Accord, NY: An Outsider's Perspective

Waking up in Accord, NY comes with a symphony of sounds. A lone rooster “cock a doodle dos” each morning beginning at 4:30 AM. He crows intermittently above the chirping songbirds and the squeaks of something our new friend Mary called “peepers.”

Mary is Ken’s wife. He is a truck driver who parked his load behind our coach on the blacktop Municipal Lot in Accord, New York. “Mind if I park here?” he asked from high up in his truck cab. We should have been asking him that question since Ken parks his trailer here each weekend. We were the “out of towners”. Ken grew up in this area bordering the New York Catskill Mountains. He welcomed us to this little town as warmly as if we had stepped over the threshold of his very own home. Ken and his wife aren’t the first people we met in Accord. When we arrived in town, we first met Tyler, Britton, and Dan.

Ed had driven the coach down Accord’s Main Street until he stopped to ask a fellow with his foot in a cast about the lay of the town roads. The news was not all good. We were headed on a country road with few options for turnarounds, but a municipal lot where tractor trailer trucks frequently parked was nearby. All we had to do

was turn around. Tyler hoisted himself on board and took over my co-pilot seat to direct us to a place he though could accommodate a big coach. His suggested location turned out to be too tight with trees and a

bridge that could collapse with our tonnage. Fortunately, a friendly man in a pick-up truck stopped to advise us of a place. He directed us to his nursery farm, a place where trucks turned around every day. We had to move a few flats of flowers to make the turn. During our ride Tyler said he left high school to work as a tradesman building stone walls. He broke his ankle racing dirt bikes. He told me that the most fun thing to do around town was to head to the swimming holes in Rondout Creek. At first, I suspected Tyler might be right.

You might think Accord is a ghost town. The first building on Main Street is an abandoned gas station. There are still two rusty and worn gasoline pumps along the street. They are protected overhead by the overhanging front room of the station owner’s second story house. The general store would have been below. The windows and doors are boarded up and locked. No trespassing signs hang eyelevel warning people to stay out of this structurally unsound remnant of a gas station, home and store. We found a feed store further into town in similar disrepair – leaning dangerously on its foundation, overgrown with weeds and tall grass, and displaying more no trespassing signs. Then, we noticed that the train depot had been converted to a house. People were living there with a red caboose parked on the no longer used tracks in the front yard. We wondered about this town – Accord, New York – maybe it wasn’t a ghost town after all. Soon this little town in the Rondout Valley started to come alive…

Britton let me interrupt his outdoor painting to peek in his Main Street shop. He is a potter and sells his creations at the Stone Window Gallery where I found vases, rectangular shaped tea pots, mugs, and dipping dishes.

Dan works with Baltic Birch, a Russian birch wood, in his shop behind the Municipal Lot. For 35 years, he has created wooden boxes for precision measuring instruments. His vendors don’t need large quantities of boxes so companies can still justify $25 per box for one of Dan’s handmade wooden boxes. To begin making the boxes, Dan created the tooling himself. He makes and sells another novelty. For $85, you can order Dan’s phonograph toy modeled in the image of Uncle Sam, a Vaudeville dancer with hair slick down the middle, or Mr. Potato head. The toy mounts on a Victor phonograph. The spindle turns the toy and as the record rotates, the toy performs a tap dance of sorts.

As our stay stretched from one to many, we came to meet more of Accord’s town folks.

Debbie works at the post office. She loves quilting and frequently lugs her sewing machine to the municipal park where she can sew over her two hour long lunch break.

Patty is the red-headed lady who has six Mallards swimming in a baby pool in her yard. Her husband only wanted one duck “because they we so cute” as babies but the store insisted on selling the ducklings in groups of six or none. They bought six.

We came to learn that the emergency alarm system mounted on the fire station annoys the people who live here too. And, it’s rumored in whispers that the town keeps the ear shattering horns to drive newcomers away. One family claims the sound is damaging their baby’s tender hearing. Some say it’s redundant and unnecessary, yet the alarm continues its blasts day and night even though I never saw an emergency vehicle careened away from the building.

I found quiet one afternoon in the yellow cottage of the Friends of Rochester, Inc. Museum. People come here to research family history with the help of a volunteer researcher. Had Accord been my hometown, I could have found links to cousins a century ago.

There’s a bike trail on the edge of town. It meanders on the rail path of the now extinct railroad that once thrived here. It runs three miles along the Rondout Creek and to the next town. I made the full roundtrip several times and stopped along the way to enjoy a deer or turtle crossing the trail. Several other times, I pedaled frantically to the safety after drizzles of rain erupted into threatening lightning storms. I always finished this ride either soaked with perspiration from the work-out or soaked with rain.

One weekend, Ed discovered a hotel tucked away on a road just past town. They were hosting a Car Cruise so we went wandering among the proud owners of these restored vehicles. That’s the day we learned that the host of Meet the Press Tim Russert died. The news flashed across the lobby TV screen. People reacted with shock and measured their own mortality since Russert was a young 58 years old. When I started reading his book Big Russ & Me, Russert was still alive; I finished reading the book in Accord with a somewhat sad perspective.

I kept writing my own book during our visit to Accord where we stayed for nearly two weeks, enjoying the people and appreciating their warm hospitality.

August 6 - 19, 2008

I Had to Go Back with Flags

“What is this place?” I wondered as I stepped over a drooping rope strung as if to deter trespassers. Grass grew high in spots and rain water lay stagnant in low spots. The figures rose as high as Indian totem poles I’d seen in museums but clearly these figures depicted individual men.

Two of the figures stood in bamboo cages. They wore camouflage uniforms and hats - one a beret, the other a military cap. Each reached a muscular arm through the fencing that made a cage around the bamboo structure. Were they reaching for help, maybe food, or a cup of water?

Beyond the cages were some figures of firemen. One rested his fists on his hips as if surveying the damage. Another held up a hand in a gesture of stop. The third held his arms in a suspended motion. Weeds grew high around their feet.

A carving that looked like the span of wings overhead rested across the tops of the two cages, an entrance of sorts, yet it appeared that something was missing.

“I have the eagle head in my garage,” said Jonathan Hyman. On a visit to the convenience store some time ago, Jonathan had noticed the eagle head had fallen from the overhead winged section. He wanted it preserved so he took the initiative to hold it for safekeeping.

This place was not Jonathan’s property. Someone else in town owned the lot. Jonathan confided, “Some people in the community think this place is an eyesore. Others, like me, see it as folk art.”

Jonathan is a well-known photographer who lives in Smallwood, New York. He had stopped at the Citgo to buy a coffee for himself and a afterschool snack for his daughter Jane. Ed had stopped here to buy his daily newspaper. I expected to wait in the car until the figures drew me to them.

I learned from Jonathan that the property owner Zak Zacarri's hired and paid a Ted Walker to come down from Peru, Maine to do the "wood carvings". Walker used only a chain saw to create these carvings. We speculated that Zak must have quit paying Ted since only a few of the firemen figures appeared to be finished. This place started as a memorial to prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. The tribute to the firefighters of the 9/11 came later.

In the weeds, I found a marker and two tattered faded little American flags. It read:

In Memory of P.O.W.s and M.I.A.s

We Will Never Stop Looking

A day later, I returned to this place. I brought two new flags to replace the worn ones doing my small part to never forget the men of the armed forces who battled in wars and never came home, to never forget the brave firemen who lost their lives in the rescue of 9/11.

June 4, 2008

The wood carvings memorial is located on
New York Highway 17B
near Smallwood, NY in a lot next to a
Citgo gas station and convenience store.

"Always Play the Numbers"

I heard that advice from Billy, a security guard at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. I heard that advice from Tim, the teller at the horse track. And, I heard it a third time from John, the friendly guy who let us share a seat on an outside bench at the Monticello Gaming & Raceway. “Always play the numbers,” they each advised.

Monticello Raceway promises “World Class Racing Action.” On Thursday afternoon, Ed and I would see eight harness races at this track. We were boondocked in the parking lot of this New York gaming spot.

John told us he’d been coming to the track regularly for 20 years “just for the entertainment.” Over the years, he’s learned horses can disappoint you. “If a horse wakes up with a headache, no matter how good that horse has run in the past, no matter how good the jockey rides, no matter how hard the jockey cracks the whip…that horse just isn’t going to win if he doesn’t have a mind to perform.” With that explanation, John justified the theory we’d heard repeated “always play the numbers.”

John revealed us more than this tidbit of advice. He told us horse racing is an “old man’s sport” as he encouraged us to look around. John is 65. He didn’t expect to live to be this old. “I never worked regular jobs, got paid under the table most times. I thought I’d die young so what was the point of saving money and building up a reserve in Social Security.”

As we sat on that bench, John explained that he grew up in New York City, the youngest of three kids. “My brother and sister turned out okay, did well for themselves. I just decided that the 60s was a wild time and I was going to enjoy myself, and I did.” John admitted that in his younger days he slept all day and went out at night much to the worry of his parents. He avoided the draft by running away, and then paid the price a year later racking up legal fees for his Mom who helped get him out of trouble.

Back in 1969, John didn’t come to the Woodstock Concert although he tried to make the trip. He and his friends were headed to the concert when they heard on the car radio that a massive traffic jam shut down the New York Expressway. “I knew if I got up there and couldn’t get back with my Dad’s car, he’d be furious and report it stolen. I wouldn’t take that chance with Dad’s car. We turned back to the city.”

We learned about John in those 16 minute gaps between each race. And, we learned more about horse racing, the “scuttlebutt” he called it. He’d comment on the jockeys. He liked the guy with the asthmatic condition but sometimes the asthma attacks could knock this jockey out of the races for weeks at a time. He judged it “unfair” that the track photographer got fired for cashing a ticket left behind in a slot machine by a forgetful gambler. “The guy was just trying to make a buck.” He added sadly, “Why not let it go?” He pointed out owners whose horses would run in some the day’s races. Some were big time money people others were not. “Look at that guy’s clothes,” observed John. “You can tell his horses aren’t making him any money. He’s dressed like a bum.” Joe complained that some betters take the race to seriously. “They shouldn’t get mad, it’s horse racing for goodness sake,” he said with a shrug. “You cannot predict what a horse will do.”

All the while that John was talking, he was not betting. “You folks are saving me money today. I don’t need to bet. I am having fun talking to youse guys.” Then, he explained how the odds posted on the board change when off-track bets are added to the mix. From John, I learned about Trifectas, Perfectas and Exactas. We talked about Big Brown and speculated on the outcome of the June 7^th race at Belmont. “But what do I know,” said John, “I’m just a mo mo.”

In the seventh race of the afternoon, Ed and I finally placed our bets. Ed’s Exacta Box was 4, 5, 6 and I went with 1, 5, 6 – all numbers associated with our birthdays or age. A long shot came in the winner surprising even the best guys playing at the track. In race track tradition, they slapped their tickets to the ground.

We didn’t bother with a bet on the last race but John did. His bet paid off more than $700. He played his numbers and won!

June 5, 2008

Monticello Gaming & Raceway is located along New York Route 17B in Monticello, NY.

Level & Quiet: Another Boondocking Surprise

When Ed picks a spot for a night of boondocking, he looks for level pavement and listens for noise. He’ll drive in circles around a parking lot just to find a flat place. He’ll pull away from areas where there’s a roar of traffic or hum of industrial air conditioners. This particular evening he parked along a split rail fence away from New York Route 17B in the expansive, level lot of the Monticello Gaming & Raceway. It was a perfect spot for the night. Across the from the fence, we could see a vacant lot with some mounds of dirt randomly piled and dirt roads cut through the grassy areas. We had level and quite… until about 6 PM.

I had gone outside to take an early evening walk and visit on the cell phone with my friend Val. But our call got cut short, the noise from the lot nearly deafened me.

“Did you just give me the raspberries?” she laughed.

“WHAT?” I shouted.

“Raspberries? Did you just give me the raspberries?” Val repeated thinking I randomly started to make weird noises into the phone.

“No, no, no. It’s motorcycles.” I shouted over the noise. “Later girlfriend.” I flipped the phone shut.

Five guys clad in motorcycle race gear opened the throttles on their dirt bikes. Kawasaki and Yamaha bikes sprayed dirt from the rear tires as the riders each put a right leg down and leaned the bike into the curves. They wound it out on the straight-a-way and kept the revs ups approaching the dirt mounds. That’s when the show began. Riders took turns flying over the dirt mounds like stuntman. They were airborne and I was mouth-opened stunned.

We had parked next to a dirt bike race course where the club riders were practicing for an upcoming competition. I didn’t mind. The riders stopped racing when it got dark and I had a show like I never expected.

June 3, 2008

Be sure to get permission from Security at the Monticello before parking your RV here for the night.

Smallwood, NY

In the 1920s’ bungalow colonies began to surface in the Catskill Mountains. A.N. Smallwood caught on to this trend; and in 1928, he developed a summer retreat of log cabins with signature stone fireplaces. The place was called Mountain Lake, but it soon became Smallwood named after its founder.

Although Smallwood’s homes were originally restricted to white Christians only, this changed in the 1950's. This Catskills Mountain town is now recognized as a remnant of the Borscht Belt, the upstate area of bungalows and summer camps frequented by middle and upper class Jewish New Yorkers. Here, this ethnic group could escape the unpleasant heat of the city in the summers before the widespread adoption of air conditioning. It was also a place where Jews, who were not always welcome in upscale resorts, could vacation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended this discrimination in the tourism industry and contributed to the decline of bungalow colonies like Smallwood. Travel patterns changed, vacation options broadened.

In its day, Smallwood was once bustling resort. Evidence can still be seen today. There’s a closed up general store and abandoned auto repair shop. Smallwood never got recognition for its proximity to the town of Bethel, home of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Even today, it’s a community tucked back in off Route 17B, hardly noticed except by the people who now live there year-round and others who simply got off the broken down bus and left it set as a festival artifact.

Photographer Jonathan Hyman is a friendly resident of Smallwood who was willing to gab with us about this New York hamlet. He took time to lead us through the maze of roads and point out the original log faced cabins with stone fireplaces. He recommended the blueberry pancakes at Blanche’s Diner, a fine choice indeed.

Tell Me, What Did They Find in the Vault of the Historic Lackawanna Station?

“Is there any merit to visiting the DL & W Station?” I asked our Steamtown guide as we rolled past. “Oh, yes!” he enthusiastically replied without giving me a clue as to why the Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western Railroad Station was so special. Greg Williams further piqued my interest in this historic place when he said, “Come by this evening. I’ll tell you what the locksmith found when he opened the old railroad vault?” I agreed to meet him at 6:30 PM.

I tried to use my imagination when I entered this grand historic train station. If I had been a traveler 100-years ago, I would have gone to one of the windows to purchase my ticket and checked the lobby clock for the correct time. I would have sat on the waiting room bench dreaming about the places I could go. Cayuga Lake, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Harbor, Clarks Summit, the Delaware Water Gap, Swartswood Lake, and Niagara Falls are just some of the places illustrated by the 36 faience tiles surrounding the waiting room. Each would have stirred my wanderlust. I could have gone to any of these places from this hub of train travel until January 5, 1970. On that day, the trains stopped running here. The DL &W Station closed its doors to all but the trespassers and “bums” who slipped in uninvited. The Sienna marble walls and terrazzo tile floor in the station became crusted with the dust and dirt that accumulated from years of vacancy. And, the railroad vault remained locked.

The station never reopened again until New Year’s Eve, 1983. It was restored through the efforts of the Erie-Lackawanna Restoration Associates and converted to a hotel, The Hilton at Lackawanna. And then, years later in 2005, the hotel changed hands to join the Radisson worldwide network of hotels.

Today, the DL &W Station approaches its centennial celebration. Travelers now come to the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel Scranton for a number of reasons. Some stay a night or take up extended lodging perhaps in the Phoebe Snow suite or any one of the 145 guest rooms. Many enjoy a meal in Carmen’s Restaurant, a glass of wine in the Lobby Lounge wine bar, or lighter meal with a cold beer in the casual atmosphere of Trax Restaurant. For others coming to one of the many banquet rooms, it’s a momentous occasion like a wedding, conference, business meeting or afternoon tea party. I came because of the Steamtown ranger’s endorsement and a Monday meeting of the Rotary Club of Scranton.

I asked many questions about the history of the DL & W Station over a lunchtime Rotary meal. Then I was promised that my inquisitiveness would be satisfied if I returned later in the day. Greg Williams would be my guide through this luxury hotel uniquely linked to railroad history and listed on The National Register of Historic Places. Greg was my source for the mystery of what the locksmith found in the vault.

Greg’s business card lists his title as Corporate Sales Manager for the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel. I’d take the liberty to add Historian to his title. When he joined the Radisson staff over a year ago, Greg dug into the history of the DL & W Station. He keeps his research in a desk file. He let me read copies of pages from local history books on Scranton mentioning the train station. He shared photos of the 1982 interior clean-up and exterior shots proclaiming the comeback of this historic railroad building. Without Greg as my guide, the intricacies of this building would have been missed or false assumptions made.

We started our tour in the hotel lobby, the area formerly served as the spacious waiting room for train passengers. Scenic Greuby tile murals encircle the four walls each illustrates places from Hoboken to Niagara Falls where the early passenger trains departing from Scranton, Pennsylvania once stopped. The original clock still keeps time and hangs prominently along the second floor railing. And, the stained glass ceiling arched overhead.

The walls seemed less obvious than these grand features until Greg called my attention to the marble. Three distinct colors of marble blend to create the walls and round pillars. Greg ran his hand over the smooth finish, “This marble is butterscotch. Can you see this section is more of a mauve color? The base is jade green.” The marble came from Italy. “Miners cut and numbered each piece of marble extracted so they could be shipped and assembled here to create a mirrored effect,” Greg explained. Then, he traced a finger on the lines of the marble all intersecting, perfectly amazing. Still drawn to the marble, Greg asked, “Do you see the angels in this wall?” Yes, I could see the angels – white wings, flowing gowns, and faces – as if they’d been petrified in the marble by an artist’s talented hand.

In the Station Ballroom off the lobby, a green tile wall rose from the floor to the ceiling. This Greg told me this is one of the original exterior walls of the train station which faced the train tracks. Ticket windows cut into the tile wall allowed folks traveling by train to buy tickets without entering the main station. Today, the windows are closed and look like wooden shutters placed evenly along the green tile wall. Above us metal beams extended perpendicular from the green wall. Historically, the beams supported a roof over the train tracks to protect passengers from rain and snow. The area was enclosed in the 1983 renovation to create this functional room.

In Trax Restaurant, I sat on one of the original benches preserved from the train station waiting room. Here, Greg showed me another intricacy of this special place. “There are no nails in the benches,” he casually remarked. Each slat of wood had been cut to interlock and connect with an odd shaped plug. “Do people realize what they are sitting on when they come here for a glass of wine or a cold beer?” I asked already knowing Greg would shake his head “No.”

Greg took me outside to a covered parking platform. “Sleeper cars parked here along two rails.” He continued, “Skilled engineers could hook up a sleeper car without waking the passengers.” In the first renovation, a tennis court and pool fit under the covered area. Now, the roof provides cover for special events like the Annual Scranton Jazz Festival. Greg told me the roof originally had an opening overhead where steam, dirt and cinders from the old steam trains could escape. I could see where the opening had been covered. From here, Greg pointed to the remains of an old munitions plant. Later, he would show me the brick archways in the hotel basement that connected tunnels from the plant to the train station. The tunnels are sealed off now; but during World War II, weapons mover undetected through the passageways. He told me about other underground tunnels beneath the city. Scranton’s trolley company created these tunnels which served as an efficient beltway for transportation of the trolley drivers to their routes.

According to Greg, Scranton was a key logistical city for coal, freight, and train passenger travel. Over 100-years ago, Scranton was “the 20^th largest city in the country.” He reminded me that Scranton became the nation’s first city to successfully electrify the trolley system. And, he surprised me with the notion that in the days of Vaudeville, “Scranton was the proving ground for many acts, the last stop before reaching the big time in New York City.”

More surprising than these tidbits came the answer to the mysterious question: What Did They Find in the Vault of the Historic DL & W Station? Greg told me that all the while when the station remained vacant, the vault had not been tampered with and remained sealed. No one knew the combination. There were no records found to help unlock the vault. The Moser Safe Company had to be hired to crack the safe without damage to the artifact. When it was finally opened, one thing stood inside the vault - a lone lamp, an original from the train station waiting room. No money, no jewels, no historically relevant records, just an original train station lamp was found. It came to be valued as a remnant of the time past. Its design was copied and these replicas now decorate the Radisson lobby. The vault door is anchored open to show the intricate locking mechanism and jewelers’ rotations etched artfully on the inner metal door. My curiosity was at last satisfied thanks to Greg - sales manager, tour guide, and historian.

June 2, 2008

A list describing the faience tiles designed by Clark G. Voorhees and number key, as well as, a publication called “Historical Perspective” are available at the Radisson Front Desk.

The Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel Scranton is located at 700 Lackawanna Avenue in the center of downtown Scranton, PA and within walking distance of Steamtown.

Making-Up Is Fun!

When I say “Making-up is fun,” I don’t mean with your spouse. I mean going to a Rotary Club meeting in a place other than my home Club in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Travelling, as I do fulltime in my Prevost RV bus conversion, forces me to “make-up” wherever I happen to be. My commitment to attend a weekly Rotary meeting remains strong and reinforced by the friendly Rotarians and the bountiful experiences.

Most recently, I did a “make-up” in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Rotary Club of Scranton meets at the Radisson Lackawanna Station, a 1908 restored railroad station. Though much has changed to turn this site to a full-service luxury hotel, you can still see traces of its previous life. The green tile wall rises floor to ceiling in the banquet room off the hotel lobby. This is the original exterior station wall which faced the train tracks. Ticket windows cut into the tile wall allowed folks traveling by train to buy tickets without entering the main station. Today, the windows are closed and look like wooden shutters placed evenly along the green tile wall. If you look up, you can see metal beams extending perpendicular from the green wall. Historically, the beams supported a roof over the train tracks to protect passengers from rain and snow. In the 1983 conversion from a rundown train station to a hotel, this area became an enclosed banquet room. This marvelous place is where the Rotary Club of Scranton meets each Monday at noon.

I may have overlooked the Radisson Lackawanna Station as a place listed on The National Register of Historic Places had it not been for a “make-up.” I also know that I would not have enjoyed the luxury of dining in many of the member’s only country clubs like the McAllen Country Club or the Canyon Creek Country Club had it not been for Rotary meetings held on these sites.

My own Rotary Club of Greensburg met for many years at the Greensburg Country Club until a fire disrupted its operations. Among members of my Club, it is rumored that the fire also destroyed our Club’s collection of international and national banners. Banners are a Rotary tradition. Visiting Rotarians can present their home Club Banner to the Club when they attend a “make-up” meeting. The banner is a symbol of friendship and fellowship. I’ve collected a number of banners symbolic in their own right to present to my Club President when I return to Greensburg. An ostrich is pictured on an Arizona Club banner because of the community’s traditional ostrich races. A dove appears on one Texas Club banner because years ago its members would leave the Friday noontime meetings to go dove hunting in Mexico instead of returning to work. The waterfalls of Quebec, or “chutes” as they are called in Canada, express the pride of the St. Nicolas Club in their local scenery.

How Clubs display their acquired banners in interesting too. I’ve seen them strung together with fancy chords and hung from hooks around the walls of meeting rooms. Some Clubs have invested in special free-standing displays. The most unique display I’ve seen had the banners sewn together in quilt-like wall hanging with the seams hidden by old-fashioned rick rack trim.

I get an inside look at the community from the programs when I’ve done a “make-up.” I’ve learned about local political issues such as the feelings about the US-Mexican border fence, new community service projects for sexually abused children, entrepreneurial endeavors in the home decorating business, trends to take high costs out of medical care through city clinics, and economic development plans that foster business incubators for new ventures. I’ve been intrigued by how the postal service helps bust drug dealers. And, I’ve been surprised to learn that I can pay $45 to the American Red Cross to learn mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive a non-breathing dog or cat. Club Assemblies are lively; I witnessed three as a visiting Rotarian. I particularly enjoyed one Club Assembly where everyone spoke French. I could not follow the fast flow of words but the discussion seemed heated over plans for an upcoming fund raising event. Had I not done a “make-up”, I would have missed hearing the inspiring words of high school students as they delivered speeches giving their interpretation of The Four Way Test.

As a visiting Rotarian, I always find a welcome hand shake from someone who’s originally from an area near my home Club – a physician who left Monroeville to practice near St. Louis, a retired pastor in Livingston, Texas who lived in Greensburg and knows many of my Rotary friends, and a fellow PITT alumni in Canton, New York who attended the University in the ‘60s some 10 years before me. When my daughter Suzie attended the Rotary Club of Fulton as my guest, we joined the celebration for her professor’s surprise 40^th birthday party. I think Suzie’s presence surprised him more than the black “Over the Hill” balloons and tombstone-shaped cookies. I’ve been asked more than once with a laugh, “How’d you get a seat at that table?” when I take a chair at a table of longtime Rotary friends. I just smile and say, “I heard this guy’s is a celebrity.” One time the guy I pointed to was really a local TV star.

There’s no real penalty for missing a weekly meeting unless you’re a member of the Rotary Club of Edinburg. They’ll put you in the dog house! Rotarians who chronically miss the Club’s meetings are seated at a table with a wooden dog house as the centerpiece. It’s a light-hearted reminder to attend meetings or do a “make-up”.

I’m not trying to stay out of “the dog house”, rather I think of a missed meeting in another way. It’s a missed opportunity to connect with like-minded people and enhance a visit to a town whether the trip is for business or pleasure. Making up is a fun way to enjoy a good meal, sometimes sing a Rotary song, learn something new, and expand my circle of friends.

June 2, 2008

Rotary is an international service organization with 1.2 million members in 32,814 clubs worldwide.

The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise.

Woodstock

There’s Something About a Train… “All Aboard In Steamtown!”

I’ll never forget the first time a set a penny on the track and waited for the train to pass. I crouched on the edge of the woods a safe distance back to wait. The light on the engine grew bigger and brighter as the train approached. The ground vibrated at my feet. The powerful engine roared past pulling a line of rocking box cars. I covered my ears but kept my eyes wide open. The rail cars blurred in the forward rush. The gust of air felt like a vacuum sucking against my skin. Leaves and litter along the track swirled. Then, everything got quiet as the caboose grew smaller and smaller until it was finally out of sight. I dashed to the track. On its shiny, hot surface lay my transformed penny. Its perfect circular shape had spread to a larger less-than-perfect circle. I could barely see traces of Lincoln’s face on this new micro thin coin. I kept that penny for a long time like a trophy with bragging rights to show my friends who never ventured to lay a penny on a track.

Today, you could wait a long time along a railroad track expecting a train. Many tracks are abandoned. Some have been converted to bicycle paths in a Rails to Trails program. Still there is just something about a train that attracts me. I think it started a long time ago. At the early age of four, Santa brought me a Lionel electric train with an orange engine that runs nearly fifty years later. When I was six, my Grandmother gave my three younger cousins and me the experience of a train ride from Johnstown into Pittsburgh. We each received toy banks in the shape of a train engine from the conductor, had breakfast in at one of Pittsburgh’s Grant Street restaurants, and returned to Johnstown all in one day. My high school yearbook staff posed on the roof of the abandoned Greensburg Train Station for a photo you can find in The Spartonian 1972. And, before giving up my home in Whitehouse, Texas to live and travel in my Prevost motorhome, I listened for the industrial train to make its daily run along the tracks next Farmer Lilly’s pasture on Old Tyler Road. If I dashed onto my front porch, sometimes the engineer would give me a friendly toot and wave back to me. With this affection for trains, it’s no surprise that I routed our 10,000 Mile Grand Tour through Scranton, Pennsylvania, the home of Steamtown.

Steamtown National Historic Site occupies nearly 40 acres of the Scranton railroad yard of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The large collection of standard-gauge steam locomotives, freight cars and passenger cars originally belonged to F. Nelson Blount. This New England seafood processor and train aficionado collected the artifacts in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1984, some 17 years after Blount’s death, the Steamtown Foundation for the Preservation of Steam and Railroad Americana, Inc., brought the collection from Vermont to Scranton. On October 30, 1986, Steamtown became part of the National Park Service.

At Steamtown, I felt like a kid in a playground, I couldn’t resist climbing aboard the first engine near the Steamtown ticket booth. When I’d been standing outside Engine 790, I looked dwarfed beside it. Inside, the space for the engineer and fireman seemed barely as big as my RV kitchen. I sat on the wooden bench reserved for the engineer and wondered how he ever managed the throttle and brakes while still keeping his eyes focused outside the little window to see the track ahead. He had to peer along the limited sight-line of the track and the long nose of the engine. This was not a job for the near-sighted. His companion, the fireman seemed to barely have room to turn and shovel the coal from its bin into the engine where it burned and created the steam for the engine’s motion. My great-grandfather Thomas Sanford worked as a fireman on a train engine like this one long before my birth. During my visit at Steamtown, I learned that his fireman’s skill was critical to running the train. The fireman gauged just how much coal to add and burn to keep the steam at a proper level. Too little steam meant the train would not pull the load. Too much steam pressure could explode the engine with catastrophic loss of life, equipment, track, and freight. The job was much more complicated and important than just shoveling coal into the engine. I also learned that firemen were among the first railroad workers to be released when steam trains became obsolete. The diesel-electric engine replaced steam locomotion.

Steamtown is all about that time before the diesel engines and other modes of transportation undermined train service. The story of the glory days of the steam trains was entertainingly presented through a movie. It featured a boy whose affection for the trains developed to an adult career on the rails. In the Visitors’ Center, a timeline with photos traced key moments in the history of railroading from the 19^th to mid-20^th century. Another exhibit in the History Museum used life-size mannequins such as conductors, investors, and even hobos to depict the role each played in the development of the railroad. In the authentic Railway Post Office car, we saw slots for mail to be sorted and learned about how postal workers snagged mail delivery bags from suspended rods as the train rolled along the tracks. The Business Car looked like a one-time elegant place to conduct a meeting while traveling to a destination.

These cars in the Museum Building and others positioned around the Roundhouse were beautifully reconditioned and preserved. By contrast, some of the cars in the rail yard and on the tracks looked to be in need of some TLC. I asked Mark A. Brennan of Steamtown’s Chief of Interpretation, Visitor Services & Public Affairs, about the preservation efforts. He told me Steamtown keeps a priority list based on the assessed the condition of the cars and projected cost of repairs. He added that Steamtown has only 10 skilled people in the locomotive shop keep the trains like Engine 2317 running in accordance with the regulations and inspections of the Federal Railroad Administration. He said volunteers often help with the restoration process. He wished aloud for a bigger shop staff, recruitment of additional knowledgeable volunteers and to “hold the trains for future generations.”

Mark had been a train engineer for 20 years trains until the company he worked for went
bankrupt in 1988. Since then, he’s been on staff at Steamtown. He said, “There is one reason two-times a day that I love my job.” Then he pointed to the Roundhouse and its Turntable visible from his second floor office in the Visitors’ Center. The Roundhouse is a building where the train engines are stored. At the opening and closing of each day, the 90-foot diameter turntable outside the Roundhouse lines up tracks and rotates the engine moving it to shelter or onto the tracks for a daily train rides. Ed and I watched this show earlier when the engineer retired the locomotive for the day. We were captivated. No wonder Mark never grew tired of seeing this display.

There was another view that I liked as well. Perhaps if Mark’s office would have been elevated over the tracks, his opinion would have been swayed. There’s an elevated boardwalk above Steamtown’s rail yard. I enjoyed the visual sanitation of watching Engine 2317 grow bigger and bigger as it approached the tracks that ran under the boardwalk, then grow smaller and smaller as it faded in the distance. Signs above the track warn pedestrians to stand clear of the markings so as not the get hit with the cloud of steam and cinders that erupt from the top of the engine. I stood just outside the boundaries and still felt the sting of cinders and the vibration of the engine roaring past with power and intensity. Ed and I had taken the nostalgic 10:30 AM ride in the passenger car pulled by Engine 2317 that we watched and photographed from overhead. Perched here, the passing train sparked my memories and again awakened the thrill of the trains.

Our visit to Steamtown will always be treasured as a memorable experience. It gave Ed and me a new understanding of the power of steam trains, their history, and the intricacies of their preservation. After our visit we each read the book Steamtown, the Nation’s Living Railroad Museum, which added to our appreciation of this historic place as did the comments and personal reflections of Mark Brennan. Steamtown exceeded all of our expectations.

“Steamtown is a perfect day-trip,” Mark told us. “If we get you here, we capture you.”

Consider us captured as “rail fans”.

June 1, 2008

Steamtown National Historic Site is located off Exit 185 on I-81 and can easily be found by following the

National Park Service Signs through downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania.

There is limited RV parking at the site and no pull-through spaces for large RVs with tow cars.

We found parking at Sam’s Club off Exit 190 on I-81 and used our tow car for the trip.

Also, pack a snack. There are no food or drink facilities at the Park. Interpretive programs and rail excursions are available throughout the year at Steamtown’s living railroad museum.