Some family history

[Deleted]

Shot this today about noon from a highway overpass near where I work. It's supposed to get in the mid 80s (F) here today and you can already see the heat waves. Shot with an 18-200mm Nikkor zoom at 200mm.

An interesting side note: The rear of the train is just passing over the bridge across the Boise River. In 1954 my cousin, Jack Belcher, who was my age, was going fishing with two friends and were using the railroad tracks to get to their favorite fishing hole. A train caught them on the very bridge in the photo, and knocked jack into the river, killing him instantly. Just like the kid in the movie "Stand By Me."

[John Parry]

Sorry to hear of your cousin Wayne. Just the kind of things that boys do I'm afraid. My wife used to get uptight when my son climbed trees - "Its dangerous". I said, "He's a boy - that's his job"

Regards - John

[Deleted]

Frankly, at the time Jack's death didn't have much impact on me. I didn't know him very well. Had enough trouble just keeping track of all my cousins named Cornell.

Spent my share of time as a kid walking up and down the RR tracks and had a couple of fairly close calls. But as John said, that was my job.

Wayne

[herron]

Amazing the kinds of things we do growing up. It's a wonder so many of us actually do grow up. Sad about your cousin.

[Andrew]

Apr 22, 2009 21:54:17 GMT -5 herron said:

Amazing the kinds of things we do growing up. It's a wonder so many of us actually do grow up. Sad about your cousin.

i can only echo those comments i think, i saw this picture early and looked for a while, was going to make comment on the telegraph poles and other things and then noticed the further description, i couldn't look at it the same then...

[Deleted]

Speaking of the telephone poles. Heres a shot where they are less distorted.

[Andrew]

i didnt mind the distorted poles Wayne, i like the poles full stop. we dont have many timber telegraph pole's here, in SA that is, around other parts of the country they do of course, though i reckon many have been replaced with steel etc..

i was thinking i should make some pictures of our SA stobie poles for you to see, quite different to what is commonly used in other places, out of necessity since the early 1900's for us, there's nothing like the timber poles, they dont last more than a few years here

anyway i like those poles, i reckon i would hang around all day and more to see the light change on them to get some sort of pic,,,but then i am weird like that haha,

its more than concerning though thinking about the young person and the train, these pictures ...

[Deleted]

So many thing people in different parts of the world take for granted that people in other places don't.

For instance, the land where we live was desert 125 years ago. In the early 1900s dams and reservoirs were constructed up in the mountains the capture the spring runoff and feed it to the valley through a system of canals. If the dams were removed the region would revert to desert. We normalyl get less than 10 inches of rainfall annually here. People who move here from the eastern or southern portions of the country seem to find it odd that water comes from canals rather than directly from the sky. Water is supreme here. There's a joke you hear now and then that of you steal your neighbor's wife, he might get a little upset. But if you steal his water allotment, he's likely to shoot you.

[Randy]

My Dad's cousin LaVerle got killed by a railroad snowplow on the Pennsylvania Railroad, he was cleaning track switches and didn't hear the steamer pushing the plow. The snow was about 8 feet high on each side of the tracks so there was no where to go.