The Beginning Of My Mid-Citizenship
Greetings, and welcome to the October 2006 Sampler essay. Previously, I was settling into a private-sector construction management job in New Orleans after having lost my public-school-teacher job due to a population decline caused by Hurricane Katrina, a job that I would get back the following August.
October 2006 was the true beginning of my Mid-Citizenship, and, just before it ended, I did some great out-of-state travel with someone from back home. I did not know it at the time, but it would be my last out-of-state trip in my 1993 Ford Explorer, which broke down the following spring, resulting in its replacement.
Something else noteworthy specifically about the pictures is that the pictures from the late-in-the-month trip to Rich Mountain are my earliest photographs that were properly saved as RAW image files, and this is a reason that the quality of images changed – generally, for the better, I think – from that point onward, although it was not until 2021 that I became fully appreciative of the benefits of RAW image processing and became skilled in Adobe Photoshop at making good of the information found it RAW files but not found in jpegs.
Sunday, The 1st
This was the beginning of a new day, a long-sought goal. I finally was a Mid-Citizen. It might surprise readers accustomed to my frequent references to heavy-metal and rock songs that I associate this day and this picture with the “A Day Without Rain” song by Enya and a few other Enya songs and that I like those songs.
I really do not know what to think in (vicennial) retrospect of the relief and optimism that I felt that day of being a Mid-Citizen. Maybe the fact that it was happening in a post-Katrina world tempered the feeling even then. The place was changing and would never really be the same, but, then, so, too, was the same true for me, and, now, it’s impossible for me to avoid viewing this through the lens of the great life-destabilizing trauma that my family decided to inflict upon me a few years later or through the lens of autism and my burnout from being a school-teacher only a few years later.
Later that afternoon, I was out nearby on the Norfolk Southern Railway Back Belt line at Marconi Drive, now, a short drive – or a long walk, but I drove there on this day as I did practically every time that I have been there – away along with The Goat. We saw CSX railroad train Q145 with GSCX 7356 as power parked there, and we saw the Union Pacific Railroad crew – what appears, in retrospect, to have been Roger Ohlsson and Thomas Albarado – boarding the train.
I was now a Mid-Citizen.
Monday, The 9th
This is what I was doing at the time.
Something terrible happened to me, something for which I do bear a very small amount of culpability, in early 2026, nearly 20 years after this image was made, that causes me to view it with a modicum of personal shame with which I did not previously view it.
Still, there should be some societal shame about all of this, too.
Tuesday, The 10th
It was a real life, even if it was also a fake life.
I don’t know what that means, and maybe that is okay.
Thursday, The 12th
I am grateful for these experiences.
That is all that I am interested not just in saying but even in thinking about all of this right now.
Saturday, The 14th
This was the day of the first Steam Fest, organized and hosted by the Louisiana Steam Train Association, held at The Fly at Audubon Park.
I took several pictures on this date, several worth sharing, but, per the rules of these sampler essays, I shall share just one, one from which multiple metaphors can be gleaned.
That is a Kansas City Southern Railway movement, with KCS 2977 as power, moving past The Fly downriverbound on the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad.
Saturday, The 21st
This is Saint Jude talking on the telephone before helping me lift the ceiling joists into place.
This whole thing was stupid, but, like many stupid things, it did have some value as a learning experience. However, like many stupid things that have value as a learning experience, the value of the learning experience wasn’t worth the total cost of the stupidity.
Sunday, The 22nd
When I think of the content of this picture, I think of addiction to cigarettes and-or the callousness of some smokers, I think of mechanics, two definitions of that noun, these brothers and my work with them, and that they became, like the boss from whom this guy stole time that caused him to be fired from the job, Trumpers.
I am glad that he repaired the truck, and I paid him for it, as I was about to head out of town on a nice road trip, which, unbeknown to me at the time, would be the last time that I left southeastern Louisiana in that truck.
Friday, The 27th
It’s time for the fall gathering on Rich Mountain, baby!
I brought Wayne “Doc” Shell, someone who means plenty to me, with me, and he enjoyed the trip.
Here we are at Page, Oklahoma, where we see three grey Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana EMD SD70MACs pushing on the rear end of Kansas City Southern Railway loaded grain train G-SRMXS.
If I had even an extensive model railroad, TFM SD70MACs would, along with Warbonnet Santa Fe GE locomotives and EMD GP60Ms, be the only third-generation wide-nose locomotives that I would have on it.
We then intercepted KCS train H-SHKC and chased it into and then a little bit past Heavener. Then, we chased an H-KCSH up the mountain and, then, chased a C-WEKC down the mountain.
Saturday, The 28th
On this day, we chased an M-KCSH train up the mountain and then beyond the mountain southbound all the way to Hatton, Arkansas.
That was a memorable experience! Doc and I laughed as LCK had to run back to his truck and move it out of the way of the shot and then run back to the pile where we took the picture in time to take the picture.
Later, we were back in Heavener at the fuel racks, where we saw an M-KCBM with KCS 3206 leading. Later, we photographed a G-MXKC crossing the Black Fork River at Hodgen.
Sunday, The 29th
We got plenty of good shots on this date, but, even as I say that, and even though the subject matter is of stuff that, as we suspected at the time, would not be around for much longer, as I type this nearly 20 years later, I still wonder if all of this was worth the cost.
We chased a C-KCTU2 with a BNSF Railway locomotive leading southbound up the mountain. We then photographed an H-SHKC northbound at Rich Mountain.
We intercepted a H-KCSH, with EMLX 8557 and EMLX 8556 as front-end power, southbound at Page, and we chase the train.
Here he is at Dubya.
We then caught a very short M-KCDA, which had KCS 666, Nero’s Engine, as the lead locomotive and one intermodal car as the last car of the train, at Page.
Monday, The 30th
On this date, it was time to go home. Because I was working not as a school teacher, I felt justified in taking Monday, too, off of work, but I didn’t realize that this presented a challenge to a personal hierarchy.
Here is the rear end of the C-KCWE moving southbound at Stapp, Oklahoma.
‘Twas a good trip and a mostly good month.
Stay tuned for a rather brief sampler essay for November 2006, as I was preoccupied at the time with work and with preparing for a big trip at the end of the year and leading into 2007.
Merci.
Jim
