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Met A Very Interesting Man At Starbucks
14 years ago
My Realm is Evolving..
So today I went for my first session at the ADD wellness place.. It didn't go so hot because it felt more like an interview where I froze up. I wasn't prepared and it won't happen next time because I'm not too happy about how it went down.
Anyway onto the reason I've brought you into this journal..
My lower back is still hurting me like hell so I gingerly under some dull pain made my way over to Starbucks in a shopping center across the street from where I was getting my session done.
I stopped and talked with the security guard working the shopping center who was a nice fellow doing the job as a fill in for another person. The guard worked Ikea furniture out of Houston and was doing it as an out of retirement gig.
So I talk with him a little and gingerly made my way to Starbucks taking a pain seat by the front door on a big comfy chair they had in the place.
Across from me when I got there was this guy messing with his phone waiting for his friend to show up who ended up being somebody who knew my mom and lived in our neighborhood from 1996-2006 I think it was. His name was Ben and after his friend and him went over to get their drinks they sat down to shoot the breeze.
About a half an hour later this old man comes in holding a bike helmet in his hand. I look over at him and ask him to join us so he goes putting his helmet out on his bike and he walks back into Starbucks with a MAC IPAD in his hand. He sits down in a big comfy chair next to me and we get to talking.
About thirty minutes or so later after talking about everything from electronics to cell phone providers I start talking about trains and that's when this old man drops a bombshell on me..
He was a telegraph clerk for several years who worked for almost all the famous railroads of the 60s. He was from Bloomington Illinois and he hired out in 1963 on the EJ&E out of Chicago as a telegraph Clerk for two years before he moved on to the Rock Island in 1965 where he did a brief stint with them as a telegraph clerk. He then moved on at the same position working for Chicago Northwestern, Denver Rio Grande & Western out of Colorado before finally finishing on Union Pacific out of Denver in the 1970s.
I couldn't believe my ears as he told me stories of him getting to work for all the railroads except UP of yesteryear. I was blown away that a man in his seventies worked for so many roads as a telegraph clerk,
But it gets much better when you consider this guy was a railfan who had friends who worked for the railroad out of his hometown.
This is where it gets really awesome:
He told me not only did he work for The Rock, EJ&E, Denver Rio Grande and Western, Chicago Northwestern, and UP but he also did work as a telegraph Clerk for the Milwaukee Road and Chicago Saint Paul and Pacific plus he also knew about Bloomington's former railroad in the Gulf Mobile & Ohio which is now CN which was IC,
Amazed by now? It gets much better..
It turns out this man named Lou also was a coast guard in NAM, A mineral miner in Colorado, and a liquor store clerk in Colorado in the later 1970s.
He was also a math teacher who taught school in Los Angleles California and owns a soy bean farm out in California or at least the government does.
He told me stories of working in the mines and what they did. These mines he worked in were on sides of mountains going over twenty miles into them. He told me how he'd ofter hear blasts from them detonating the mine rocks to loosen them twenty miles down the mine. He had to get into these hand controlled mine cars in order to get to the mine itself which he did for a year.
Then Lou tells me who by now is totally blown away and intrigued by him that when he was in the Coast Guard they went up to Minnesota to spend two weeks in the dead of winter two hours north of Minneapolis learning how to live on the land if they went into combat.
He told me it was -25 below when they did this training and it was so cold their piss turned to ice within seconds which I found hilarious.
They were going to make them stay outhere overnight with trucks and oil drums full of thick oil to keep them warm only to get thwarted when the oil they got was too fine for the climate so it froze letting them sleep in barracks instead of tents :D
We probably talked for a solid three hours not caring if anybody came in to listen to us talk about our similar interests and past events. Lou had to be the most interesting older person I have met to date because it felt like I was interviewing a time capsule of so much history and interesting history at that.
I hope the next Wednesday I go for more job help at the ADD place that I can run into Lou at Starbucks again because that man will go down as one of the most interesting people I have ever talked to or had the pleasure of being in their presence.
You can't duplicate what I experienced unless you were there,
Whoever had Lou for a grandfather is a lucky kid because guys like him are guys you want to listen to. In the four hours or however long it was we talked I never wanted it to end because the more I heard the more I just wanted to stay and listen to this man.
If anybody who knows this man reads this journal I just want you to know your grandfather is a person I hope you do get the chance to sit down and listen to. Older people are older for a reason and Lou would have made most of you fall in love with him.
What an interesting day April 12th was! Even if I never see Lou again I'll always remember and thank my lucky stars i was at the right place at the right time!
Anyway onto the reason I've brought you into this journal..
My lower back is still hurting me like hell so I gingerly under some dull pain made my way over to Starbucks in a shopping center across the street from where I was getting my session done.
I stopped and talked with the security guard working the shopping center who was a nice fellow doing the job as a fill in for another person. The guard worked Ikea furniture out of Houston and was doing it as an out of retirement gig.
So I talk with him a little and gingerly made my way to Starbucks taking a pain seat by the front door on a big comfy chair they had in the place.
Across from me when I got there was this guy messing with his phone waiting for his friend to show up who ended up being somebody who knew my mom and lived in our neighborhood from 1996-2006 I think it was. His name was Ben and after his friend and him went over to get their drinks they sat down to shoot the breeze.
About a half an hour later this old man comes in holding a bike helmet in his hand. I look over at him and ask him to join us so he goes putting his helmet out on his bike and he walks back into Starbucks with a MAC IPAD in his hand. He sits down in a big comfy chair next to me and we get to talking.
About thirty minutes or so later after talking about everything from electronics to cell phone providers I start talking about trains and that's when this old man drops a bombshell on me..
He was a telegraph clerk for several years who worked for almost all the famous railroads of the 60s. He was from Bloomington Illinois and he hired out in 1963 on the EJ&E out of Chicago as a telegraph Clerk for two years before he moved on to the Rock Island in 1965 where he did a brief stint with them as a telegraph clerk. He then moved on at the same position working for Chicago Northwestern, Denver Rio Grande & Western out of Colorado before finally finishing on Union Pacific out of Denver in the 1970s.
I couldn't believe my ears as he told me stories of him getting to work for all the railroads except UP of yesteryear. I was blown away that a man in his seventies worked for so many roads as a telegraph clerk,
But it gets much better when you consider this guy was a railfan who had friends who worked for the railroad out of his hometown.
This is where it gets really awesome:
He told me not only did he work for The Rock, EJ&E, Denver Rio Grande and Western, Chicago Northwestern, and UP but he also did work as a telegraph Clerk for the Milwaukee Road and Chicago Saint Paul and Pacific plus he also knew about Bloomington's former railroad in the Gulf Mobile & Ohio which is now CN which was IC,
Amazed by now? It gets much better..
It turns out this man named Lou also was a coast guard in NAM, A mineral miner in Colorado, and a liquor store clerk in Colorado in the later 1970s.
He was also a math teacher who taught school in Los Angleles California and owns a soy bean farm out in California or at least the government does.
He told me stories of working in the mines and what they did. These mines he worked in were on sides of mountains going over twenty miles into them. He told me how he'd ofter hear blasts from them detonating the mine rocks to loosen them twenty miles down the mine. He had to get into these hand controlled mine cars in order to get to the mine itself which he did for a year.
Then Lou tells me who by now is totally blown away and intrigued by him that when he was in the Coast Guard they went up to Minnesota to spend two weeks in the dead of winter two hours north of Minneapolis learning how to live on the land if they went into combat.
He told me it was -25 below when they did this training and it was so cold their piss turned to ice within seconds which I found hilarious.
They were going to make them stay outhere overnight with trucks and oil drums full of thick oil to keep them warm only to get thwarted when the oil they got was too fine for the climate so it froze letting them sleep in barracks instead of tents :D
We probably talked for a solid three hours not caring if anybody came in to listen to us talk about our similar interests and past events. Lou had to be the most interesting older person I have met to date because it felt like I was interviewing a time capsule of so much history and interesting history at that.
I hope the next Wednesday I go for more job help at the ADD place that I can run into Lou at Starbucks again because that man will go down as one of the most interesting people I have ever talked to or had the pleasure of being in their presence.
You can't duplicate what I experienced unless you were there,
Whoever had Lou for a grandfather is a lucky kid because guys like him are guys you want to listen to. In the four hours or however long it was we talked I never wanted it to end because the more I heard the more I just wanted to stay and listen to this man.
If anybody who knows this man reads this journal I just want you to know your grandfather is a person I hope you do get the chance to sit down and listen to. Older people are older for a reason and Lou would have made most of you fall in love with him.
What an interesting day April 12th was! Even if I never see Lou again I'll always remember and thank my lucky stars i was at the right place at the right time!
I've met a few old timers who worked on the great fallen flags, but I haven't had a good in-depth conversation with any of them. I've been up in MN when it got ridiculously cold like that. I thought it was always fun to make snow with the garden hose.
For anybody to say they were a telegraph clerk on that many roads is incredible and also the guy is a Colorado Buff who didn't go to any of the Big Ten Schools which is sort of not common especially when you consider how passionate people are about their schools there in Big Ten Country. I asked him if he was a Fighting Illinei and he said no he was a Colorado Buff.
He lived like fifteen minutes away and go there by bike but there was just something about him which drew me to him. No man my age has such a history and believe me I did feel like I was talking to a famous person I had to write about. This guy really got the human interest writer going in me.
I don't know if I will ever see him again but if I do I'm grabbing a picture with him to share with you guys because this was a man if he was a book you couldn't put down.
He even knew of Mexican railroads because he had a house down in San somewhere, sorry, I've got fifteen hour sleep drowsiness. It was astounding he knew so much about the railroads down here as much as he did there. At one point it seemed like we were a couple of veterans at our respective things and I got so engaged with this man it was three hours before we knew it.
Both of his sons were born in Mexico and they had dual citizenship here in The United States and Mexico. The reason he was living here in the Woodlands was because one of his sons lived in the greater Spring area. He brought out my best as i brought out his. His kids are so lucky to have a person like him.
Yesterday was the best day i've had in several years and I hope I can have many more like it.