Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
The sides of the tracks: Lakewood, OH. 1958
Left alone, I have tended to drift into "liminal" spaces.
I attribute this to the geography, the location/locale in which I spent some truly formative years "growing up.
As a kid in Cleveland, OH, the New York, Chicago & St.Louis (NickelPlate) right-of-way ran close by, less than a quarter mile from our house (in a fancy neighborhood). It was the main line along the lake (Erie) between Cleveland & Chicago, so it was busy, many trains daily, both passenger and freight. It was parents' nightmare ("Where's the REST of me?" echoing in their heads).
And naturally, all the "tough" and outcast kids from all the neighborhood along the line tended congregated there, smoking cigarettes playing touchie-feelie, and throwing rocks from the roadbed at each other--because there would be exactly ZERO adult supervision, ever.
I spent a fair amount of time there.
One favorite pastime involved a foot-race versus an approaching train across a wooden, creosote-soaked, two-track trestle over the vile, reeking, polluted, cess-ridden municipal spillage called the Rocky River.
One's bravery (aka stupidity) was measured by the narrowness of the result.
Good times.
I attribute this to the geography, the location/locale in which I spent some truly formative years "growing up.
As a kid in Cleveland, OH, the New York, Chicago & St.Louis (NickelPlate) right-of-way ran close by, less than a quarter mile from our house (in a fancy neighborhood). It was the main line along the lake (Erie) between Cleveland & Chicago, so it was busy, many trains daily, both passenger and freight. It was parents' nightmare ("Where's the REST of me?" echoing in their heads).
And naturally, all the "tough" and outcast kids from all the neighborhood along the line tended congregated there, smoking cigarettes playing touchie-feelie, and throwing rocks from the roadbed at each other--because there would be exactly ZERO adult supervision, ever.
I spent a fair amount of time there.
One favorite pastime involved a foot-race versus an approaching train across a wooden, creosote-soaked, two-track trestle over the vile, reeking, polluted, cess-ridden municipal spillage called the Rocky River.
One's bravery (aka stupidity) was measured by the narrowness of the result.
Good times.
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