Clovis Man: 1943

My grandfather was a 'hogger' on the Canadian Pacific.
He had the only job I ever really dreamed of having.

He died when I was about 7; I wished he had lived long enough to show me the roundhouse and yards out of which he operated.

I wish that I had a picture of my father at work -- he was an engineer on the Pennsylvania RR from the 1940s until he died in 1951, when I was less than a year old. I have family pictures of him but none of him in his railroad environment.

My dad grew up during the Great Depression. They did not have much except people to look up to and admire. The train engineer was one. He expressed how they were awed by how one or two men could operate such a modern marvel. Then, I remember being awed by my dad when he told me these stories of how he and his friends would spend hours at the railyard just watching and enjoying the sights and sounds of these magnificent bygone machines of fire and steam.

AT&SF merged with Burlington Northern (formed when the Chicago Burlington and Quincy merged with the Great Northern) to form the Burlington Northern Santa Fe a few years ago. The famous round logo of the AT&SF morphed into a green logo (the green coming from the BN logo). It's a somewhat sad but fascinating thing to trace the evolution of railroad names as they merged themselves out of existence over the last several decades.

I just like saying "Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe."

That's a clovis cigarette, I assume.