Picto Diary - 26, 27, 28, 29 August 2018 - Atavism

Above: Park City, UT. 27 August 2018

Image from Bishop's office porch.

Not only can you see smoke, brought to Utah from northern California, you can smell it! — in Park City, Utah.

Above: Outward Bound. Olympic Peninsula. 28 August 2018.

Can you spot Bud?

Above: Deer. Iron Mountain Drive. Park City, UT 29 August 2018.

Wildlife sighting for the day (of which there has been quite a bit this year!).

Above: Union Pacific train and TIMDT's Porche Cayenne. 29 August 2018.

Roaring "YOU PEE" and TIMDT's car parked by transcontinental railroad track in Weber Canyon across from Devil's Slide.

Charging iron horse, commerce of a rockin' nation, thunders across flyover country.

Happy wave from engineers!

MAGA!

I love watching trains.

When I was between five and eight years old, my Dad used to take me to the Denver and Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) train depot in Provo, UT to watch the trains. Dad and I would count the number of cars on each train.

Dad would tell me train stories from his own growing up years. Dad was raised in Lake View, UT on a farm adjacent to the D&RG track. He and his friends would put pennies on the track for the trains to flatten.

I'll never forget the Christmas, when I was 10 or 11, when Santa brought a new Lionel electric train set. The experience of playing with my own toy train served to further emblazon a love of trains on my psyche.

Today, I no longer count train cars. But, I guesstimate their number when I see a snaking UP.

Most intriguing today is how the locomotives are configured. UP trains on the transcontinental railway grade heading eastbound, uphill, from where this image is taken... about 5500 feet of elevation, climb through Echo Canyon to 7000 feet, to Evanston, WY, 30 miles away.

Some long, heavily laden trains will have four locomotives in front, one locomotive in the middle of the train and one locomotive at the rear. There are only two engineers in the front locomotive and they control the distant locomotives by wireless.

Trains no longer have cabooses. As a youngster, I liked to wave at the engineer in the locomotive, and then wait to waive to the trainman in the caboose. Today, I still wave at the engineer when I can. Invariably I get a wave back, and sometimes, a toot as well.

So, as I age, it seems the more things change, the more things stay the same. I liked trains then. I like trains now.

These days, just as seeing trains revives old memories from the D&RG depot in Provo, my proclivities toward the past prevail in other dimensions.

Movies, for one.

Where trains have improved over the years, movies have gone in the other direction...down.

At the end of the day, after dinner, when I'm not otherwise involved, I like to watch a movie. Until recently I have defaulted to a film from the DirecTV pay-per-view list. Its just easy to do. The movies are only five or six bucks.

But, most of these PPV movies are terrible. They have poor production quality. Many of them are suffused with an overabundance of politically correct indoctrination.

So, I've abandoned watching PPV current movies and default to classics, either from my own collection or on Netflix. Classic films movies seem to be more representative of the real human experience. In watching classic films, I dont feel like I'm being preached at.

I've recently completed the three spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef. Lots of violence, but at least there is an unambiguous border between good and bad.

Some old movies are the so much the reciprocal of political correctness that they jar one into realizing just how much society has evolved in delineating what is acceptable in film and what is not.

The other night I watched, from my own collection, "The Wild Bunch." Stars include William Holden, Warren Oates, and Ernest Borgnine.

During the opening scene of the movie, some Mexican kids throw some scorpions into an ant bed. They laugh as the ants start to eat at the scorpions. When they tire of this, they light the entire ant bed and scorpions on fire... laughing as they watch the mini inferno. Today, can't let kids think that burning up an ant bed is OK!

The "wild bunch" refers to some aging train robbers looking for their last gig. They contract with a Mexican Pancho Villa wannabe general to steal some guns from a US Army military shipment, in return for which, the Mexican general will pay them $10K in gold.

The wild bunch delivers the purloined guns one case short... they say they lost the case, but, in fact they had allowed the one Mexican member of their gang to take the guns to give to his own beleaguered village, to defend themselves against the Pancho Villa wannabe general's gang. The Mexican general discovers the deception, grabs the perp, and starts dragging the him, until he's half dead, around the town behind a horse. The same kids who burned the ant bed and the scorpions gleefully follow the horse and dragged man around, laughing as they go. You wouldn't see this scene in any movie today, whether it was realistic or not.

The Mexican wanna be general and his number two are total caricatures of pejorative Mexican stereotypes. The general is fat, lazy and ruthless. His number two has a wide grin with very white teeth. He's always smiling as he speaks English with a pronounced "Mexican" accent. Imagine the smiling guy, flashing his teeth, saying in highly Mexicanized English, "we don't need no stinkin' gringos here! Was I wrong to laugh at this guy?

All of the women in the movie are sex objects. Today' women in film beat up men (really?), as if its deserving retribution for years of "discrimination" in the old movies.

Now.... I wonder, which is better? Watch the politically correct, poorly produced, poorly acted new stuff on Pay Per View? Or, watch totally politically incorrect movies like "The Wild Bunch?"

I can't watch "Lawrence of Arabia" every time I sit down to watch a movie!!

Above: Maddox fried chicken entree. Maddox, Perry, UT. 29 August 2019.
TIMDT and Mwah (sic) craved some deplorable food. So, we drove up to Perry, UT to get it!

Not shown:

Granny's rolls
Raspberry butter
Peach pie with whipped cream

(TIMDT had the trout).

Above: Peaches. Paul's Patch. Perry, UT. 29 August 2018.

We bot a half bushel (as in image) of freshly picked peaches.

Paul's Patch is directly across US 89 (east) from Maddox.

Perry claims to be Utah's fruit capital... but, a lot of fruit is grown in and around Santaquin, southern Utah County, as well.

Above: Maddox Peach Pie to go. Maddox. Perry, UT. 29 August 2018.

This, of course, is what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Deplorable peach pie.

Peaches just picked in orchard down the road from Maddox.

Next: Put in freezer for Park Avenue (closet deplorable).

Addendum:

Reminds me of Taylor and Crabtree being tossed out of intercontinental hotel in Beirut Christmas week, playing our trombones leading a raggidy band of Citicorp trainees.

Privateer,
Hancock, ME

Bud is a great kid and you guys are very good at keeping him involved and motivated.

The Monk,
Gooseberry, UT

The person who called in should have read the sign, fir heavens sake. Some complain all the time.

Zib,
New York City, NY

Congratulations to [Bud] 😆

Markco,
Ojai, CA

Great experience for [Bud]! It’s impressive that he would sit out playing those buckets for the crowds. Hard working kid! Glad his Grandpa didn’t get taken away by the authorities.

Magnolia,
Miami, FL

Above: Bear at Archbishop's house. Highland's, North Carolina.

Books: "The Other Woman," and "The Great Revolt."

I agree, not his best effort [Silva].

John Galt,
Walla Walla, WA

I will not be reading the book but totally agree with your view of US-Russia.

Mezzanine,
Miami, FL

Hello Steve, just thought I would drop a note and tell you how I enjoy your reviews. Perhaps one of these days I’ll retire and find time to really dig in. Just started Army if none about use of autonomous drones.

Best regards,

Carpet,
Atlanta, GA

I read 2 of these books and thought they were all good.

Dr. G,
Crow Agency, MT

Thanks Steve,

I have been watching the 4 part serial about Trump’s life. I can’t imagine that at age 28 he invested in the ailing Commodore hotel and turned it into the Grand Hyatt NYC and got a tax sop for 40 years from the NYC state authorities.

I would order this book definitely.

Mohan,
New Delhi, India

Stephen. This article on Trump voters is most timely. Lisa and I are spending this weekend in Tel Aviv where Trump enjoys a 70+ percent approval rating.

Cornucopia,
Tel Aviv, Israel