I mail out a monthly newsletter to a couple groups of people. One group, which consists of my top people, also gets a special letter along with it. Here is my September 2010 letter.
September 2010
Trains
I love the power, the strength and the mass of trains. These powerful diesel-electric engines drive away, hammer away the hills, valleys and miles of track all over the world.
In the summer of 1962, my mother, my two sisters and I rode the train from Denver, Colorado to Tacoma, Washington, to visit my grandparents. We went to the World's Fair, and were among the first people, within the first couple of days of its opening, to ride the elevator to the top of the Space Needle. It was fantastic and futuristic.
Back in the 1960s, the train wheels went clackity-clack along the train track. They don't make that noise these days. They are smoother now. That regular interval of the bump in the track has disappeared. Now the rails are laid in quarter mile stretches of track which is welded at the joints, and made smooth. Even though the ride is smoother and nicer, it lacks something that the old times had - a steady rhythm.
We played cards in the club car. We played blackjack. Instead of using money, we tore matches out of matchbooks and used them as chips. Everyone was given the same amount of matches to begin. At the end, the one with the most matches won. Then, we would divide them up and start the card game all over again.
The club car was a place to meet interesting people. On one of our journeys, there was a man who did an imitation of Jerry Lewis. He was absolutely hilarious. He smoked a cigar like Jerry Lewis did in one of his movies, where Jerry did a pantomime to some jazz music, reacting to the sounds of the music. This guy laughed like Jerry Lewis and told jokes, and was just a real funny guy.
Along railroad tracks you would see the sites that you couldn't see along any roads in America. The scenes from the trains were completely different. You would see more wild areas, and more beauty than you could ever see from the window of an automobile. You would see fewer houses; but the ones that you did see would be from a different vantage - and you had the views of many backyards, farms, factories and other marks of human habitation, separated by vast prairies, rural landscapes and the steep hillsides of the Rocky Mountains. Along the way, you would pass what Arlo Guthrie called the "graveyards of rusted automobiles", and many other varieties of junk yard and trash heap.
Since it was summertime, my sisters wore shorts on the train. Through the south-facing windows, the sunshine warmed the leather seats of the passenger car, and my sisters put their feet up on the seat backs so the sun would fall on their feet and legs. Carefully placing only their feet in the sunshine, they were trying to darken their feet, and match that tan with the one on their legs.
As the train pulled into the station in Tacoma, we gathered the suitcases and got ready to get off the train. I picked up the largest, heaviest suitcase that we had, and lugged it out of the train onto the cement landing. I looked to the left, and down the length of two train cars I could see my grandfather. I was so happy to see him! I began running, barely able to lift the heavy suitcase at my side. I made it to a few feet from my grandpa, dropped the suitcase on the cement and jumped up into his arms. I shouted, "Grandpa!" We were both filled with happiness and joy.
The day after we arrived in Tacoma my grandmother took me to the shoe store, and she bought me a brand new pair of black cowboy boots. They had dark red, dark blue and white colors laid into the leather tops of the boots, that is, above the ankle. The colors were beautiful. They were shaped irregularly, not squares, not triangles, not circles. All were different. That night, at my Grandma's home, she brought me some black shoe polish so that I could polish them up, and make them extra shiny for that first trip out into the World's Fair. She said that the best way to keep your boots in good shape was to polish them when they are brand new, before you first wear them; then polish them regularly, to make them last longer.
I walked upon the paved walkways at the World's Fair, happy in my new cowboy boots, seeing the future in the space needle, and knowing, for the first time, that I wanted to be an astronaut. All of the exhibits were out of this world to me, creating a sense of awe for the future, realizing how wonderful it would be. It was like heaven for me, to be walking beside my loving Grandma and seeing the future with her by my side. Looking up, she pointed to the Monorail, the fantastic new mode of transportation that all cities of the world would be using in the near future. I knew then that the clackity-clack rhythm of the steel train tracks would be a thing of the past.
Sincerely,
Rob Willis
Your Real Estate Consultant For Life
PS: If you'd like a copy of this story to send to a friend, family member or anyone who likes trains, just e-mail me, or call me at 562-639-9400, and I'll e-mail a copy back to you.
Copyright 2010, Robert E. Willis
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