HEATING WITH WOOD

 …or ‘a house afire’…

 

It was the kind of day they make picture postcards out of. Coursing through vineyards in the late November chill on my Italian motorbike, the byways between Cloverdale and Calistoga were the perfect venue for an early winter sojourn. I found myself consumed by the light of the low sun and what it offered the autumn colors of the oaks and vines. The whisps of high cirrus clouds foretold of a change in the weather. Better get the ridin’ in today.

Up a rise and around a bend I motor from valley-floor vineyards into a creek-carved canyon of black oak, with their amber leaves and, in just the right locales, stands of coastal redwoods. Channeling through one of those groves, a rough two-rut drive leads to someplace I’ll not trespass, but as I pass by, down that lane I see a curly-cue of smoke rising from a rustic chimney in a vintage rooftop.  

Actually, I smelled it first. In the early morning cool, the chimney smoke had settled along the creek and roadway reminding me of the days when wood heat was the only decent heat in our house.

 

Beebo and I were considered old enough to be left home alone while Mom and Dad attended the evening PTA meeting at Rosedale School. I’m sure the instructions we’d been given we forgot – or ignored – as soon as the back door closed so forgive me if I can’t remember the specifics of those instruction now. That said, one of them was probably, “Leave the Franklin Stove alone."

We’d moved into the old house on five acres in the late 50s. Mom said it had once been the barn for the house next door and we never questioned that even though, thinking back on it, we’d never heard of a barn with two bedrooms, a bath and a half, a living room and a nicely appointed kitchen. What the barn didn’t have was effective heat. A natural gas line ran from the street to the house serving a water tank and a heater carved into a plaster wall. But when the first bill of winter arrived, both parents gasped in unison – which was odd because they rarely agreed on stuff – and soon we were told to wrap ourselves up in winter.  Gas was too damned expensive. Fortunately, Mom was quite adept at knitting, so never was there a dearth of sweaters into which her two boys could wrap themselves.

Still, not heating with the wall mounted furnace in the front room seemed, well, stupid, so one day, Dad went down to Collier Hardware and came home with a cast iron Franklin fireplace. Franklin fireplaces were purported to have been an invention of Ben Franklin himself and known for their heating efficiency. The iron box was set on the linoleum floor of the living room and since Musty’s dad – from just down the road a piece – was handy, our dad called him to cut a hole in the ceiling and the roof and help install and flash the new chimney pipe.

“You’re going to need to put a damper in the pipe,” Musty’s dad said.

“A damper?” Dad asked. “You mean like a wet towel or something?”

“No. A damper is a plate placed in the stovepipe with a handle on it so you rotate the thing and control how much heat and air goes up the pipe.”  After installation he demonstrated. “Turn the thing this way with the handle parallel and the smoke goes up the chimney. Turn it perpendicular and the plate doesn’t let the smoke go out so good and eventually the fire will go out, choked on its own smoke.” 

Or something like that.

That afternoon, dad wadded up some sheets of the Enterprise Record newspaper – “at least that rag is good for something” – put some light kindling on top, tossed in a chunk of almond wood and set a match to it. He shut to stove doors but through the open vents in those doors we could see the flames ripping through the paper and setting the kindling to popping. After a few minutes, the flames died away and through those vents we could see the almond wood aglow. Soon the cast iron was radiating the kind of heat that meant we could return our sweaters to the cedar chest. 

Expertly, we thought, Dad rotated the damper a quarter turn and almost immediately smoke began to billow out the open door vents. He shut the vents and the fire relaxed.

“In a few minutes, the fire will suffocate,” he said, so he partially opened the damper and cracked open the vents. The living room would be cozy this evening.

 

Beebo and I should have been paying better attention.  Because it wasn’t more than a few months later when Mom and Dad, engaged in their parently duties chose to attend the evening PTA meeting over at Rosedale School.

I’m not sure what possessed us to see how hot we could make that Franklin Stove, but what possessed us doesn’t really matter now does it? Out back of the house stood about a twenty year supply of almond wood. Dad had pulled out the orchard of aging trees and replaced them with new ones. “The wood from the old orchard will keep us warm for years!” he said.

As soon as they left in the old Ford, we snuck out to the woodpile and carried back as much as our arms could hold. Beebo burnt his fingers trying to open the stove’s already hot doors, so I got a potholder from the kitchen.  We stuffed in as many logs as we could and stood back. With the vents open, the supply of oxygen was more than adequate to set the new fuel ablaze. Not certain how long it took, but the popping of the fresh wood soon became a roar. We stood back and enjoyed the warm fruits of our efforts until one of us noticed that right when the stovepipe disappeared into the ceiling, the pipe had begun to glow. Even as inexperienced pre-teens, we knew this was not good.  Beebo hustled up to the door and touched the vents. He jumped back uttering a word I’d never heard him utter before. (I’m not sure what it was, but I’m pretty sure I’ve uttered it more than a few times in my subsequent years for various reasons.)

I handed him the potholder and he used it to twist the damper a quarter turn.  “That should take care of it,” he said, standing back.  And it did.  Within minutes the glow at the top of the pipe began to fade, but smoke began to pump out through the open door vents.  Thick smoke.  Angry smoke.  Smoke smarter than two little boys.

We didn’t keep track of what we did so we didn’t know how to ‘un-did’ it.

“Let’s open up the door and pull out some of those logs,” I said.

“You do it, dummy.”

I didn’t.

The room was filling with choking smoke, but the chimney had cooled, we hoped. 

Beebo twisted the damper around and around. Stepping aside, the fire set to roaring again and the pipe took on that cherry glow.

“Call 911!” one of us said.

“There is no 911. This is the 1960s!”

“Then call Dad!”  

“How?”

“Call the school. Maybe Mrs. Bossard (the school secretary) is in the office! She’s alwaysthere!”

The Mrs. Bossard’s desk phone rang and rang and rang while one of us again fiddled with the damper twisting it this way and that.

“Sideways! Sideways!”

We must have gotten it right because that glow subsided, and then one of us remembered: “Close the little vents on the door. That’s what Dad would do!”

The hot pad proved handy and once all was shut down, we stepped away from the stove.  The smoke in the room burned our eyes and was thick enough to taste. And Mom and Dad would be home soon.

Thinking like the Cub Scout that Beebo was, he said, “You open the front door and the windows and I’ll get that big box fan outta the closet.”

Plugged in, the fan was just beginning to push air through the front door while Beebo and I were frantically waving dampened bath towels at the two open double-hung windows when Mom and Dad arrived.

 

I can’t recall the consequence, but as I drove past that little cabin in the redwoods on my motorcycle, I thought, “Holy cow! This is Thanksgiving holiday week. The kids are probably home. Alone? Hopefully not. They could burn the whole damned house down.”

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

THE OLD UPRIGHT

 …tickling the eighty-eights? The tradition continues…

 

In about 1944 at age 22, Mom ran away from home which had been Houston, Texas. She planted herself in Glendale or Pasadena. Her first purchase of any consequence was a brand new Knabe ‘upright grand’ piano. “They’re the best made!” Mom said, and although the Steinway folks might disagree with her on this particular proclamation, Mom was never wrong.  So, I believed her. 

         Mom’s Knabe was hauled from pillar to post in Southern California, and ultimately to Chico where Brother Beebo and I would practice scales and etudes on it. Well, Beebo did. As a little kid, there weren’t too many hills I was willing to die on, but not practicing the piano would be one of ‘em. Mrs. Scotchler, first and later Mrs. Chamberlain both ultimately threw up their hands and told Mom not to bother bringing me back for lessons.

         Mom’s old upright probably weighed a ton and a half. Its walnut finish was nearly black and the keys were capped with real ivory. Although I wouldn’t actually play the thing, I did like opening the front and watching the hammers hit the taut harp wires inside as I ran my fingers up and down the keyboard. This was especially fun when I’d prop open the front and then put Susie, our Siamese cat, on the ivories and watch her rocket across them, leap to the floor and tear out of the room to hide in a closet somewhere.

I never really learned to play the piano. My stubbornness and stupidity won out (as it often does to this day). But I could pick out a tune by ear using my right hand for the melody while pounding chords with the left. That only works if I stuck with the key of C. No black keys necessary.

As Time Went By (apologies here to Dooley Wilson), I grew up, left the house, got married, got divorced and never had a piano. Occasionally, I’d stop by Mom and Dad’s and sometimes I’d sit down at the keys and plink something out. I’d turn and find Mom leaning in the doorsill and when she knew I saw her she’d say, “Don’t you wished you’d have practiced for old Doris Scotchler?”

 

Shortly after that divorce, and still wincing from it, I found myself at a dinner hosted by a local California Teachers’ Association chapter. Tables lined the so-called ballroom at the Holiday Inn and I sat in a folding chair next to and opposite other teachers, none of whom I knew.  

Across the table was, as I recall, a rather attractive woman, about my age, who opened the conversation with: “If you’re not really careful, I bet we’ll be playing footsie before this event is over.”

I was aghast. For two reasons. One: having married way too young, I never engaged in whatever footsie was. Two: fresh off failure, I was certain one thing leading to another would only leave the woman thinking “What’s up with this guy?” This presupposes that I had any idea of what ‘one thing leading to another’ even meant.  

I drew my size 14s under my chair and hoped whatever they were going to serve us would limit the need for small talk. But small talk ensued and as we chatted, I discovered she was ‘between relationships’ and that she was housing an upright piano that her former mate or boyfriend had rescued from the First Baptist Church on Salem Street just before they tore the building down. “I don’t play the damned thing. It’s huge and all it’s doing is collecting dust,” she reported.  

The old First Baptist Church housed the very Sunday School from which Beebo and I played hooky in our youth, so I said: “Would you take hundred bucks for it?”

 

Brother Beebo was a freelancer. He owned a trencher for digging foundation footings, chopped wood like Honest Abe and, best of all, moved pianos. And now I had a job for him.

         The house I bought after the divorce was on East Eighth Street, the inbound lanes to Chico of State Route 32. Footsie Woman, it turns out, lived on a cross street a couple of blocks away. Beebo, judging the effort necessary to load the old upright into his pickup for a two hundred yard transport had a better, more practical idea. Carefully lifting the treble end of the behemoth, he slipped his piano dolly under the middle and gently set it on the floor. Using two planks, he nursed the thing from her porch, across the walk and onto Alder Street. Finding the crest, he turned the unit and headed north toward 8^th. When traffic was clear, he bulled the assemblage into the middle of the State Route, pivoted it, and pushed it the block-and-a-half down the highway to my address. Passing traffic slowed as many had likely never seen an old upright piano being manpowered in the middle lane of a major through-way before.

         Within about twenty minutes the old piano was resting in the new-to-me living room at 788 E 8^th. Beebo hustled back to pick up his pickup. Meanwhile, I plinked out a tune with my right hand a feebly created chords with my left.  Shortly, Beebo arrived, cracked open one of my PBRs and said, “Don’t you wish you’da practiced when you were a kid?”

In the forty-plus years I’ve owned the piano, it, too, has moved from pillar to post: Chico to Soulsbyville; Soulsbyville to Sonora; Sonora to Roseville, then Rocklin then here. Early on, in an effort to strip and refinish it, I disassembled the cabinet finding remnants of color crayons, raffle tickets, and a tattered picture of the baby Jesus with some lambs opposite the words to “Jesus Loves Me” which I learned myself to play.

         Now, the old Baptist upright resides in my studio about five feet from my elbow as I type this.

 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and after decorating the Christmas Tree, grandson Hudson – about 13 – pulled up a chair and began more than plinking on my piano. Apparently, he’d captured some music from contemporary movies or TV programs – tunes and melodies and musical literature I hadn’t heard before. His right hand and his left hand played beautifully in concert with one another from what I could tell. 

But then he launched into “Carol of the Bells.” I swiveled in my chair and watched him command the instrument until my eyes clouded with tears. That damned old thing had never sounded so good and I thought to myself:

         Don’t you wish you’da practiced when you were a kid?

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

JOURNEY ON AN ATMOSPHERIC RIVER

 Atmospheric riverboat come carry me away,

In a cozy little cabin where I’ll feel your drift and sway.

I’ll snuggle in and ride along for day after long day,

If only, atmospheric riverboat, you’ll carry me away.

 

I’ll peer out of the porthole as we wind down toward the sea

And watch the deer and dove and fox find shelter in the lee.

I’ll snack on kippers, chips and cheese and sip hot cups of tea

And only rise and leave my room to go outside and piddle.

 

Sheltered in your tiny walls, safe from wind and rain,

Forgetting with that cold front comes a damned arthritic pain,

‘Cause thoughts of springtime blooms and sun will occupy my brain,

Serenaded by the chorus of the steady, falling rain.

 

Oh! I’m sure that sometime soon I’ll feel like Noah on the ark,

‘Neath the daytime cloudscape or during nighttime’s dark.

Trusting you will find a mountain peak on which to park.

But then, you are a riverboat, and not so much an ark.

 

So atmospheric riverboat, I must ride you to the end:

Alone inside my quarters with no one to call my friend.

I’ll sail through all the ups and downs and ‘round each hidden bend,

Holding hope beyond all hope the storm will somehow end.

 

Dear atmospheric riverboat, of thee I once did sing,

Until I thought more fully ‘bout your damp and raucous sling

And the lasting loneliness that your company will bring.

So, atmospheric riverboat, let’s forget the whole damned thing.

 

Now you go on your wintery way of bluster and debris.

Cross the Mayacamas but do kindly leave me be.

Blow and pour and blow some more until you are but wee.

And know, you cold old bastard, I doth thumb my nose at thee.

 

On further thought, I’ve made the choice to not climb on this year.

I’ll snuggle in at home and stroke my puppy’s snout and ear;

And read a book, caress my love and taste a cup of cheer; 

Comfortably beside a fire, just sitting on my butt.

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

DERELICT FRUIT

 …an hour’s ride into the past…

 

Almost a full lifetime ago, I’d be called upon to help ‘Gramma’ Carah rake leaves from beneath the trees in her small orchard. It was generally in mid-to-late October or early-November when I’d march up her long gravel driveway with bamboo rake in hand and pull dried leaves into small piles that she would set ablaze.  As a seven- or eight-year-old, I couldn’t tell how much time this chore would take out of a perfectly fine autumn Saturday, but I do remember that old Mrs. Carah offered me a dime for my effort. Mom instructed me not to accept. “It isn’t proper for a little boy to take money from an old woman.”

         The other thing I remember is the smell of the fruit that didn’t make it into her picking basket. Peaches, apricots, maybe plums too high for Gramma to reach –  she’d long ago given up climbing a ladder – hung on twigs until the first good wind or rain broke them free. Then they’d lay on the soil, among the weeds, soon covered by leaves and rot. 

         Fermentation, that action of heat and moisture and mold and stuff a little boy could never understand, results in a lingering sweet and pungent aroma.  A signature post-harvest sensation, an olfactory song of autumn, it is savory and good in manner I still can’t fully describe. All I know is that, while raking leaves, I wanted to inhale all of it. So much so that if a flattened, rotted peach or ‘cot ever stuck to the tines of my rake, I’d pull free and put its carcass under my nose and just suck air over it. The robust scent burned ever so slightly as it went straight to my lungs. And then to my heart.

         Raking Gramma Carah’s leaves was always a treat. I knew she loved me because she always tried to give me a dime, but mainly because of the sweet, floral aroma of derelict fruit that decades later has never quite left my system.

 

Last week, my Washington-state based riding pal put his Moto Guzzi to bed for the winter. He tells me he drained and replaced the oil, unhooked the battery and lifted it so its tires weren’t on the garage floor. I suspect many riders in the northern half of our nation engage in the same practice about this time of year, what with the shorter days and more inclement weather.

         But today, a Sonoma County-based me straddled my lightweight Royal Enfield Himalayan for a sunny, 70-degree ride along the base of the Mayacama Mountains, across the Russian River and Dry Creek and over miles and miles of narrow roadway; winding through harvested vineyards of orange and gold and brown foliage. 

Picking ended a month or so back and some of the fruit didn’t make it to area wineries for processing.  Some of the fruit fell from the vine to rest on the vineyard floor, derelict. There to rot – or better yet – ferment naturally, what with the action of a recent spit of rain followed a little sunshine and warmth. 

 

The perfume of this day’s mid-day air gave rise to a sweet, pungent memory from the better part of a lifetime ago. I find I’m no longer motoring along roughly paved secondary roads. No. I am again raking leaves into piles, peeling the occasional flattened peach from bamboo rake tines, accepting a loving caress from the little old lady who lived down the street, and slipping into my pocket the dime about which I would never tell Mom.

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

CHICAGO: MORE CULTURE THAN I’M USED TO…

 …Knowledgeable tour guide was a must!

Long time readers (both of you) will know that I prefer the Sutter Buttes to the TransAmerica Pyramid; the Carrizo Plain to Golden Gate Park. Fewer people. Less traffic. Yes, and a little cheaper. A trip to San Francisco, my nearest big metro area, is palatable because the bucolic Sac/San Juaquin Delta is nearby, as are the cathedral-like coast redwoods. I know I can escape to the Marin Headlands if I need to.

With that in my DNA, I approached a week’s visit to Chicago with some trepidation. As luck would have it, we hooked in with an outstanding tour guide ~ DePaul student and granddaughter Grace Powers ~ for an outstanding taste of this midwestern mega-city. Where do I start?

 

Open Space? Our digs at Villa d’Citta https://www.villadcitta.com on North Halsted in Lincoln Park (a lovely boutique mansion) were only blocks away from the Chicago City Zoo…

…the Lake Michigan waterfront….

…and this grand fountain in Grant Park.

Mid-October weather was perfect for strolling, site-seeing, and stopping for the occasional bite to eat…

…like this Chicago Dog at Harry Caray’s joint on the Navy Pier.  (Enjoyed, also, the major league memorabilia. Could have spent hours!)

 

Evening strolls in the Lincoln Park area near DePaul reminded me of my old digs on Eighth Street in Chico.  Vintage homes.  Shaded by mature broadleaf trees, such as feeling of warmth and neighborhood.

Architecture?  Growing up in Chico, when the University planned and built seven-story Butte Hall, it was considered a skyscraper. So much so that the Fire Department found themselves searching for a ladder truck with a longer ladder.  Turns out, ‘they ain’t seen nothin’.’

Our riverboat tour near the Lake Michigan shoreline highlighted the design eras and the extent of architectural evolution…

 …from the art deco opera house…

…to this mid-century modern example…

…to a post-modern curved glass structure that reflects all the styles along the waterfront.

I didn’t take notes, but the masterpiece below was the first major building designed by a female architect. Visionary! How I wish I'd written down her name. 

This project’s success opened the doors for other women to break into a male-dominated field and enhance the city’s skyline with a new kind of grace and strength.

 

Art?  Fifty-plus years ago, I took an art appreciation class at Chico State to fulfill a humanities requirement. Although my grandfather dabbled in oils ~ I have one of his hanging right beside me as I write ~ I wasn’t much interested in what the prof shared with students on slide after innumerable slide. Little did I know that at the Chicago Institute of Arts, I’d see a two dozen or more of those classic works up close, very real and very touching.  Here’s Rembrandt…

Grant Wood…

Frank Lloyd Wright. (Brother Tim has a desk he created from similar design that I’ve helped him move twice, Tim tells me.)

And this: Van Gogh’s self-portrait which I have renamed two old guys with beards.

We marveled at the collection at the Chicago Institute of Art, wondering how so many masterpieces could end up under the same roof with that roof not being atop the Louvre in Paris.

 

Theatre? An unexpected treat was the opportunity to attend the world premiere of “Leroy and Lucy” at the famed Steppenwolf Theatre on Halsted Ave.  Steppenwolf started decades ago by a group of then recent high school graduates intent on continuing their theatre work.  Over the interceding years, the list of Steppenwolf alums reads like a who’s who of Broadway, screen and television.

Curated for over three years, this show depicts the dreams and demons visited upon perhaps the father of all the Blues.

 Rather than to give anything away, know that as we rose to over a much deserved standing O to the players, I said to Gracie: “I’ve got to see that again!” I'm certain we'll see this work in venues across the nation. Recommend seeing it when it comes your way.

 

Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen intoned that Chicago is “my kind of town,” ~ recall Sinatra’s classic version ~ and we can see why.  The song writing duo certainly captured my kind of razzmatazz and it has all that jazz.  Not sure if Chicago will be calling me home quite soon enough, but we were more than delighted with the art, the culture, the people too, people who, smile at you.

Once of the smilin’-est ones?  Granddaughter Grace.  Thanks for introducing your Bumpa to some culture Gracie! As you might imagine, I can always use more culture.

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

 

ABOARD THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR (FINALLY!)

 A life-long dream come true ~ maybe

The California Zephyr has always been mythic to me. Winding like a silver ribbon up the Feather River Canyon, occasionally, we’d be lucky enough to see it as we drove California’s Route 70 in our ’54 Ford toward Quincy and Bucks Lake. Crisscrossing the canyon, if we were really lucky, we’d be crossing the river on a bridge as the train crossed above us, switching sides of the canyon. The silver beauty was always on the other side ~ always just a bit out of reach.  

The Zephyr ran from San Francisco to Chicago under the combined efforts of the Western Pacific, the Denver, Rio Grande Western and the Burlington Route. It had always been my dream thunder across our vast western expanse on this train. Alas, come the early 70s, service ended. As did my dream.  Or so I thought.

 

But along came Amtrak, the Federal government’s attempt to keep rail traffic alive. More successful along the eastern corridor of the United States, cross-country routes would enjoy less ridership. Yet, the Zephyr was revived. Now, however, using the historic Donner Pass Route initially carved by the Central Pacific, silver streamliners no longer grace the Feather.

 

 We board the Zephyr in Sacramento.

 

From the Sacramento Valley Station, the route winds and twists up the western slope of the Sierra with pauses in Roseville, Colfax, and, following the river courses of the American and the Yuba, cresting the Sierra on the highest trackage anywhere in the States. We enjoy a view of Donner Lake…

 …before descending into Truckee for a twenty minute fresh air and, ironically, smoke break.

The route traces the Truckee River through the rain shadowed environs of the east slope of the Sierra. Conifer forests begin to give way to brittle sage and autumn’s golden grasses.  

East of Reno, we begin to get a feel for the vast and vacant high desert. Miles of that sage and mineral wealth (I suppose.)

Our rail journey will take 50 hours, several of those spent lightly sleeping in our rocking accommodation. But, as night falls, I snap this haunting image of a western sunset and wonder about the Shoshone and Paiute peoples who, for centuries, came to an understanding of that whole living in harmony with nature thing that we successors to this space don’t quite get.

Sunrise finds us coursing along the Gunnison River.

Rolling into Grand Junction, CO on the historic Denver and Rio Grande Route, we see one of many grand old stations left to decay.

A few miles of browning hills relentlessly shaped by river and wind…

 …and we rumble into our first glimpse of the Great Plains.  I write ‘rumble’ because, to my untrained train butt, the Burlington Northern / Santa Fe right-of-way east of Denver seems a bit less well maintained than the UP to the west.

 

Lots of flat. Lots of grain ~ amber waves of it ~ mainly, it seems, corn. And lots of endless vistas. One can fly over this country, which we did on our return to California, and not grasp the distances, the vastness and the towns that look like nameless grids or checkerboards from 36,000 feet. We slept through all of Nebraska. 

 

Here’s Burlington, Iowa …

… and an aging Burlington Northern Pullman, Railway Express car and vintage loco. Glad these rolling stock examples are being preserved.

 

An hour or so further and an hour or so short of Chicago, this solitary farmstead captures a contemporary way of life we don’t experience on our western seaboard. And, while not wishing to wax political in this post, I believe I can understand why folks in these parts may see things differently than I do.

 

Chicago would be our literal end of the line. It’s where the Zephyr has always terminated. Chicago: with the ‘El’; the commuter lines to the suburbs; lines to the stock yards, steel and other industries; and the historic Union Pacific; Burlington Route; Chicago and Northwestern; and several other routes. We are informed that within the Windy City’s confines exist more miles of rail line than in the rest of the continental US combined. Rolling the final twenty minutes into Union Station, it’s a claim that’s hard to dispute.

 

After fifty hours on the train, I ask myself, “Did my long held dream of riding on the California Zephyr come true?”  

I recall myself in Dad’s ’54 Ford waving at passengers on the Zephyr as it wound through the Feather River Canyon. I question whether some little kid traveling up Highway 70 in the back seat of his dad’s current day SUV might be missing the opportunity to form his own romantic dreams about boarding this silver wonder and seeing where it takes him.

 

Resource: The Story of the California Zephyr, by Karl Zimmerman. Quadrant Press. © 1972.  Nice historic photo and narrative about the early days of the original Zephyr. (Good luck finding a copy. You might want to check out your neighborhood model railroad shop as they often have these kinds of books.  Plus, model trains are kinda cool.  They bring back the little kid in many of us.)

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press