Good Morning All:
For some reason your messages are not showing up on my email. Wonder what is happening since I have a new computer put in place. Have to check with my computer person, all the rest are coming through, especially junk mail.
So pleased to hear from you Jimmie and enjoyed your trip on the train. I too travelled a lot by train when I was a teenager, actually about 12 years of age, as my father worked for the CNR and we were entitled to a pass, x number of times a year. I travelled with my sister to "Windsor by train, all alone, she was 16 and can you imagine that now. We had our uncle pick us up in Windsor and headed to Detroit where our uncle worked for Ford. Seems everyone at that time wanted to leave for the promised land of Detroit where one could get a job and live happily ever after. So many farm boys left after the war and headed out East where the work was in the factories and the car manufacturing.
I too recall the train belching out smoke and the coal dust coming in through an open window and a number of male passengers who were wearing white shirts ended up having soot covered shirts. The conductor went about at night lighting up the cars with a long handled item and had a piece of something on the tip, lit it and put up to the lamp and voila there was light. We ventured into the dining car and ordered our dinner and waited for strawberrues and whipped cream as the gentleman seated at our table was enjoying his dessert. We were in shock when we were served, prunes, you guessed it CPR strawberries they were called by travellers. I was so disappointed but kept quiet, we were robbed.
It always amazed me to see kids running on the side roads of the train tracks as if they wanted to catch the train and get away to some other place. We used to do that as children as we lived near the tracks, (wrong side of town) and would go to the train crossins and watch the trains go by, the biggest treat was when the engineer would wave to us. How many times did he wave at the kids hanging around the crossings I wonder now. We would come home breathless and tell dad, he of course knew many of the engineers as they would be scheduled out of our small town to Winnipeg and return on the return run home. Being an engineer was the top echelon of the CNR work force. Then there was the brakeman, etc. etc. I wonder how many people know of the work crews that used to be called the extra gang who came to fix the tracks, the older men who serviced the train tracks, rain or shine or blizzard or hot hot weather. Going on a jigger, what is what we called them, sometimes they were a two man jigger other times a one man and we would see them coming down the track to check to make sure the tracks were safe. Another item I just remembered was the items placed on the tracks that would make a huge band when the train ran over them to make the engineer aware of danger or be aware of something that was going on on the tracks. Forget what they were called...think it was torpedos.
Yes, Jimmie I did save some of the items from John's and my life. I shredded appointment books, etc where I had written his health condtion, the need for help, etc. etc. I still have his ration books and his penny saving account book that we used to use during the war to help the war effort. MY goodness, who knows about these things.
Yesterday, my friends took me to Harrison Hot Springs in the fRaser Valley. We sat on the beach watching the kites flying around, had lunch in a pub then went for a long drive around Harrison Lake and viewed all the large houses with their boats, etc in the lake, drove further up the mountain and was awed by all the lakes further up. What beauty we have here in B.C., trees galoe, mountains and more mountains, lakes all around then heading back we see the valleys and they are still green but the rivers in some places are drying out. We need rain.
I find that I miss John very much on this kind of trip to the Valley as we often would just pack up the car and take the kids out to the beach or as we were alone, just the two of us we would pack a sandwich, apple and coffee and head out to places unknown. John loved to drive and off we would go to places he knew of as he travelled the roads when he worked on the carnival. He left the EAst and made B.C and the west his home. I will be taking him home in October when I visit his sister in Windsor. We will be spreading his ashes (part) where he began his life 87 years ago and will give his sister whom he loved very much take part in bringing him home.
I am waving to you as well Jimmie and waving to Old Bat, Ian, Nat, Colleen, Katherine and all on this messag board. Of course, I should be saying "All Aboard", how we loved to hear that when we began our journey across Canada, all aboard and then the chugging of the steam enginer, the hissing, the clanging of the wheels on the tracks. What good times we had and remember.
All for now, heading for physio, have to learn how to walk without a cane as a prop, mind you I sure get doors opened for me and offers of help, even though I have a painful chronic condition no one sees that but once I have the cane I get all types of help. Oh well, I will enjoy this time and help someone else when I get better.
Hugs to all, affectionately your friend
Xenia