My hat doesn’t fit at all well. My head is so puffed up from the adulations. I have heard back from over half of you and I have been enthusiastically received by my reading audience. I will continue these episodes into 2008.
To finish off the 2007 year, here is a short story about our visit to San Jose last weekend. We all gathered in Barb’s Toyota SUV and went in search of a worthy museum to visit. Our first choice was a quilt museum on south Second Street in downtown San Jose. We arrived at the Google Map’s reference point on the GPS and parked in front of a Buddhist temple. We drove slowly around the block and parked back at the same spot. It sure didn’t look like a quilt museum. We verified the address in the tour book. We were on South Second, this is San Jose. Out came the trusty cell phone and we called the museumÂ… answering machine.
Plan “B,” visit the industrial museum a few blocks away. On the way there we noticed a nice park with picnic tables. It was noon, so we did a proper California “U” turn and parked. We looked over the area and selected a table in the sun for lunch. While looking around we discovered we were at the San Jose Historical Park. Even better the gates were open and the entry fee was waived for the day.
We visited the Hotel and the Soda shop and looked at the replica of a community street light, the very first in San Jose. It was on a 200 foot tower with an arc light at the top. The original one is reported to not be well received by the locals. It kept the chickens up all night and they quit laying eggs.
About then we noticed there was a trolley that served this simulated downtown from the last century. We all strolled over and Richard, the Motorman, in full uniform, stopped the trolley, opened the door, climbed down and placed a step to aid us entering. Now Richard is over eighty and I would have been much more comfortable placing the step so he could climb down. It was obvious that Richard, a volunteer, enjoyed this assignment very much, so we politely waited.
Richard returned the stool to its position by the door and closed the door ready to proceed. We then were given the full tourist introduction to the San Jose Trolley, including a brief synopsis of Richard’s career as a telegrapher on the Southern Pacific Railroad. When I shared that I too had been a telegrapher on the Northern Pacific Railroad, it was “Katy bar the door!” Twenty minutes into his career more tourists arrived, (it was a slow day,) and Richard went though the Open Door-Place Step-Greet New Arrivals routine again. Finally Richard demonstrated all of the controls and we got underway. We did a quick stop to check and see if the correct electrical contact pole was engaged with the wire, and then we swooped, creaked, screeched and bumped around a couple corners. When we got straightened out on the back straightaway I noticed there was a light pole planted square between the tracks at the end of the block. Behind the pole the tracks continued into a thicket and disappeared into the undergrowth. All toll Richards trolley can go a total of three blocks from one side of the hotel to the other side of the hotel. But between these two terminal points, we traveled some sixty or seventy years into the past through Richard’s memories. Bravo! Richard, we enjoyed every minute of it.
We will pull up stakes and start further south with the coming of the New Year. Once again thanks for the encouragement.
Gary and Judy
