Christmas began life-long passion for trains

Sunday evening I wrapped up 23 days playing piano in the pit combo for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. This was my fourth season with the production directed and produced by Katy Bowen-Roberts. The gig is a joy to play and since moving to Nanaimo the show has become my launching pad to the Christmas Season. Driving home from the closing show and with the car radio blasting forth perceivable carol fare, my mind repeatedly wandered to memories of Christmas’s past.

The season’s sentimentality invariably reminds me of a very special gift received in my youth - my first electric train. Tooling around the malls these days all I observe are tons of toys molded from colorful plastics. None bear any resemblance to those marvelous miniatures that depicted the heavy railroad equipment of the pre 1950's era. To find such works of toy art today one must search out the hallowed hobby specialist shop. Here you’ll find mainly people like myself (children seem to be scarce in such establishments) jawing the jargon of railroading to a storeowner who savors and caresses the products he sells like fine pieces of jewelry.

Many holiday seasons have passed since my first electric train magically appeared under the Christmas tree. The layout, set up by my father late on Christmas Eve, consisted of a 4X8 sheet of plywood painted green with an oval of “027" gauge railroad track tacked firmly to its surface. My father being a Medical Doctor had even constructed a miniature pedestrian overpass out of wooden tongue depressors. I still have the locomotive and most of the track from that first model train set. That simple layout expanded over the years into a major model railway operation only to be torn down when my parents moved to a smaller home after I graduated from high school.

Getting married in the 60's didn’t suppress the boy within as I undertook the construction of a model railway layout in the spare bedroom of our first apartment. Whenever we had visitors stay overnight, they got the master bedroom and my wife Pat and I slept on a foamy beneath the sheets of plywood supporting the railroad. Pat mentioned to me in later years just what she was thinking as she lay there looking up at the various trestles criss-crossing above her - “this must be true love because not many wives would put up with this.”

Today my train collection has been boxed away. However, at this time of year I’ll invariably get a box or two out of storage, have a quick look at a few pieces and reflect how that single gift on a December 25^th morning in the early 1940’s 

sparked in me a life-long love of trains. 

Photo: My brother Terry (on the left) and I sit admiring the train layout that appeared one Christmas morning in the early 1940’s. I appear to be four or five years old.

Photo: At Christmas time I’ll invariably dig out from storage a few pieces of my train collection.

Thursday evening Pat and I hydroplaned our way over the hump through a torrential rainstorm to perform with Timbre! at the Harbour Quay Farmer’s Market. Not exactly a concert hall setting as you can see by the photos. My only concern was the power cords laying amongst the puddles leading to my electric piano and amplifier. I didn’t exactly want to light up like a Christmas Tree. However, the new roofing at the Quay managed to keep most of the rain off the performers.

It’s Christmas Eve day morning as I write this blog and I’m about to venture forth to the supermarket crush to purchase our Christmas turkey for our annual Boxing Day family dinner. Tomorrow morning after opening presents Pat and I will light our Christmas candle. When we presented our last Candlelight Concert 12 years ago some of our choir parents melted down all the candle stubs that had been saved and left over from rehearsal use. The melt was molded into a handsome candle which we light each Christmas Day. The candle is so large it reminds me of the visionary image of the Wyoming mountain known as Devil’s Tower that Richard Dreyfuss created in his livingroom in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When we light our own mountain of wax it tends to burn somewhat like a volcanic display, heating up the whole living room in the process but most importantly enveloping us with brilliant memories of our years with the Teen Choir.    

Pat and I wish you all the very best this holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Photo: Timbre! singing Christmas Carols in a rain storm at Harbour Quay in Port Alberni

Photo: Cutting the fingers from a pair of wool gloves, I managed to keep my finger muscles flexible.