Merrily we rool along

Reading Erin's blog about riding an old train around the Ft. Worth Stockyards. Well, yesterday I had quite a long chat with Howard Marshburn who lives near Fresno. He and I have done some train riding together, and the locomotives were powered by steam from burning fuel oil. And you could see them from where you were sitting? Easily, just look straight ahead. Since we were sitting or standing or walking on the tops of the freight cars.

On top? Sure, where else do you ride freight trains? We were hitch hiking through Arizona on our way to Mexico City and at Bowie we could not get a ride, but there was a train, stopped right in front of us. So we hopped on and rode to Deming New Mexico. Hitched into El Paso but the next day could not buy a ride so got on a train going south. Went all day to a place called Sanderson where we got off as the train headed east to San Antonio.

So. Trains. Don't think there are many around who have done that. We even went back to the caboose and had lunch with the guys riding there. So it was fun to talk about such things with Howard.

One more. Last year I went to see Dr. David Marshburn about a cataract removal, which he later did. I had filled in the form and where it said, "Who referred you to us?" I had put Howard Marshburn. He said, "How do you know Uncle Howard?" I said, did you ever hear about the trip to Mexico City Howard made in 1946? "Yeah, we've heard it many times, it is a family legend." "Well, I am the guy who went with him." Suddenly instead of being two dimensional I was three.