Window Shopping

Window Shopping

It all came back to me like a blast from the past. I was walking down Main Street here in Bozeman with my family at the annual Christmas Stroll. The street closed to traffic was filled with food stalls, Christmas lights and people. Passing by a clothing store, I happened to look at the display windows. Two American Flyer model trains were chugging around their oval tracks.

In my mind I was immediately transported back some sixty-five years to my childhood. My father had erected an eight by four platform four feet off the ground in the furnace room. I think what motivated him was my mother who in no uncertain terms told him he needed to do a project with his boys.

On this plywood platform, my dad laid out a plan for a standard scale railroad track. He brought home all the stuff needed to build a railroad: tracks, an American Flyer steam engine and freight cars (Santa Fe engine and passenger cars were added later), track switches, transformer and a train station.

My brother and I did the rest. We laid out the track, build a mountain with a tunnel from chicken wire and paper mâché, set up a town with people, buildings, wired telephone poles and green grass made from coloring coffee grounds. It was a wonder to behold. What fun the two of us had getting it all together, learning how a train works. Our steam engine even had real smoke coming out of the stack.

I spent the rest of the Christmas Stroll thinking about our American Flyer adventure. Before I started to write this blog, I called my brother and asked, “Do you remember when Dad set up that platform in the furnace room so we could build our model railroad?” Well, the next forty five minutes were spent reminiscing.

Funny what can happen when you window shop.