One Big Happy by Rick Detorie for April 05, 2015

I’d rather be on a 737-800 going to Vegas, but we can’t have everything.

Reference Creators.com

We see the age old adage that if you are an adult with a technology question just ask a kid.

So… who’s the boy in the top row? James? Since when does Jame’s family have money for a tie and a niece shirt? And I didn’t know James had older brothers. No, I think he’s Frank when he had maybe Joe’s age. On the last “reminiscing” panel we see Frank had two sisters and five brothers. Depending on which of the younger boys he is, he would have at least three older brothers. I’m telling you: Rick doesn’t want us to know, but James is Frank’s son!

When O’Hare airport first opened there was an observation deck on the roof of the (one and only) terminal. Dad would sometimes take us to watch the planes take off and land. Jets were a novelty back then.

I’d still rather go watch the trains.

I seem to recall there were airplanes back in the ’40s and ’50s. They flew a lot lower, so you could identify each kind. And there were cool steam engines too, as in this strip. Cars were all different from one another, not like now, where they all look alike. There was no McDonalds. Better times, kids.

The Train Track passed by my home where I grew up. If I had all the Coins that I put on those Tracks, I could buy Breakfast at Denny’s or IHOP.

When my kids were small, we sometimes walked a mile to the nearest train station to watch trains, have a picnic, and run up and down the stairs. Seeing as they are 13 and 11 now, it wasn’t that long time ago.

My sister and her family used to live in St. Louis and when her twins were little they used to love it when they would go to St. Louis airport and watch the “pairplanes.” So cute…

I grew up a block from the railroad tracks. Our dad took us down to the station to watch the trains often. The passenger trains were the most fun, and back then there were lots of them. One of the 3 railroads in town still used a lot of steam engines, the others had switched to diesel completely.

To be sure, there’s a whole industry around Thomas The Tank Engine, and only a few cartoons about anthropomorphized planes.

Our location we get one singe line of trains if driver gets close enough have to wait until train leaves. No passenger cars. Engine and cargo rails.

When I was in HS we would go to Friendship airport and go out on the observation deck and watch the planes. Cannot do that now. If I am lucky, I get to be the first car that has to stop when the freight trains go by on a nearby road. Love those trains.

Today’s One Big Happy

I can remember going to Love Field and watching the planes take off and land – particularly the Delta Lockheed 14As, twin engine with two-bladed props. Watching trains go by was interesting, but when one had visited the Katy repair yards in Denison with a grandfather who was General Chairman of the BofLE, not exactly exciting.

The house I grew up in was no more than a half mile from a railroad track. Loved hearing those trains in the distance at night.

“My ideal would be a good train-watching site near an airport. I’d probably fill my camera card in under an hour.”

And then spend four hours at the local FBI office being interrogated over your “terrorist” connections before they impounded your camera and let you go with a warning about what will happen “next time”.

Train and plane spotting are now considered extremely suspicious activities, especially if you are taking photographs.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2943304.stm