Here, There, and Everywhere

(The belated Christmas Road Trip Report.)

This year's barnstorming tour of the Midwest took place by car, rather than by overpriced, luggage-losing, connection-missing airlines. Fortunately, there were no last minute snowstorms, no clueless coeds blundering into traffic to create unavoidable collisions, no mysterious steaming puddles of coolant or suddenly immovable gearshift levers on the day before scheduled departure. It was a refreshingly novel experience. Traveller performed his duty admirably, cruising endlessly down the fourlane for three thousand miles with nary a hiccup. The Historian on CD kept me entertained and intrigued across the long miles of Illinois cornfield, as Elizabeth Kostova's genteelly relentless researchers worked there way through the debris of history, generation after generation, toward the dark secret they sought. (Thanks, Fiend!).

On the way south, I stopped off at The University Formerly Known As SMS, where the archives department has recently acquired an incredible treasure trove of documents from the Frisco Railroad and its subsidiaries. The story behind this is rather interesting in its own right. The documents were at one time the property of the Frisco Museum, which had a small museum of railroad memorabilia, equipment and documents in a former railroad building in Springfield. Unfortunately, the Museum fell on hard times about 2003. Louis Greisemer, a local businessman and model railroader, stepped in to acquire the documents and keep them from being irretrievably dispersed. The right man at the right time, since in addition to having an interest in railroads and the financial resources to step in, he also ran Springfield Underground, a storage company that uses the hollowed-out caverns left over from his family's limestone quarry. Since that time, he's passed portions of those documents along to the Springfield-Greene County Library, which has digitized a nearly complete run of the Frisco's employee magazines, and to The University Formerly Known As SMS, which makes its holdings available to researchers.

It should surprise no one that I spent more time than originally planned digging through the dusty blue folders of valuation reports, track diagrams, maintenance and alteration reports, and other documents from the files of the Frisco and its elusive corporate stepchild the Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield Railway, the so-called "Leaky Roof Line". The phrase "I can't believe I'm seeing this" was heard at least once. Mucho photocopies were made and ordered.

And so to Texas, still enjoying sunny skies. Christmas with the folks, augmented by a welcome chance to chat with brother B. and sis-in-law Steph. The convivial chatting did not keep us from devising many devious and sinister strategies against one another in Scrabble, Munchkin, or Settlers of Catan.

Christmas Swag shall be dealt with in a separate post, because that's the way I want it.

Visited also with Pablo The Still Blogless, who allowed me to tag along on an intriguingly different horror-themed roleplaying adventure in which matters of chance were resolved by making players pull blocks from a Jenga Tower, rather than by rolling dice. It's an interesting novelty, which effectively creates an atmosphere of mounting dread as the tower becomes progressively more unstable and players' actions become progressively more unlikely to succeed.

Went to Christmas Eve service at FBCP, which has for inexplicable reasons renamed itself a "worship center".



Sadly, I did not get to experience the new upscale boutique-WalMart that has recently opened in Plano. It occurs to me that if WalMart thinks Plano is typical of a large segment of the marketplace, they are sadly mistaken.

Stopped by the local Interurban Museum for a quick photo shoot. Note the interurban car's modern descendents in the background. Beyond that is an exercise in New Urbanism, as downtown Plano appears to be trying to remake itself as a condominium-rich haven for prosperous yuppies and suburban hipsters.



Off to Missouri! The family Christmas Gathering, over the past few years, has ballooned from a relatively informal gathering for dinner and gift-exchanging into an Organized Event involving upward of twenty people. This year's model took place at a hall rented from a local Boy Scout troop.



Spent a few days driving about southwestern Missouri in search of abandoned railroad roadbeds and other historical relics. My new favorite roadsign:



They're not kidding.





Drove by and photographed a rural general store still operated by a distant relative. Unfortunately, there was no time, per family cell-phone directive, to stop and get a pizza or any other delectable goodies. Subsequently went hungry for several hours before food could be obtained.



Front porch of Granddad B.'s current residence:



Note blue "Tobacco Free" sign. There's a mildly amusing anecdote there. Shortly before the trip, a mutual acquaintance told mom that she should check up on Grand-dad B.'s condition. He was reportedly feeling nauseous. Mom dutifully called the home. The nurse just chuckled. "He's not sick. He just swallowed three chaws of his chewing tobacco, plus a mouthful of candy and a big swig of Dr. Pepper. It'd be enough to make a horse sick!"

For the record, I approve of a certain amount of flexibility in the administration of rules. If an old man can't enjoy a bit of chaw that doesn't disturb anyone but himself, what's the world coming to?

Also went down to the Wilson's Creek Battlefield, where a knowledgeable park ranger told us all about how unconstitutional and wicked the Union commander was. (To be fair, Nathaniel Lyon does sound like a troublemaker, perhaps even a bit of a psycho.)

A three-dimensional map of the battle site, with animated lights showing the sequence of troop movements, is examined:



Also examined the actual battlefield, despite the growing cold and damp and rising winds. Noted that the commander's name mentioned in this sign seemed quite appropriate, although Missouri and Confederate troops in 1861 failed to heed it.



The road leading over the hilltop, by the way, is the old Wire Road or Military Road, the primary thoroughfare of the area at the time of the Civil War.

Watched big shiny gaudy New York ball on a pole descend to mark the beginning of the New Year. Gaudy or not, it was an improvement over watching the Fox News "documentary" which purported to show that the Founding Fathers intended to make the United States a Christian theocracy.

Failed to completely dispose of garage full of stored books and furniture still left over from my hurried departure to meet a job offer deadline in 2001, but Traveller was well loaded down on the return trip. It appears that this will be an incremental process, one load at a time. At that rate I'll be done sometime in the next decade.

Traveller, loaded down and decorated with frosty bits:



En route back to Michigan, I stopped off and frantically dug through more railroad documents. More photocopies were ordered. Noted a rather surprising display for this part of the country:



Noted that the Frisco Building, home to Springfield Underground and local BNSF offices, contains a restaurant with some obvious railroad allusions.







Sadly, there was no time to sample its offerings.

The weather held good until I was back in Michigan. Cats were clean and fat, thanks to the efforts of a catsitter who probably gave them more attention than I do.

And so the new year begins.