Train of Thought

Few sounds are more able to evoke a sense of nostalgia in me than the high lonesome whistle of a distant midnight train.  On a still summer night with the window cracked to let in a faint breeze, the wail of a faraway train takes me right back to my childhood.

I am snuggled into the comforting depths of the ancient featherbed at my grandparents’ home in Elma, NY.  As the nightly train blows its whistle at the crossing about a mile south of us, I awaken briefly and then drift back to sleep, feeling warm and secure under one of Grandma’s hand-stitched quilts with freshly ironed sun-dried linen sheets, and crochet-edged pillowcases.

My family had a love/hate relationship with trains.  When Grandma Pearl was sixteen years old in 1903, her dad was killed by a freight train.  He had been wading through deeply drifted snow along the tracks, gathering pieces of coal in an attempt to keep his family warm.  It was the day after Christmas. 

 

Because of this gruesome tragedy, Grandma was forced to end her schooling and help her mother to support her five younger siblings by taking in laundry and mending.  She was afraid of trains for the rest of her life.  She rode them when necessary (Grandpa never drove) but I remember how she used to flinch when the train roared past if we were out for a Sunday drive and dad was forced to stop too close to a railroad crossing.

On my dad’s side of the family, however, his father worked for the railroad between his many attempts of trying to make it as a baker.  He moved his family back and forth across Canada from St. John’s to Saskatoon, Halifax to Winnipeg, and a dozen towns in between - no doubt implanting his wanderlust into my dad’s DNA.

My Grandpa's tool chest with his initials on one end

Grandpa wrote V for Victory in Morse code on the other end

Dad could not abide sitting still or even living in one place for too long.  He was infamous for racing across tracks to beat an oncoming train.  Of course when my mother was in the car we had to sit and watch the train go by; I always pointed out Chessie’s image on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway cars and waved at the caboose. 

Chessie the railroad cat, sleeping like a kitten.

For some unknown reason, when I was really little I used to love drawing trains.  I remember sitting on the kitchen floor and turning out page after page of drawings - locomotives, coal cars, passenger cars, box cars, and the caboose.  Mom would tape them all together for me and then try to find a place to display them.

When I was in kindergarten my class went on a brief train ride (probably on the Attica and Arcade Railroad).  I remember the trip was loud and sooty and I came home clutching a souvenir - a clear glass locomotive filled with hard candy.  As I recall, neither the train ride nor the candy impressed me very much.

This came with hard candy inside

The Silver Lake line of the Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburg Railroad (a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) played several roles in my family’s history.  As youngsters, my grandmother, my mother, and I each attended the Methodist camp in Silver Lake, NY.  Grandma told the story of falling asleep on the train from Buffalo so she missed the Epworth Inn station.  The conductor discovered her several miles later and the train actually backed up all the way to Silver Lake to let her off.  Grandma was mortified.

The Epworth Inn, Silver Lake, NY

When I attended camp there, I liked to sit on the little grassy bank above the dock below the ramshackle Inn, and wave to the engineers when the little train chugged by.  They were always kind enough to wave back. 

The dock below the Epworth Inn

The other memorable train ride I went on was when Paul and I first moved to Canada in 1968.  We, and the black flies, were camping in North Western Ontario, and we decided to take the train from Sioux Lookout to Armstrong and then back again.  We figured it would be an adventure and we could walk around the town or sit in a restaurant or the train station for a couple of hours until the return train arrived.

 What we did not realize that the train we were on was the “milk run” and for the entire 130-some miles it stopped and started seemingly every ten minutes to let someone on or off or deliver groceries to people who just appeared out of the trees.  Then, when we finally arrived in Armstrong, there was no real station, no restaurant, not even a town - just a lot of cabins tucked into the forest – little pools of light dotting the night.

 

We were lucky there was a bench on the platform for us to sit on.  We got a lot of strange looks from the locals, and we were too embarrassed to try to interact with anyone (such idiots we were back then!).  We sure were happy to be back on that train to Sioux Lookout!

Another Canadian train story came about a dozen years later when a friend and I attended the Northern Lights Borealis Folk Festival in Sudbury.  George was a bonafide train nut (he used to travel all over to photograph trains and he was also a model railroader).  He booked our lodgings for the weekend - an old rattletrap hotel right across the street from the rail yard.  All night long the trains shunted and squealed back and forth, coupling and uncoupling engines and cars.  I barely slept a wink all weekend but George was in train heaven.

All in all, I have come to the conclusion that I prefer songs about trains to actual trains.  From the Chattanooga Choo Choo(which inspired one of my all-time favorite shaggy dog stories - punch line beginning with “Pardon me, Roy . . .”) to Down By the Station (when my mother forced me to accept the prom invitation and she attempted to teach me at least one dance, the cha-cha, to this record - dear Lord!) and then there was the Stan Freeberg parody of Lonnie Donegan’s Rock Island Line.   I still love both versions.

Next came the Great Folk Scare of the early sixties and many train songs I still love to this day.  Here are my favorite recordings of these popular train songs:

City of New Orleans by Steve Goodman.

Daddy, What’s a Train? by Utah Phillips

Freight Train by Elizabeth (Libba) Cotton

Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash

The Canadian Railroad Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot

Life’s Railway to Heaven by the Amazing Rhythm Aces

Orange Blossom Special by Seatrain

And lately I have been listening to a lot of Fred Eaglesmith - he has a couple of really stellar train songs - I Like Trains and Freight Train are my favorites, especially with Washboard Hank doing the percussion.

To add to the nostalgia about trains there are the famous train scenes in various TV shows and movies.  Due South’s epic episode All the Queen’s Horses combined trains, horses, Mounties, music, and romance.   What’s not to like?

The Musical Ride from All the Queen's Horses on Due South

My favorite train movie is Silver Streak with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor,  although Antonio Banderas’ Legend of Zorro comes in a close second with its thrilling yet humorous train sequence - especially since it features his talented black stallion Tornado who assists Zorro in outwitting the bad guys. 

 

Odds are I will never ride the legendary Trans-Canada across the Great White North or travel to NOLA on the City of New Orleans.  But I can still crack that window on a still summer night to hear the lonesome whistle of the midnight train.

Radio Days and Radio Nights

Hi, my name is Mar and I am a radio junkie.  It is an inherited trait.  Grandpa Mac always rushed home from the bank to listen to the 5 o’clock news on the big console radio in the living room.   Mom and I listened to George “Hound Dog” Lorenz on the kitchen radio and danced around on the linoleum floor to early rock and roll hits of the fifties as “Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Bill Haley and the Comets.

When I was about fifteen I received a radio of my own.   It was a turquoise Sears Silvertone transistor model, about the size and weight of a brick.  It even came equipped with a spiffy brown leather case.  I listened in the evenings when I was supposed to be doing homework and after dark when I was supposed to be sleeping.  That radio pulled in the 50,000 watts of WKBW 1520AM from Buffalo, but also WBZ in Boston and WLS in Chicago.  I was a fan of Danny Neaverth and Joey Reynolds and Tommy Shannon on KB as well as former Buffalonean Dick Biondi on WLS, and Dick Summer on WBZ who spun amazing tales about Irving the Second, also known as Super Plant (maybe an ancestor of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?).  I wrote them letters and joined their fan clubs.  I discovered my first folk music:  Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I listened to comedy:  The Smothers Brothers, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Tom Lehrer.

It wasn’t until I moved to Canada in 1968 that I discovered the CBC.  Their CBL 740AM powerhouse could be heard for miles.  I devoured every minute of this aural feast (music, talk, drama, and news) and I learned a lot about my new country in the process.  I fell in love with Max Ferguson, Don Harron, Vicki Gabereau, Bill Richardson, Arthur Black (Basic Black), Stuart McLean (Vinyl Café), and most of all, the inimitable Peter Gzowski first on This Country in the Morning and then my beloved Morningside.  I wrote letters, sent in suggestions for stories, and received letters and pictures back in the mail.  Peter read a few of my letters on the air and even interviewed me at the old Ministry of Truth (CBC) building on Jarvis Street in Toronto.  Bill and Vicki made my mouse story famous.  I bought everyone’s books and still have precious signed copies.  I listened on the radios I had in every room of my house, I listened in the car, and I listened at work.

I was listening in the back room at work one day and my boss came by and yelled at me for “using his electricity.”  He most definitely did not want anyone to be in a happy work environment.  My radio was audible only to me, and most of the time I was alone back there.  I was crushed when he forbade me to have my radio plugged in.  So what did I do?  I bought a battery-powered radio and he didn’t have a leg to stand on; I was no longer stealing his precious electricity.

During the seventies and the eighties I listened to a couple of Buffalo area alternative stations, when long-format songs were perfect for those wild and crazy days of FM before it was captured and neutered.   Of WPHD, WZIR (Wizard), WUWU, and WBNY, only the latter (Buff State college radio station), is alive and well.  In those days the music was more important than the DJs but I have fond remembrances of Jim Santella and Gary Storm (Oil of Dog) and several friends who worked at BNY when they were in college.

About the only shows that did not interest me on the radio were sports, opera, most classical music and jazz.  In a fateful turn of events both CBC and NPR were going on and on about sports late one night back in 2000 when I stumbled upon an interesting discussion on my radio dial.  It was Mike Siegel on Coast to Coast AM, talking about some paranormal subject.  I was immediately hooked on this program, and listened every single night for many months.  But one night Siegel announced that he would be moving on because some guy named Art Bell was making a huge comeback to the show.  The callers were apoplectic with excitement at this news.  Harrumph, I thought.  Who the hell is Art Bell and why is everyone so damned excited about his impending return?  I never heard of him.

Well, I decided to give this much-ballyhooed and alleged paragon of the airwaves a chance (mind you, just one chance) and I tuned in with a huge load of skepticism to keep me company. 

 

At midnight this buttery baritone oozed out of my speaker, introduced himself as Art Bell, and he proceeded to hold me spellbound for the next twenty minutes or so by telling the story of his cat Abbey who had fallen ill the night before.  Art and his wife Ramona lived in the high desert an hour outside of Las Vegas and it was to the emergency vet in Vegas that they had rushed poor Abbey Chapel Bell (rescued as a stray in the streets outside the wedding chapel the night Art and Ramona were married).  They had spent the whole night in the waiting room, wringing their hands and praying and pacing.   Morning finally came and Abbey had been miraculously saved from the brink of death and the relieved Bell family returned home so Art could catch some sleep and prepare for his radio return.

Well, between the voice and the cat story, I was hooked.  Mike Siegel was forgotten (sorry, guy!) and I have been a fan of Art Bell ever since.

One aspect that I enjoyed about shows like Morningside and Coast was the music that they played.  Although not music shows per se, Canadian radio had rules in which they were “mandated” to play an increasing percentage of Canadian music (makes sense, eh?) and this eventually spawned a massive Canadian music industry (and gave the world Celine Dion and Justin Beiber – sorry!).  Morningside, Basic Black, and The Vinyl Café introduced me to many new songs and artists.  And Art played little clips of songs known as “bumper music” at the beginning and end of talk segments and to my great delight his taste was very close to my taste; he played many old favorites of mine and introduced me to a few that soon became new favorites.

Art’s interviews were mesmerizing and his fascinating array of guests ranged from astronauts to abductees, astronomers to astrologers, physicists to psychics, animal communicators to actors, and famous musicians to the average folks down the road.  Frequent topics of discussion were the so-called Quickening, Florida’s Coral Castle, the pyramids, out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, chupacabras, remote viewing,  the Philadelphia Experiment, chemtrails, crop circles, time travel, life after death, the lost continent of Atlantis, and of course conspiracy theories concerning UFOs, Area 51, and alien abductions and visitations.  And then there were the one-of-a-kind individuals such as Richard C. Hoagland talking about The Face on Mars, Mel Waters of the infamous “Mel’s Hole” fame and the totally whacked out “J.C.” who simply defies description.

  

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the shows were riveting.   Art was not one to suffer fools, but for the most part he seemed to take everyone at face value and exuded a tremendous sense of enjoyment at the plying of his craft.  His calls were unscreened and he mentioned this frequently but every so often someone would call in and start talking about Art in the third person and he would let them go on for a while and then completely flabbergast them when he’d chuckle and announce that they were talking to Art Bell.  I never had the nerve to phone in because I was afraid I’d not recognize his voice and sound like an idiot (although after laughing at them, Art always endeavored to make these callers feel better).  (I might add that I did email him several times and he always wrote back to me.)

 

Art also kept listeners on the edge of their seats by retiring and then returning from retirement a number of times.  It was like a soap opera.   When his beloved wife Ramona died, he bared his soul to his audience, (something I had never heard from any radio personality) and he was such an amazing combination of powerful and vulnerable that people seemed to either adore him or loathe him.  With that voice of his he could have been reading the telephone book and he would have had an audience.

In the last couple of years we have lost Stuart McLean,  Arthur Black, and then Art Bell.  Fortunately for all of us late night listeners, upon his last unexpectedly abrupt retirement, Art passed along the reins for his latest show, Midnight in the Desert, to his startled producer and hand-picked radio heir Heather Wade.  She had huge shoes to fill but she was able to do an admirable job in a challenging and ever-changing radio/livestream climate.  She was also a cat person with a deep buttery voice, she held her own with guests and callers, and she continued to play Art’s beloved bumper music.  Unfortunately, after Art died, Heather was too grief-stricken at the loss and also hounded ceaselessly by Internet trolls and although she tried her best to continue, she was eventually unable to do so and has subsequently disappeared completely.  

 

One of Art’s favorite pieces of bumper music was “The Highwayman” by The Highwaymen (Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings).  I figured Art deserved his own verse and this popped into my head.

I sure hope there will be radio in the afterlife.  I don’t know what I would do without it.   

Help! I've Fallen into the TARDIS Again (and I'm Blaming Murray Gold)

I have never had any kind of cable or pay TV so I have always relied on a large antenna, pulling in nearby broadcast channels and our local PBS station to catch up with Doctor Who over the years.  Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, was my first, back in the late seventies, and along with Leela,  K-9, and the silly, low-budget monsters (like the actors covered in bubble wrap in "The Ark in Space") - I loved him and his long scarf that he was always tripping over and his readily proffered bag of jelly babies.  I later ended up naming one of my cats Leela.

The years rolled on and I was able to catch most of Four, some of Five (Tristan Farnon!), and a glimpse of Six .  I never saw Seven and never even heard of Eight until recently.  My allegiance remained with Four.  (As they say, you never forget your first Doctor.)  I have also seen most of the first three Doctors’ episodes, here and there along the way.  I love each of them in their own way.  The early episodes are constantly on the retro stations.

Then few years back, out of the blue (so to speak), CBC began airing the Third Series of the reboot - you know, the one with David Tennant as Ten.  Oh my!  What a cutie and my oh my how everything had changed in the world of Doctor Who!  I was instantly hooked and watched as many episodes as I could.   Which turned out to be most of the 3^rd and 4th Series.  The fearless and brilliant Martha Jones and the endearing and madcap Donna Noble were his companions.  But this strange blonde kept showing up . . .

One particularly moving episode was Planet of the Ood, which planted two seeds:  the DoctorDonna plotline into the series, and the haunting songs of the Ood into my brain.   It finally occurred to me to search out this music online and of course I found a treasure trove on YouTube.  So, a few months back, I went hunting on ebay and found the soundtrack to Doctor Who, Series 4, with the Ood songs on it.  After it arrived I spent a month listening to this one CD over and over and over.  Good grief, Murray Gold - what have you done to me?  I could not stop listening to it.  At first, I had the Ood “Songs of Captivity and Freedom” on repeat for a few hours each day, but gradually I found myself being drawn more deeply into the rest of the album. How to describe such music?  Words like haunting, soul-stirring, rousing, lush, brash, funny - a little bit of everything wrapped up in one glorious package.

I decided to do some searching to find out the lyrics to the Ood songs and discovered a website that not only had them (in Latin and English) but also the lyrics to Vale Decem (Goodbye Ten) so I had to track down the CD with that on it.  Thus began my Whovian saga.

Ood Song of Freedom

With silence, we shout

With silence, we shout

Without salvation

He provides our salvation

He provides out salvation

As long as we are

Among humans

Let us be humane

With silence, we shout

As long as we are

Among humans,

Let us be humane

With silence, we shout

I ordered the DVDs for Series 4, Part 1.  Watched them - got hooked, ordered Series 4, Part 2 a month later.  By then I needed all of the Tenth Doctor’s episodes so I bought Series 2 and Series 3, with companions  Rose Tyler and Martha.  And I bought the DVD with the Specials, and more CDs of each series’ music.  Damn you, Murray Gold! 

Then I figured I needed to go back to the beginning of the reboot, to find out where Rose came from and the background of the Bad Wolf storyline, and so I bought the Christopher Eccleston Series 1. That was gonna be it.  I swear.  But by then was becoming confused, so I found an episode guide, from the First Doctor through the Eleventh. 

Of course then Series 1 introduced me to the delightfully drool-worthy Captain Jack Harkness.  Lordy, lordy! 

After watching Series 1 through 4, I decided I had to give Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor a chance, so I bought Series 5 through 7.  By this time Jodie Whitaker had broken the glass ceiling and debuted as the Thirteenth Doctor, (I have seen a few clips but no episodes yet).  What the heck.   I purchased the Peter Capaldi Series.

Mama Lucy always says "Allons-Y!"

I realized my obsession was getting out of hand when I purchased a David Tennant t-shirt with “Allons-Y” (my spell check thinks this should read “Alonso,” hee hee hee) on it, River Song’s journal, a couple more Doctor Who books, a comic book with a great drawing of Ten on the cover, more music, a few more specials, and then . . .  then I started in on Torchwood.  While awaiting the arrival of the first two seasons of Torchwood in the mail, I occupied myself watching John Barrowman panels at various Cons over the last few years on YouTube.  It takes a pretty secure man to prance onstage in red high heels and a TARDIS onesie, let me tell you.  I am old enough to be his mother, but good grief - what a doll!  And such a talent - plus the good example he is providing for the LGBT kids in the fandom.

Of course, now I have on order Barrowman’s (first) autobiography, plus both the Doctor Who and Torchwood Encyclopedias.  And the music from Torchwood.  Of course!

When I bought the Capaldi series, it came with a free vinyl mystery figure.  Looking back on the number of Doctors, and the number of companions, and the number of foes, I was almost afraid to open the little silver Mylar bag.  But guess what?  Out fell Tom Baker, complete with his famous scarf!  I was so chuffed!

One day's ebay deliveries - this is getting out of control!  (But in my defense, I ordered them from all over the world over a period of several weeks - they just all arrived the same time.)

Speaking of the famous scarf, in 1979 I had a friend knit one for my wasband, and he paired it with a long brown suede double-breasted coat and a brown fedora.  Unfortunately the friend who did the knitting used polyester yarn and knitted it so it rolled into a tube.  But - what the heck - it worked for a Halloween costume!  (Wishing I had a photo...)

That scarf was long lost so a few years back I found an “officially licensed Doctor Who scarf” online and bought it for him for his birthday.  Close but no cigar:  polyester.

Now I have a friend who is both a Whovian and a knitter and she is finishing a proper wool scarf for me - eleven inches wide, and eleven feet long plus fringe!  I am so excited!

Four, DoctorDonna, Ten, and TARDIS

Ten by talented artist Alice X. Zhang (wibbly wobbly timey wimey frame by me)

I have framed a few little pictures of my favorite Doctors for my Doctor Who wall (a work in progress) and I am searching for the perfect Captain Jack image.  I am halfway through watching Torchwood and, thanks to the Internet I know what is coming.  Dammit.  It was hard enough watching Owen and Tosh die - I am not sure I can bear the death of Ianto Jones. I cry every time I watch Season 1’s Captain Jack Harkness episode (which in my mind is right up there  alongside Ten’s regeneration “I don’t want to go” scene).

Back to the man who began my most recent bout of crazed fandom.  Murray Gold:  the mastermind composer behind the incredible soundtrack of the Doctor Who reboot from Series 1 to 10.  Thank you Murray Gold, and as Executive Producer Julie Gardner wrote in the liner notes on the first CD, “I will play this album for the rest of my life.”  So will I, sir, so will I - all of them!  Thank you!

P.S.  I am also thanking Ben Foster, conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, David Temple, conductor of the Crouch End Festival Chorus, Jake Jackson (a man of many areas of expertise), and various soloists including Mark Chambers, Neil Hannon, Yamit Mamo, and Melanie Pappenheim.  What a talented bunch of folks!  Thanks to all! 

Me and my fabulous new scarf, posing with knitter Arlene and her hubby Alan.