Remembering my father

My Dad

On this day in 1977 my dad died. I was 21, he was 58 and my oldest son was not even a year old. I wish my sons had been able to get to know their grandpa. He was quite a guy. He had an incredible personality. He towered over everybody, he was 6'4" my mom was 5' 2". As big as he was his personality was bigger.

He was engaged in life and loved to live it. He was a natural story teller and could make whatever he was telling you come alive. He was opinionated and was not a person you wanted to argue with.

He was a railroad man and seemed as big and strong to me as the locomotives he ran for the Southern Pacific. I have a friend who lost her father not too long ago. She pondered if the pain and emptiness in her life would go away. I am sorry to say, after 33 years without my dad, no it does not.

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Happy Father's Day

Click on photo to enlarge.

Today is Father's Day and I am in Buffalo, New York chasing trains. Even though my dad died when I was 21; my father still is an important part of my life and the lives of my kids and their kids. My father was a railroad man. That's him in the cab of the locomotive pictured above. When I was small he seemed huge, like he was the locomotive.

I will be thinking of him today, of my sons who are now themselves great fathers, of my wife's sweet father Grit (who is now also gone), of my first wife's father Bill and step-father Dave, of my friends and other family members who are fathers and of friends who are married to fathers or, most especially, those whom have lost their fathers.

If you still have your father, you are lucky. For those who do not, God bless you and the good memories of your father that you have.

Love and Happy Fathers Day:

~Steve

My life's work; train photography

If anything can be said to be my life's work it is my train photography. My father took the photo to the left (click on that photo to enlarge) when I was 14. My father was a railroad man, the best kind, an engineer; and I totally was enthralled by his magic carpet made of steel. Both he and the train seemed bigger than life to me. He didn't just drive the train. He was the train.

I used to go to work with him and ride around at night on the diesel locomotives. I can still remember the sights, the sounds, the smells of those rides.

Photography for me started as a quest to capture those times. I became a photographer to take pictures of trains. Everything else came as an add on to that. It has been a hell of a ride. The Southern Pacific Railroad and the many images I have made of it are a small drop compared to the memories I have, for example; oil trains grinding through Tehachapi Loop at 5 miles an hour with the locomotives sounding like they're going to explode. To me, to this day, it all still seems bigger than life; like my dad.

Using my dad's old Speed Graphic

Pictures with my dad's Speed Graphic

Two years ago our house was burglarized and I lost all the cameras my dad had left me except for one, my dad's old Speed Graphic. It is a lovely camera with a sharp old Kodak (made in USA) Color Ektar lens. I have not used this old press camera in decades, but I remember it being as sharp as a tack. Lately I have started doing business with a local camera repair store, Kamera Korner, and the owner is an old camera repairman named Bob. Repair of old film cameras is becoming a dying art, literally. So I decided to get this camera made usable again. It took awhile, I heard stories from the other people in the shop about the work Bob was putting into the camera. After a month or so, it was ready.

This photo is from the first roll with this camera.

I have found an added bonus with using this camera. It is so unique, so retro looking, people love talking about it. That leads to conversations which leads to photo opportunitiess. When I look through the viewfinder, when I click the shutter, I am looking through the same viewfinder, clicking the same shutter my dad did fifty years ago. I think that is pretty cool! Plus it takes amazing photos. The picture here does not do it justice, it is so sharp, so true to color. It's amazing, we are talking around 60 megapixels in digital equivalent, I have been told. It is knock your socks off sharp. Sometimes; older is better

My Dad's Birthday

My father's birthday

Today is my father's birthday. His birthday is the day after Jeff's. Only one of my three sons saw my father and then only briefly. My dad died before Jeff was born. So, the only baby of mine dad saw was Steve Jr. By coincidence Steve, his wife Luci and two of their kids were staying with us this week. They left today heading north to Monroe, Washington, near Seattle.

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My father's magic carpet

"And the sons of Pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel."

Steve Goodman must have been a child of a railroad man. Goodman's song, The City of New Orleans captures what it feels like being the child of a railroad man so concisely in these three stanzas.

I am the son of an engineer. Thirty-one years ago yesterday my father died and I still miss him so much. This is a picture I took of him at work. Everything about him was so unbelievably bigger than life. I dream about him very often. To me, he was steel.

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Anniversary of my mom's passing

On this day in 1984 my mom died
My father died in 1977 and my mother never quite found herself after that. My mom was a smoker and the records probably show that it was a smoking related illness that killed her. But, she was really already slowly dying a long slow death from a broken heart. My parents grew up as next door neighbors. They lived in Pittsburgh, Kansas. They eloped before my mother was old enough to marry. They ran away from home across the state border to Joplin, Missouri where they married. They lied about her age. My grandma (on my mothers side) went after them. She found the sheriff. When they caught up with my parents my father told the sheriff they had already consummated the marriage. The sheriff then told my grandmother there was nothing he could do about their marriage. That was the law then. So, my dad lied. They did plenty of consummating later though, they had five children of which I am the youngest.

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Thinking of my dad

I have been thinking a lot about my dad today. It is his birthday.

My father was a locomotive engineer for the Southern Pacific. Trains were my father's "magic carpet made of steel." It was my father who instilled in me a passion for railroading and most anything having to do with trains. My dad passed away in 1977. He was 58 years-old.

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