Rails Trails and Other Tales

Rails Trails and other Tales

Meynardie Blanchard

Copyright © 2012 by Meynardie Blanchard.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012911376

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4771-3313-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4771-3312-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-3314-9

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Contents

Introduction

The Runaway And The Billiard Den

First Ride On The Rails

A Hey-Hey In A Young Man’s Day

B.C. Canada

British Columbia, Revisited

The Bird & The Bear

On A Train… Going… Where I Do Not Want To Go

Highlights From Seven Weeks On The Western Side Of The Bitterroot Divide, Rocky Mountains, Idaho

Dark Night With A Mad Moose

Bear-N-Berries

Moose Creek Ranger Station

Rolling In Box Cars, From Missoula Montana To Northern California, And On Down To San Antonio Texas

Now For The Story

Rolling Steel Songs

Remembrances

Riding The ‘Units’

A Reminder

Micol & Marmots

Misery Ride

A Failed Fateful Moment

Enter-Lewd

Seattle Yards

A Cold-Cold Winter Ride

Wind Playing Tunes

Zen And Riding In A Box Car

An Enchanting Moment

A Remembrance

What A Dog

Railroad Loneliness

My Fire, My Friend

Mister Black And An Outlaw Mule

On Mules

Old Hank And His Four Letter Mule

Adolph And His Pelican

Ospreys And Blue Balls

Ellie

The Old Family And Meg

New Zealand

Oscar The Duck

A Saskatchewan Bush Indian

Amtrak And New York City

The Last Wander

I have just finished reading Rails, Trails and Other Tales with regret that it was over. It was not only a page turner for me but a turn back and read againer. It was an experience of growing delight as Bo took me through the rail part of his life and then the trail part and finally a collection of experiences that demand to be related but don’t fit either his life hitching on railroads or his life afoot.

Many of us share my conflict of a rather regular life with a wanderlust that has to be crammed into a two week vacation. Many of us dream of life on the road. Bo’s technique is to share deceptively simple tales as if I were in an old fashion blacksmith shop or around a late night camp fire and he were just talking to me. I got the impression that I was sharing a trek on life’s trail with a friend. As these tales are related I found that I was getting to know a man who had seen a great deal of the country and of people and that the experience some how made not only him a better man but me as well for reading it, in the sense that it broadened my imagination with some of life’s experiences that I didn’t have.

So often in my teaching I would hear from my students that there was nothing to do, that we had become a nation of watchers. I wish I had this book at the time to show that spirit is not dead.

Bo’s descriptions of this land from a rolling train or by a campfire are pure poetry.

For any readers who wants to share a journey, a Thoreau like experience, this is the book to read.

Sincerely yours

Bob Wiese

Introduction

I guess my wanderings began when I’d sneak out of the house at night as a kid. By the time I was running away from home as a young teenager I was familiar with the feeling of freedom and independence. Not much over the years has captured my imagination like being on the move and wondering what lies ahead.

In my early twenties I began taking notes and then started keeping a journal. So with the traveling and note taking turning into stories I like telling pretty much kept most of the stories intact.

The rails and most of the wilderness stories are from my twenties.

I met a gal at thirty-one and married her at thirty-three while I was attending horseshoeing school at MSU in Bozeman Montana and that ended my wayward wandering for about twenty-two years.

At first I drug her around from place to place until she put her foot down and said she wasn’t going to be moved again, and that was that.

A Farrier is a horseshoer who is skilled at making different types of shoes for different types of horses. He is also skilled at making certain shoes for correcting gait faults and in dealing with injuries and pathologies.

A horseshoer can be anyone who knows how to nail a shoe on a horse but a true farrier is also a blacksmith that is versed in veterinary knowledge pertaining to the legs and hooves of an Equine.

Many horse owners like to be present when their horses are being shod, and over time the shoer and the customer get to know each other.

Over the years of nailing steel on the bottom of horses feet, accompanied by the telling of stories, I have been told many times: you should write a book.

Well now, I don’t know anything about writing a book but I do have some stories I like telling.

A number of years later the missus and I had a big argument and she asked me to go away for a while.

And that was the spark that lit the fire

I had a business at the time, so I couldn’t go far.

I did have a shoer friend who had an old truck camper sitting in his back yard that he let me have the use of.

So I went back home and gathered up my journals and other writings and spent a number of days sittin’ in the camper trying to put my writings and notes in order.

After about a week I went back home and my writings went back into a box. At that time I wasn’t even considering the possibility that I ‘could’ write a book. I was thinking more along the lines of putting my stories between covers.

The missus knew for a long time that I was out of my element in domestic life so when I was in my fifties she had about enough of me and said just go so I did.

A couple of years later I found myself caretaking an old homestead ranch in no mans land Nevada.

It was just me and my dog, a couple of burros and horses, the desert brush and the wildlife. No neighbors to speak with and town (Cedarville) was eighteen miles away.

There wasn’t much to do in the evenings so I dragged my pile of writings out again and got busy. After about two years when I had them in some sort of order the owner of the ranch bought me a lap top computer.

I would go to town once a week to get groceries and check out books from the library, which is where I met a typist that I paid to put my work in the computer.

I’ve tried educating myself for this endeavor, you know, like books on writing and self editing and such, but they just sort of confused me, (do you know how many ways there are to use a comma?). So I figured I’d just write it in my own way of talking like I would if I was telling stories around the camp fire.

Like you will see I’m not well versed in a literary sense and I’ve been through this so many times to make it coherent I can’t see where I can make it any better without making it different from what I want, which is ‘me’ telling ‘you’ stories.

This isn’t intended to be memoirs of my life, way too much is left out for that, it’s just stories of experiences and adventures I’ve had along the way.

The Runaway and the Billiard Den

Along a channel off of the San Pablo Bay in California is Mare Island naval shipyard; it was mainly, I think, a submarine base during the Second World War and Korea.

Across the channel is a town that was also a going concern in servicing of the workers and sailors. It was big business in the nightlife of the times in general—bars, prostitutes and gambling in particular.

Well, that was this town in the forties and early fifties, then peace came, the shipyard declined, and the town went derelict. In the time of this story, in the early mid-sixties it was a temporary ghost town, slated for demolition and renovation.

There was a few businesses that held out until the end though: a few bars, an old fly-blown market, the Crown Theater that still held Sunday matinees, a liquor store or two, the corner tobacco/magazine shop, and a cafe/pool hall. Other than that I saw broken doorways, greasy sidewalks, faded paint, windows broken or boarded, litter built up in every corner or being whisked about the streets with the wind.

This being my latest run from home just out of puberty found me settling in a recessed doorway for the night. I didn’t sleep much, just kind of nodded in ‘n’ out between shivers. I remember the neon BAR sign: the ‘A’ illuminated and the ‘B’ blinking. Another sign hung from one hinge, creaking with the gusts that would come through. A figure in the third floor window of a deserted hotel that would move back as I’d look up. The litter that would dance in the street as the breezes would swirl as they’d pass by. In the wee hours before dawn, from the channel, a two foot ground fog would roll in and cover the street. The stirrings I felt. Not another soul did I see on the street that night. The next morning early, only a bent old man shufflin’ down the street in shoes three sizes too big; plop, plop, I heard the heels fall for at least a block and a half. It was very quiet that morning.

And in that stillness after the fog rolled away I set about exploring the vacated buildings looking for a crash pad should I need one. Along the way I went into an alley and found a door that wasn’t too difficult to bust open and then up a stairway and came into what I thought to be an old nightclub. Other than the windows being broken it was in pretty good shape, maybe a thirty-foot bar with a full-length mirror…

I went over and sat on a bar stool and then I got to looking around the place through the mirror… . a gust of wind blew thru the broken window, and the dust on the bar stirred, and as I’m looking in the mirror thru the dust, into the room around me… . I felt stirrings; my arm hairs stood up, and then there was some kind of nightclub echoes in my mind, and then it felt like a ghost of the past stroked the hairs on the back of my neck, it made my whole being tingle. I know it may sound like a tall tail stretched a bit, but it’s not.

Anyways, I found a good sized closet and figured it would be a relatively safe place to have a little nest. The ghosts were friendly, so why not?

A little later I was on the street in front of the building I was just in and found that right next door was the Family Billiards and Cafe. The only going concern around. No broken panes, no boards, big panes of glass on both sides of the door; a bright spot in a most haunted neighborhood.

Upon walking through the door I passed through the cafe which was a long counter with stools, and along the other wall were tables and then it opened up into the pool hall. There were sixteen tables with hooded lights hanging low over each one. The scene was dark enough above the chest-high light for someone across the room to be in the dark. A person had to step up to the seating along the walls, and when sitting, the light/dark line was at belly level. Basically, the only faces one could see clearly was when someone was bent over the table taking a shot. There were spittoons placed throughout the place and counting beads hung from the ceiling. In the far corner was the ‘John,’ and whenever someone would open the door a bright light would flash through the darkness. Most evenings that was where the crap shooters did there thing, and since it was a small John it was an inconvenience for the players and goers alike. So the pissers went out in the alley, the back door being right there by the John an’ all. Speaking of the alley, it was a bad place to find oneself late at night; drug deals, fights and muggings most weekends, and a knifing death happened during my time. I didn’t witness it but I did see the not quite dried blood the next morning.

Well, I was hungry and had some money, so I go in and sit at the counter and was served by a nice lady named Mary. We talked a bit and she soon learns of my circumstances, Stick around a bit. said she, and went off to talk with the guy at the billiard counter, and then they both walk over and Mary makes introductions. Now Henry was the owner and asked me if I’d like a job, Why sure, says I, what’ll I do? Clean the tables, spittoons, floor and ‘John’, and take out the trash, and be here at seven thirty, six days a week, and you’ll get $5.00 a day, meals, and free pool during slow hours" . . . . Sounded like just the ticket for me—I even got a key.

Now Henry, looked to be in his sixties, short, big paunch, and smoked gigantic cigars. Quiet, nice fella, but he had some kind of magic or muscle, ’cause he didn’t have to say much in breaking up a dispute or getting what he wanted done. This was no family billiards, let me tell you. Most of the patronage was hustlers of all sorts, dopers, bullies, criminal types, drunks, and old bent men with nowhere else to go. Other types of folks would come in too, but they weren’t the regulars, and generally only on Sunday afternoons.

Now Mary looked to be in her fifties and still guite pretty, not only ran the café, but she was also a madam and ran six girls. It didn’t take me long to figure out why those pretty dressed up woman where always hanging around in the evenings and them fellas were paying fifty dollars and change for a cup of coffee and leaving with one of the girls.

Mary was the motherly type and sort of adopted me, and she made it plain to the girls that they weren’t to corrupt me. They treated me like their little brother. Boy, I wish Mary hadn’t laid down the law, ’cause them girls all but fondled me, especially a grey eyed beauty called Kitty. I used to think about what they could have taught me, but then looking back, I see I was just a pet. (Towards the end of my time there Kitty did manage to break Mary’ rule—To my delight)

On the pool hall end of things, I was accepted pretty quickly (thanks to Mary, the girls, and Henry). I was well tutored in my initiation into the game of pool; the regulars would come in to practice, get bored playing alone, and call me over, and I’d get lessons. After a while, on busy Friday and Saturday nights, one of my mentors by the name of Tony (who always wore dark sunglasses) would come up and tell me about some young hotshot over at table so-and-so, that I could beat (a few times he backed me). Sure enough, he knew who I could beat, and I made a little money. Not much, just enough to make me feel like I was more than just the clean up boy. And to the regular crowd in that place that’s what I was—Just a young sprout.

They looked out for me though. Like the time this predatory homo got to bothering me. The first time I just walked away, Tony and Joe noticed it and a couple of days later Mr. homo was back again trying to pick me up, Tony and Joe were there as usual and escorted him out the back door. I don’t know what happened, they wouldn’t say, but he didn’t come around any more.

There was quite an assortment of characters that frequented the place, like Hundred Ball Blackie: white, old, and so blind he’d have to put his money up to his nose to see it. He’d come in most every day, put together his old newspaper-wrapped cues (three), fumble around the table a while, make a few shots, set for a spell, shoot some more, then carefully wrap his cues in the newspaper, and leave. The girls had a little bet going as to whether he’d get the doorknob first try… In his day, his average run in straight pool was a hundred balls, hence his name. (It’s hard letting go of how good one once might have been or was, I guess.

Then there was ‘Devil’: Short hair with a widows peak, skinny as a rail, black as coal, pointed ears, high cheekbones, drawn skin, narrow turned up brows, pointed nose, and slanted bloodshot eyes. He had the disposition of a rabid dog, so difficult was he that he was allowed to play on table #1 only; right in front of Henry’s booth. (I take no liberties in describing Devil, and that is the name he went by.)

Even though he was on probation (so to speak), I saw his temper displayed a time or two. With him, things were okay until he started losing. And then he’d start to boil, and you could almost see the steam rising from his glistening sweat and those bloodshot eyes would turn to slits… One time I was sitting across Henry in his booth", and Devil looked over to/at Henry and I swear them eyes had a neon glow. Something I felt there was creepy, an icy shiver went down my spine, and even at the time I knew I was experiencing the essence of an evil moment.

On that particular day he ended up breaking his own cue across his thigh and stomping out (better than busting it over somebody’s head, which he had done, hence table number one).

Then one day a friend asked me if I’d like to hitchhike the thirty-three miles to ‘Frisco’ with him to meet Mary-Jane, and I did, ending up meeting Haight-Ashbury, and smoking Mary Jane… That was the summer of sixty six.

And from there the pool hall waned and the ‘Haight’ waxed. I ended up losing my job but that was alright, the Haight was happening, the girls were easy, the evenings at the old Filmore Auditorium were psychedelic, acid and pot were cheap, sleeping in the park when the weather was good, when it was cold or rainy there were crash pads around, food was around too if you knew where, if not, it was easy enough to ask around and find out. I look back to it as one big groovy happening that was spoiled by hard drugs, to many run-away’s hangin, sittin and runnin-around with no direction, being preyed upon and manipulated by predators and ideologs.

There is a saying that if you remember those years you weren’t really there. That’s partly true but I do remember some of it. Like the old Filmore auditorium, Winterland and the Avalon Ball Room. That was when the psychedelic rock bands where getting traction and on there way to fame: like the Jefferson Airplane, Janice Joplin, Gerry Garcia, Jimmie Hendricks and etc. etc. Then there was the time I was sitting on a little hill-side in panhandle park when the mock Hippie burial procession walked by. I didn’t know what they were doing at the time but found out it was a statement of what the ‘hippie’ represented in the Haight was no more.

For me it was a carefree ride leading straight to hell. My Pap once told me ‘the road to hell can be fun along the way, but when you get past a certain point, turning around is a bitch’.

Sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and ye-ha, down I was headed. Lucky for me a window of opportunity came along that I just happened to fall thru backwards… But that’s a story for later and I’d just as soon leave out the details for now. I will say that window I fell through was the time I started believing in Guardian Angels though.

*     *     *

First Ride on the Rails

One