in a locker, change into little grey shorts, go out and play, then come back, UNdress again, shower, dry off, and put our street-clothes back on and go to the next class.<\/p>\n

The problems came particularly in the shower-room: there were guys there who were men<\/em>! They had hair<\/em> down there! They had huge penises<\/em>! And they loved to beat up little Bruciebabe, who was still a child.<\/p>\n

Further complications arose because I loved to look<\/em> at all the nude guys, but didn\u2019t want any of them to see me watching<\/em>! Of course I got caught peeping, so I also got towel-snaps and occasionally more brutal forms of abusive bullying. I tried getting a Doctor\u2019s excuse: no deal\u2014there was nothing wrong with me. I tried making myself appear sick: no deal\u2014the Doctor saw through that in a heartbeat. So, I stumbled along, knowing there was something wrong with me<\/em> because I hated sports but loved the nude guys! Such angst! I formed no friendships, kept to myself and somehow managed to get through the first year intact. I dreaded the approach of the eighth grade.<\/p>\n

NOT ALL BAD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Modesto did have a few redeeming features; most notably (for me) its location on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Our house was just a few blocks away, and when I was not in school, I was usually somewhere around the railroad. I met the southbound Daylight every afternoon: it was due in at 4:50 or so, and usually made it. For this little tyke, standing beside one of those gorgeous GS-4 locomotives all decked out in the smart orange and red scheme of the Daylight trains, this was the high point of each day. Once in a while a kindly fireman would beckon me up into the cab, where all the heat, fire, handles and gadgets were simply awesome!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

GS-4 Orange and Red<\/p>\n

The Daylights ware Southern Pacific\u2019s Premier trains in the hey-day of passenger trains. In my youth they ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the coast (The Coast Daylight), and between San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles (the San Joaquin Daylights); later they also ran North from Oakland to Portland (The Shasta Daylights). Still regarded as the most beautiful passenger trains to operate anywhere in the world, they are, of course all gone. Just one example of their famous locomotives still exists:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All other examples of this spectacular machine have been scrapped.<\/p>\n

For most of my years in Modesto I continued to meet the afternoon Daylight as often as I could, usually every day. I could watch the train depart and ride my bike home in time for dinner. There was not a lot of other excitement around Modesto\u2019s station, although once the local steam switch-engine failed to clear the high-iron for a northbound freight, resulting in a spectacular wreck. I lingered past dinner time to watch crews trying to untangle the mess, and caught holy hell for not being home on time.<\/p>\n

The SP also occasionally sent one of their famous cab-forward locomotives down the valley if they had a particularly long train to handle. What went south had to come north, and this usually occurred in the afternoon when I was out of school. I would hear the distinctive sound of the air pumps on those huge machines and ride my bike over in time to see them getting under way again after having taken on water. These things were amazing:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SP Cab-Forward Locomotive<\/p>\n

They are essentially two locomotives on a single frame and designed for heavy drag-freight use. They were used almost exclusively on Donner Pass. Putting the cabs in front prevented asphyxiating the crew when passing through snow-sheds which were essentially wooden tunnels designed to divert the avalanches so common in the high Sierra. On our trips to Tahoe it was not uncommon to see a freight-train with three of these mammoths working their balls off: one in front, one in the middle of the train, and one at the rear. The three crews could not communicate: they simply had to know when the engine was doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

f the 400 or so of these built, just ONE remains – in the Railway Museum in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Watching one of these get under way was incredibly exciting (with tender, these are a city-block long)! All the machinery is exposed and beefy. I could ride along the tracks for a quarter of a mile or so before the thing out-ran me: I\u2019d stop and watch as 125 cars rumbled by, gathering speed, so the caboose receded into the distance rapidly. Naturally, I wanted to become a locomotive engineer, but while I was in college, steam died. Diesel locomotives just don\u2019t have the charisma of steam!<\/p>\n

EIGHTH GRADE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too soon, September rolled around and I entered the eighth grade. But, something had happened along the way: I was beginning to grow up!<\/p>\n

So, the eighth grade was perhaps a little less stressful than the seventh. I remember less about it, though I know my feelings of inadequacy and differentness persisted. By the end of Junior High school I was at least beginning to mature, and there were a few stirrings of the hormones beginning to rage. But, I was still far behind most of my peers physically: academically, I was ahead of many, being something of a bookworm, or what we now call a nerd. High School terrified me, because I knew the Physical Ed bullshit would continue for another four years!<\/p>\n

To be continued \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

July 5th, 2009<\/strong> Mail to: MYOB@brucebramson.com (if you\u2019re so inclined).<\/p>\n

FOURTH OF JULY<\/strong><\/p>\n

As anyone who has read this blog knows, I wanted to be a locomotive engineer when I was a youngster, but it never happened. So, I spend time around steam whenever I get the chance. This past weekend on the Niles Canyon Railway was terrific fun because there were two locomotives to be admired:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Double-Heading With Two 2-6-2T Locomotives<\/p>\n

Except for getting my face rather sun-burned, it was a fine day and will keep me\u00a0 satisfied for a while.<\/p>\n

PREPARATIONS FOR VIETNAM<\/strong><\/p>\n

This photo was taken in the lab, of which I had just become the Director. It was 1966, just before the end of my brief affair with Cornell. I was 30 years old.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bruce at 30<\/p>\n

Within two years, having survived a year of therapy to get over Cornell and nearly a year of harangue from the IRS, I was ready to move on.<\/p>\n

It turned out that all applications for employment with PA&E were sent to the Contract Management Office in Vietnam, where the decision was taken to hire me; paperwork was then returned to Lost Angeles for further processing. All this took several months, and I had forgotten I\u2019d even applied. So, when the phone call came, \u201cDo you still want to go to Vietnam\u201d? I thought it over briefly and said \u201cYes\u201d.<\/p>\n

PA&E stood then (and I believe still does) for Pacific Architects and Engineers. They were neither Pacific, nor Architects, nor Engineers, but never mind: they had a contract to provide bodies (which they called personnel, of course) to go to VN \u201cin support of the military\u201d, which is to say, \u201cdo things the military did not want to bother with\u201d.<\/p>\n

A few days after agreeing to be a candidate for the job over there, I resigned my job, and began to \u201clighten up\u201d. I ran an ad in the paper, \u201cECCENTRIC LEAVING THE COUNTRY: EVERYTHING GOES\u201d, which drew more folks than I thought possible to pick over the few oddments I had accumulated up to this time. I sold enough stuff to put together the final payment to the IRS.<\/p>\n

The Company sent me to a local physician for a physical exam. This consisted of the doctor looking at me as I stood before him fully clothed: \u201cYou look healthy,\u201d was all he said, then, \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d When he returned, he carried a small metal tray with a white cloth on it: on the tray were six hypodermic needles, a sugar-cube of polio vaccine and a small-pox scratcher, and in the next few minutes all eight items had been administered. Three shots in each arm, a small-pox inoculation on one, and a cube-full of polio vaccine on my tongue. It was about 3 in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

Holy Jeezus! By evening I could scarcely move either arm. I remember going to Zim\u2019s for a hamburger, and could barely lift it to my mouth. By the time I got home from that, I was running a fever. I called\u00a0 a friend I knew and told him to being over a \u201cgallon of red\u201d, which he did, and together we got smashed.<\/p>\n

A few days later, arms still barely functional, I tossed a few clothes and what little else I still possessed into my Dad\u2019s former car, a nice \u201853 Chrysler, and headed South. I would stay a couple of days with my brother and then be off to Vietnam. It was late January, 1968.<\/p>\n

However, thing took a slightly different turn. There were delays. More papers to be filled out. Eventually, my brother dropped me off at LAX early one morning where we were to have an \u201corientation session\u201d, before departing for for Vietnam. There were about 15 of us at the meeting, where we got \u201cfilled in\u201d on almost nothing of any real importance. About ten we walked out to a Pan Am plane and headed out across the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Now, whenever I fly, I watch the waiting crowd and try to guess who my seat-mate will be.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t have mattered if there HAD been a handsome dude there: he would not have wound up seated next to me in any case. Instead, I picked out my seat-mate alright, and, typically, he was old and ugly\u2014and the nicest fellow! He saved my life, in a sense, because he was going back to VN for his third tour with PA&E and his girlfriend there. He went by the name \u201cCA\u201d, had a slow texas drawl and a dry sense of humor. Most importantly, as it turned out, knowing the ropes as he did after three tours gave him an edge on the rest of us who were neophytes.<\/p>\n

I saw my first tropical sunrise ever from the airport at Guam, our first stop (for re-fueling). One minute it was dark, and the next it was full sunshine! We had an hour or so on Guam, which was essentially an hour too many. It\u2019s a god-forsaken place, and the passenger terminal was run down and messy. Not soon enough, we were airborne again; next stop Ton-son Nhut airport, Saigon.<\/p>\n

Now, I knew there was a war going on and I knew it was going on in Vietnam: but exactly where Vietnam was, I would have been hard-pressed to say. \u201cSomewhere in Indo-China,\u201d if you had asked\u2026<\/p>\n

COMING UP:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I learned a whole lot in a short time over the next few weeks: some of what I experienced and what I learned will be in the next page of this blog.<\/p>\n

Until next time!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARD TO BELIEVE: Despite growing up on a farm, watching animals being bred, watching Betty\u2019s horses, and working with Carl, the notion of doing something other than taking a leak with my own little wiener never occurred to me. Even after an older Cousin, who must have been about 15 at the time, let me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucebramson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}