My grandfather Oscar was second generation German and was formal, fastitious, and was known to be a man of few words but could intimidate any member of the family by a well focused stare. My Uncle Jack was his polar opposite and was a fireman for the SP, was prone to wearing straw boaters, black suspenders over bright flannel shirts..and was an extrovert. At about the age of five, I noticed this difference when the family had get togethers...on Sundays..very formal...My Uncle Jack would regale me with tales of railroading..my eyes widened..I was hypnotised..My grandfather would beam his German death ray glare at Jack who purposefully ignored it and went on and on...between puffs of his cigar...I always think back and realize what an influence he was to me....Have any of you a family relation who steered you in a similar fashion? I know we discussed nurture vs nature as to the railfan virus...but was there someone who "sold" you on railroads and how?
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
It was my Uncle George (and my father). He always had model trains around and was a big railfan. We played lots of games when the families visited, including lots of Rail Baron. I remember going to the Illinois Railway Museum several times with him and my father. When I was in junior high, he gave me Empire Builder. I was already hooked by then. My father had a small HO set with an ATSF F-series with the warbonnet that ran around a circle track.
My Uncle George also was a player, with my father, in introducing me to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin. We vacation every year just south of Baraboo and usually spend a day or afternoon heading out there instead of to Devil's Lake State Park.
Speaking of Devil's Lake...
My brother was hiking a bluff one day and said that he saw a canoe shooting across the lake and covered the majority of the width in a matter of a couple minutes. I was happy to inform him that it was my father and I in that canoe (I was in front) and while we were trolling around the lowlands in the southwest part of the lake, I heard the horn of a northbound just entering the park. I looked at my dad and he said, "Well? Let's go." So I grabbed that oar and pulled as hard and fast as I could and we made it across the half mile of lake between us and the tracks just in time to wave to the fireman. I wish that my Uncle George could have been with us that day.
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