Saturday, July 2, 2022

Something Really American!

 When I was a kid, I loved July 4th. All the families at the 1st Baptist Church of Denison, Texas would have a huge picnic out at Doctor Brown's land. There would be BBQ, potato salad, and, best of all FIREWORKS!

These were the best fireworks, fired off by the kids with pretty much no adult interference. The adults were all sitting in a big circle, in multi-colored striped lawn chairs talking, while also enduring the occasional string of Black Cats going off right behind them, as a joke. 

No one got hurt. Everyone ate way too much. And the ride home was the most peaceful, exhausted sleep I ever had. 

Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.

Unfortunately, this post has nothing to do with any of that. 

Instead, I was looking around for SOMETHING that I could tie into the 4th. I found these...



Yes, my HO scale Amtrak train, that I pretty much forgot that I owned. 

These are actually from when I was a teen, or my early 20s. I have a lot of train stuff (I mean A LOT), but nowhere to set up a layout. Someday, I still plan to, but for now I have a world put away in boxes. 

These are part of that world. A red, white, and blue American part! The engines are from Lifelike (229) and Bachman (350). The cars are Athearn. They used to run on my old layout, but life got in the way. I don't know if they still work, but I hope they do. Someday maybe I'll find out.

Until then, they make a nice patriotic display. They're not bottle rockets, but they'll do in a pinch.

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

5 comments:

  1. Way, cool, Stu! My HO-scale Amtrak consist is an Athearn F7 and F7 dummy from 1979 and three Tyco passenger cars from 1977, with Lionel-like paper windows featuring printed passenger silhouettes.

    I spent so much time running them, my dad’s 1960s-era Athearn passenger cars, and college friends’ Athearn passenger cars using the same molds as your cars that when I see real passenger cars they look unnaturally long to me. A pox upon selective compression and 18” radius curved sectional track!

    Thanks for sharing your memories of the Fourth! Paul Simon - one of our greatest native poets.

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    1. Cool! Yeah, most of my rail knowledge comes directly from the models, so I'm pretty sure its the prototypes that got it wrong.
      I have more Amtrak...somewhere. I need to dig it out, but then what?

      I wondered if anyone would get the quote. It's SO true!

      Have a great 4th!

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  2. I just found out that if I use my tablet, it knows me!

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  3. Shoot - normally, my tablet knows me, too, but I guess it didn’t when I commented yesterday. And apparently it’s suffering from amnesia again today.

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    Replies
    1. I knew it was you, Chuck, lol!

      Delete

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