This question was presented to me by my daughter, Wynter (what a great name), and the first thing that came to mind was collecting crystals along the old Midland Valley Railroad. Well I don't know about you but that railroad was full of dreams and adventures for me.
I loved walking up and down those tracks looking for those almost clear but white crystals. Billy Snyder and Kenny Kelsey were my mentors on this one as I admired their collections. Billy had the most and the biggest collection including the biggest crystal which was about 2 inches cubed. I could walk those rails for hours looking for railroad spikes and always worrying that when I took one that it might cause the train to derail. I bet I had a hundred of those over the years. Another great thing to do was get a penny smashed by the train. That was a real collectors item as you typically could not find the penny after the train had passed. All of these things together created a barter system where you could trade baseball cards, crystals, railroad spikes and smashed pennies. Free enterprise was born in the Osage.
Another really great thing I learned is you could put your ear down on the rail and if the train was getting close enough you could hear the vibrations. But let me tell you when that train did come it scared the crap out of me. Now I always got in trouble for saying that but the word does fit and besides everyone seemed to use a much more definitive version of the same word without rebuke. I use to say that shit, damn and crap were the three favorite words of most adults. Now I will give you one example that I remember of a person who NEVER used an unkind or off color word and that was Charles Codding. I suppose there were others like Kernny Graham, the pastor of the Grainola, Shidler, and Foraker United Methodist Church but we had an expectation of that. Now one more divergent comment and that is how I was so amazed when Larry, Sally, Janie, Suzie, Billy, Kenny, Glen and a host of others graduated from high school and suddenly had a new vocabulary just like the other adults. I guess that going to college is where they all learned those new words and how to most effectively use them. Freedom of speech I think is what they called it. I use to give them a hard time until I got educated as well. It is funny but I guess most folks go through a phase like that as I have noticed none of them including me use those words too much anymore. Oh well, back to the train.
I am not sure what year it was but the old Midland Valley stopped running and they sold the tracks and the railroad ties. The great thing about it was we got paid 50 cents a piece to pick up those railroad ties. Some folks used them for fence post and I really have no idea what happened to the rest as there were ten's of thousands to be picked up. Anyway I use to love to think about where those rails would take me and how fun it would be to jump on and see where you would wind up.
What do you learn in the Osage?
I loved walking up and down those tracks looking for those almost clear but white crystals. Billy Snyder and Kenny Kelsey were my mentors on this one as I admired their collections. Billy had the most and the biggest collection including the biggest crystal which was about 2 inches cubed. I could walk those rails for hours looking for railroad spikes and always worrying that when I took one that it might cause the train to derail. I bet I had a hundred of those over the years. Another great thing to do was get a penny smashed by the train. That was a real collectors item as you typically could not find the penny after the train had passed. All of these things together created a barter system where you could trade baseball cards, crystals, railroad spikes and smashed pennies. Free enterprise was born in the Osage.
Another really great thing I learned is you could put your ear down on the rail and if the train was getting close enough you could hear the vibrations. But let me tell you when that train did come it scared the crap out of me. Now I always got in trouble for saying that but the word does fit and besides everyone seemed to use a much more definitive version of the same word without rebuke. I use to say that shit, damn and crap were the three favorite words of most adults. Now I will give you one example that I remember of a person who NEVER used an unkind or off color word and that was Charles Codding. I suppose there were others like Kernny Graham, the pastor of the Grainola, Shidler, and Foraker United Methodist Church but we had an expectation of that. Now one more divergent comment and that is how I was so amazed when Larry, Sally, Janie, Suzie, Billy, Kenny, Glen and a host of others graduated from high school and suddenly had a new vocabulary just like the other adults. I guess that going to college is where they all learned those new words and how to most effectively use them. Freedom of speech I think is what they called it. I use to give them a hard time until I got educated as well. It is funny but I guess most folks go through a phase like that as I have noticed none of them including me use those words too much anymore. Oh well, back to the train.
I am not sure what year it was but the old Midland Valley stopped running and they sold the tracks and the railroad ties. The great thing about it was we got paid 50 cents a piece to pick up those railroad ties. Some folks used them for fence post and I really have no idea what happened to the rest as there were ten's of thousands to be picked up. Anyway I use to love to think about where those rails would take me and how fun it would be to jump on and see where you would wind up.
What do you learn in the Osage?
- Competitive nature was born in collecting crystals on the railroad
- The joy of adventure lives in the Osage
- Free enterprise will always exist even if the government takes over
Thanks for listening and thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com
This story is dedicated to my kids who asked me about my favorite past time.
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