NOVEMBER

Looking East passed the receiving yard, Willard, OH. sometime or another in 2016.

This year is spinning down to a close faster than I expected. Turkey day will be in a minute or two and then ol' Saint Nick does his thing. The snow will come soon. The cold will come along with it, and the ice, and the darkness too. Seems like it's always dark this time of year. It's dark for a long time and then it's time to do taxes. Not my favorite time. Used to like it when I was a kid. But grown up winters suck!

Oh, Lucy...

Lucy Marie finds another frog friend.

You are such an incredible little person. At one moment you are so quiet and small and your whole world swirls in your own mind. You are content with yourself and the stories you make. Then, the next moment, everything needs to stop and hear what you have to say. And if the world doesn't stop when you demand it? Oh, wow...

I love you so much!

Meta Data

Lucy and Ruby swim in Tappan Lake, OH.,  June 17th @ 06:20pm. Photo taken with Marci's Apple iPhone 5s; back camera, 4.15mm lens, ISO 32, the F-Stop was 2.2, and was a 1/1208th second exposure. No filter added post. 

Here is a perfect example of how technology will let us all down. Now, when I plugged the ol' iPhone into the laptop it dumped all the pictures into whatever the iCloud is... BUT then I tried to copy all those photos onto an external hard drive. The images saved just fine. They are there. Like so many prints in the bottom of an old shoe box, with no captions. Flip them over and you won't see any information scribbled there in a faded pencil. Perhaps that is the power of images. They are both perfect memories and vague remembrances. The images are sharp but the detail are fuzzy. 

What Ever to do With This?

Ruby Lynn is a frustrated 8 year old as she spends her first day trying to ride a bike without training wheels. Within an hour, she's got it down and couldn't be more excited!

It's so strange to me that you might be able to look back at your whole lives through the strange filter of this World Wide Web. But, you might. As long as you can recall this Blog's name, it's address, then you will be able to look back as far as I've posted. You could see photos of you with your mother when she was just a girl. You can read words that your father wrote when he was as young as you are now. You can see the shapes of days that you can't even remember. You surely have the feelings. Ruby, you might remember the colors and emotions of the day that you first learned to ride a bike. But here! Look! That's you on that day! Look further back and see another day. See your history. Lucy, your first days are here. That's you in a bath.
For me, or for your mom, the images of our youth is lost to us. There might be one or two old Kodachromes in some old dusty box somewhere, but you've got full color digital vividness!

How strange. How wonderful.

Today was a day. One of "those" days. A good day. A hard day. A day full of tears and laughter and crying and yelling and cheering and then more crying. Today was the day that Grandma died, but it was also the day that we went over to the trail together. We spent the day as a family. The railroad didn't call. Nickelodeon didn't send work. There was no school. We were together. The four of us. Our little family. We spent the day together learning to ride bikes without training wheels. What a day. What a perfect day.

CREW CHANGE

An early spring crew change near Crestline, OH., 2016 photo by B.A. Beighley

Another winter on the railroad has come and gone, and with its final cool gusts I am reminded of my previous winters spent hunkered down in the front of my truck, trying to catch some sleep in the parking lot of the Connelsville Yard. That was years ago now, and for many winters after, the railroad had enjoyed unusually busy winter seasons. There were periods where things slowed down quite a bit, but most guys were able to hang on to the extra boards or hideout on some almost forgotten switchman's board. However, this past season was a brutal reminder that our jobs depend entirely on both National and Global economics. 

I've been told by the 'old heads' that when it comes to the ups and downs of the economy, the railroads are the first to feel the effects and the last to recover from them. Now that I've been through two really nasty recessions I can tell you from personal experience, that they were right. Back in '07 I had to chase my job as far east as Maryland, and even then I was only hanging on to one spot on the last extra board in that terminal. I spent months away from my family, and spent many lonely nights wondering if I had perhaps made the wrong choice in becoming a railroader. The next three winters were just as bad, but by the winter season of 2010, things had seemed to stabilize and I was able to hold jobs in my home terminal all the way through to spring. That was the same story all the way until this past winter. 

The coal is gone. Regardless of your feelings on fossil fuel consumption, and for reasons that people like me will probably never know, the east coast railroads have lost their biggest money maker and it is not coming back. Entire subdivisions are being abandoned, terminals are being closed, a lynchpin commodity is lost, and a part of railroad culture has forever changed. The end story here is this; railroading is changing, and railroaders themselves are likely to go the way of coal before I can make it to retirement age. 

I do not know how many more spring crew changes I will get to see. There should be plenty to at least see my kids off to college, and I may even make it to an age that could force to company to offer me a "buy-out" but I'm no longer certain that this is a job that I retire from.

COTTON TAIL SHOWED UP

The girls woke up to find all of The Easter Bunny's hidden eggs! Yay! Ruby and Lucy are both feeling better from the flu, but Marci and I are so sick we can barely stand... it's so nice outside and all we want to do is go play. 

BUT WE DON'T EAT EGGS ANYMORE...

About a year ago, Marci and I began a "plant-based-whole-foods" diet. Basically, we don't eat animal protein anymore. So no eggs. Then what would the bunny bring on Easter? Uh oh... Turns out, little eggs made from cardboard are actually more fun to color on! 

ANNUAL

Exactly one year since the last post. Honestly, I didn't plan that. However, it is fitting. This space has become just like the many partially started books which clutter the back corners of seldom remembered drawers, cupboards, boxes, backpacks, and shelves of my life. Blah, blah, blah. Why bother? Seriously.