A Short Tale
Back in 1984, I moved from San Jose to Dunsmuir, California. SP had hired me out of the trainmen's ranks to 'go firing' on the Shasta seniority district, and as it turned out, I was the last fireman ever hired on what had formerly been the Shasta Division.
To accomplish the move, I loaded most of my family's wordly goods into a company-provided boxcar at the College Park Yard team track next to the piggyback ramp - today the location of a Trader Joe's market) for the journey northward to an eventual unloading spot at the south end of the now defunct McCloud River Railroad main track in Mount Shasta.
Knowing full-well that the car would roll over the Roseville hump if I didn't take precautions, I placed 'DO NOT HUMP' placards on the car's ends and sides. I could envision the contents arriving in a shattered heap at one end of the box. Yep, you guessed it - the placards did no good, but fortunately the heap's contents largely arrived unbroken.
A few days later, my wife had an occasion to use pickup to run to the grocery store. She returned red-faced and put-out. It seems that the off-color innuendo suggested by that sign in the window behind the pretty young gal was WAY too much for the local boys to pass up without a honk and wolf whistle. She darn near poked my eye out in flinging the offending sign at me, but that only caused my building laughter to quickly advance to a state of prolonged hyperventilation.
That evening, I found the sign resting on my pillow outside the bedroom door. Wives always get the last laugh, it seems.
- E.O.
