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Re: Missed opportunities: trips you wished you'd made
Author: L.A.Scrafford
Date: 02-07-2011 - 19:50
Well luckily I grew up around the Milwaukee in North Idaho, Little Joes, Freight Motors and all.
The 2 great missed opportunities for me are:
1. It's the 1960's and I am attending the U of I and my good buddy has a girl friend from Skykomish, Washington. Of course she has a cute girlfriend who I have dated a few times. One Friday afternoon we head off to Skykomish for a nice weekend. Well, it turns out the girlfriend has a neighbor who is a fireman for the Great Northern Railroad out of Skykomish. We get to talking and he tells me that he is about to go to work; as they have a help in about an hour or so over Stevens Pass. He tells me that I can probably go if I'd like. I tell him, hell yes. But about that time, my girl friend reminds me that I had promised to take her to a dance in Monroe.
Of course being 20 years old and full of hormones, its off to the dance.... The only consolation is that I did go over to the yard at Sky and checkout the helper before we left for Monroe.
2. A friend of my dad's was a conductor on the NP out of Wallace and he promised my father and I a trip over Lookout Pass on the Wallace local. The problem is that the train schedule and my father'w work schedule never worked out. Unfortunately I never got over Lookout on the NP.
I did take the UP passenger train every Saturday from Kellogg to Wallace to visit my grandfather in Wallace for a lot of years, until his death in 1955. That and a few trips to Spokane on the same passenger train has to stand in for second best.
L.A.Scrafford
The 2 great missed opportunities for me are:
1. It's the 1960's and I am attending the U of I and my good buddy has a girl friend from Skykomish, Washington. Of course she has a cute girlfriend who I have dated a few times. One Friday afternoon we head off to Skykomish for a nice weekend. Well, it turns out the girlfriend has a neighbor who is a fireman for the Great Northern Railroad out of Skykomish. We get to talking and he tells me that he is about to go to work; as they have a help in about an hour or so over Stevens Pass. He tells me that I can probably go if I'd like. I tell him, hell yes. But about that time, my girl friend reminds me that I had promised to take her to a dance in Monroe.
Of course being 20 years old and full of hormones, its off to the dance.... The only consolation is that I did go over to the yard at Sky and checkout the helper before we left for Monroe.
2. A friend of my dad's was a conductor on the NP out of Wallace and he promised my father and I a trip over Lookout Pass on the Wallace local. The problem is that the train schedule and my father'w work schedule never worked out. Unfortunately I never got over Lookout on the NP.
I did take the UP passenger train every Saturday from Kellogg to Wallace to visit my grandfather in Wallace for a lot of years, until his death in 1955. That and a few trips to Spokane on the same passenger train has to stand in for second best.
L.A.Scrafford
