One family's love affair with trains

I've loved the sight and sound of a train for as long as I can remember. I got it honestly. My daddy loved trains, too. Every time we went someplace, daddy seemed to know where the trains were and we went to see them. In those days, the big, black steam engines were in their final days and daddy loved driving alongside them as the drivers went round and round and the smoke billowed from the stack.

My grandfather Walker was a logging engineer in South Central Mississippi. While there have been folks who told me there were no Heisler locomotives on the logging lines that spiderwebbed across the countryside, I've got two pictures of Grandaddy Walker, one in the cab and another alongside with his crew, to prove they did.

As I grew up and moved away, any trip home to Sullivan's Hollow, Miss. was reason for Mom and Dad and me to get in the car and go over to Laurel, where we could watch Southern's fast freights and the beautiful green and gold Southern Crescent ply the rails. There were times when Mom and I would catch the Crescent and ride up to Meridian, sitting back and watching the countryside fly by at 79 miles per hour ... and there were times when all you needed was to hear the sound of the horns and the roar of the diesels.

Dad died in June 1989, but he had planted the seed and nurtured it. Just like the cotton he grew as a farmer, my love of trains blossomed and bloomed under his love and care.

My great-nephew, Adam, was born in June 1989 ... so close in time to Daddy's death that I can't help but think their souls had to have passed in the night — much like two trains meeting on tracks in a vast darkness.

For his second Christmas, I gave Adam a big, plastic, battery-powered train. Little did I know that I had ignited the same fire in Adam that my dad had in me. And as he grew, so did his love for trains ... and his desire to one day become an engineer.

Along the way, his Papaw and Granny Gorrell took him to chase trains, just like Mom and Dad did with me. And all along, Adam wanted to be an engineer. He didn't talk about it all the time, but there was never a very long break in the process.

We all know that little boys wanting to be engineers and firemen are just one of those dreams ... dreams of a child ... and of young men. Adam, who became 21 in June, turned a dream into reality when he went to work for a small, regional railroad in his native Pennsylvania and then, in September, he graduated from CSX's conductor school in Atlanta.

Now, the little boy who could barely hold those plastic train cars those many Christmases ago, helps runs trains with 12,000 horsepower, 100 cars and weighs in the neighborhood of 16 thousand tons.

Like my Daddy did with me, Adam's grandparents helped nurture his love for trains.

I really don't know what role Granddaddy Walker played in my Dad's love for trains, but I can't help but think that every time Adam climbs into the cab of a locomotive, both his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather are smiling as this family's love affair with trains just keeps rolling along.

Non-smoker rights going up in smoke

A non-smoking cancer survivor in Bogalusa, La. made a verbal request to the HR director at a local telephone call center to provide a non-smoking table in the outside (covered) break area.

There are currently three tables in the area, all dominated by smokers with the only options left to the nons being either suck in the second-hand smoke or stay inside. There are, you see, no other places to sit outside.

While the HR director commented he thought the request was good and valid, the site supervisor greeted it with a "good news, bad news" response. The good news, he said, was that a non-smokers area would be added but, because warm weather will soon be ending, it won't be done until next spring since people won't be going outside.

By the way, for those of you who don't know where Bogalusa is located, it's about an hour north of New Orleans and 25 minutes west of I-59 in the far southeast corner of Louisiana ... not exactly the land of blizzards and white outs.

So, in a community where the average low ranges between 38-43 degrees for the Nov.-Feb. period and the average high is between 60-64 degrees, are we to presume those three smokers tables will be removed because of weather concerns?

Don't hold your breath, unless you're a non-smoker trying to survive the cloud in the break area.

Is another change coming?

On Tuesday (Nov. 2), millions of unhappy Americans will go to the polls to elect members of Congress and it looks as if the change that hit in 2008 will continue.

This time, however, the change may be a movement back toward where America was before bank bailouts, auto bailouts, healthcare reform and everything else associated with the current administration.

To say the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime has held themselves as "holier than thou" might just be an understatement. To say they realize their party is in trouble would also be an understatement. That is clearly evident by the polls — and the money being spent on troubled incumbents, such as Nevada's Harry Reid.

Our system works because people can change it through the election process ... and it's time for change.