Born:  New Orleans, LA 1937

Grew up in Gentilly off Franklin Ave. near Southern Railway and Louisville & Nashville rights of way.

Interested in railroads since age 4.

• Watched L & N passenger trains head out of New Orleans from stadium where the Jax Girls semi-professional softball team played.  My Mom, Dad, brother Rob and I would walk to the stadium from our home; always sat in the highest seats down the 1st base line so we could see L & N trains heading north and northeast out of New Orleans.
• first train ride  -  summer 1941  -  on L & N, New Orleans to Waveband, MS
• next train trip  -   September 1942  -  on Southern Pacific Argonaut  -  New Orleans to Los Angeles; many military on train.

• Dad worked for the United Fruit Company and was transferred to Long Beach, CA  -  German U-Boats were sinking more ships in Gulf of Mexico than in the Pacific
• Mom, my brother and I followed him out in September 1942

• late September 1942  -  took Pacific Electric from Long Beach to Los Angeles to take Daylight to San Franciso
• October 1942  -  rode the SP Lark from San Francisco back to Los Angeles
• June 1943  -  returned to New Orleans on the SP Argonaut so my Mom could give birth to youngest brother.
• Crescent on the L & N from Bay St. Louis, MS
• Southerner from New Orleans to New York City