Million Dollar Speedway -middle railroad- and developing-chapters.

THE MILLION DOLLAR SPEEDWAY A NOVEL

ACCOMPANYING NON-COMMERCIAL PRESENTATION (CHS. 11-19)

John Thomas Pierce

On his return, Racer stared at a rolling Missouri countryside, visualizing a twelve-mph weed spray process, spray valves tripping on-and-off, one that would soak herbicides into track ballast. Awakening from a nap as they departed Jefferson City, he stared at Missouri’s famous penitentiary. Less than an hour later he reviewed Sedalia’s downtown, home to ragtime’s creator, Scott Joplin. Ten minutes after passing Truman’s Independence, Missouri home, Union Station loomed into view.

John Carpenter - Courtesy Mary McPherson –MP local approaches Marion, Illinois – 1982.

Val moved the dialogue toward the Missouri-Pacific. Our challenge is to develop a rail car switching algorithm; we don’t expect to replace trainmasters soon. Their interaction pleased Goodtoast, wondering when they might conclude that Racer was better suited to join her Tektronix 4006 crew as opposed to spraying weeds.

Photo courtesy the Computer Museum – Tektronix 4015

The same 1969 year recorded a September 11 th railroad incident near Glendora, Mississippi where an engineer’s braking attempt created a toxic mushroom cloud, one replete with vinyl chloride gas. The accompanying report identified trespassing-by-hobos as the cause of 3 men’s deaths. Hobos or beyond, the Woz questioned how well his small center could respond to Crete or Glendora-scale incidents relying upon a KO-W0Z director flanked by a handful of pharmacy students and two oddball profs.

Livingston La derailment – photo courtesy firehouse.com

As the Missouri-Pacific pair departed the meeting, a foreman took Racer aside. A warm, welcoming individual, he introduced himself as Vito, inquiring what Racer and Andy had been hired to do and where they intended to work. Racer summed - Weed Spray Engineer – MoPac. Vito provided a curious warning.

Everything here is big and heavy and it all wants to kill you.

Author’s collection

Rail yards served as weird tourist attractions, few trainsets attracting more visitors than a parked wrecker train, its heavy derrick preceding several support cars. The trainset’s presence necessitated multiple parental drive-byes, each featuring explanations of the 100-T (ton) stencil. How many post cards to country cousins recounted curiously spelled Recker visits?

Photo credit to JoCoLB “Larry Byers” – trainorders.com

By 1979, trackside tangles, briars and hedges constituted vestiges of botanical landscapes known to the Indians and likely viewed by Missouri’s pioneers. Absent defoliants, raccoons, foxes, opossums and deer often chose trackside habitat as a precarious site to raise offspring.

Spectators hounded Weeds, trees & turf as if it were a circus train. Rail fans pointed cameras at its spray car, creating visual records of its spray booms in action. The more incredulous rushed toward them, as if Andy were dispensing fairy dust …

Photo– Patrick McGee photo (BNSF 6432)courtesy of Daryl McGee

Racer drove to an Independence Avenue car wash, inserting three quarters in favor of improved visibility. His next stop was at Ross Miller Dry Cleaners where he triaged five pairs of Levi’s plus four collared shirts, placing the remainder of the duffel bag’s -stained contents in a lobby trash can. Handing Racer a claim check, the clerk inquired if he wished to donate the clothing discards. Racer smiled but deferred. I think those clothes belong where they are.

Good news. Totally undertrained, Racer finished surprisingly well. True. he missed race’s major breaks, but perhaps more importantly, he missed its crashes, enabling a tenth place finish, marginally in the prize money…(later that afternoon) LandLady warmly greeted him as if Racer had never left, explaining she dared not rent his room, unaware when he would return. Racer wondered if she weren’t the most prescient among those involved in the strange matter of Weeds, trees & turf.

Author’s collection – Spencer criterium 1974

Despite being unemployed, Racer didn’t experience free-fall, in fact the credit union’s chief teller greeted him by name. Given her central role in all-things-railroad, Phyllis was likely informed of his termination by the time he dropped his stained Levi’s at Miller’s.

Railroad YMCA (circa 1910) . Later home to the Missouri-Pacific RR Credit Union - Catskill Collection

An 80-year-old male in the 2400 block of Lawn, dead in a home with windows painted shut, a 73-year-old female in 3500 block of Denver expired in a room with a faulty air conditioner. Respite. Rescuers, firefighters from Local 42, discovered heat casualties at a rate of one corpse per hour during July. Morticians at Passantino Brothers, Lawrence A. Jones and Sabato’s were overwhelmed by casualties amidst a city-wide grief.

Missouri heat wave 1980 ( Kansascitystar.com)

Failing to recognize the caller’s name, she puzzled why Mel referred to him as Gunny.

The Gunny-person and her husband spoke many minutes until a Bell operator informed Mel another call awaited their shared line.

Photo courtesy of the FDR collection

Prior to 1980, photographers framed subjects beside glassy laboratory apparatus‌ faces bookended by glass objects, some empty, others containing colorful chemicals‌ portraits revealed more than identities, they suggested important features of the laboratory process.

Photo courtesy Science History Institute - Elizabeth Haden & Rachel Brown, Nystatin discoverers 1955 –

The Missouri Pacific and Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe railroads employed multiple generations of similarly named Conejo, Guzman, Villanueva &Zaldívar. Railroad employment meant maintenance-of-way work, otherwise known as section gangs or M-OW. Railroads were early adopters of refrigeration technology permitting redistribution of off-the-hoof beef and pork beyond their standing origins…

MISSOURI VALLEY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, KANSAS CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY

Leagues served as community builders, many sponsored by the American GI Forum, a Mexican-American veterans’ organization. Game nights witnessed fan cars packed tightly against outfield fences, these only partially effective against windshield-breaking flies. While greater upper body strength could guarantee a male’s hit would clear the fence, the ladies were infield all-stars…

DeShario proposed analysis of four hundred samples with reimbursement limited to costs of reagents. Ducking a second beach ball, Racer raised his side of the offer to 40 analyses, explaining Office Lady would invoice DeShario’s office for $500. They shook hands on the 40 figure accompanied by a $500. fee…Racer penned a note in his notebook’s margin: Messrs. Jarrell & Ash will work hard for $500.

Courtesy Utah water research laboratory

My leather lead was a reminder of a good life but it might also trap me, leading to a chewing-based amputation. If a country person finds its remnant, they will know what happened, that a creature escaped.

Others, they will likely toss it, finding it useless less a clip‌.daylight approaching, I abandoned the box elderholly bush to search for more secure quarters.

Photo courtesy of Mystique Malinois

Given my recent history I possessed reservations regarding humans but I inched forward toward to socialize with two new people visiting nearby. One was of the present generation, a middle-aged man with a passion for flora and fauna. The second was a female, although definitely from the past. I am not a wolf and didn’t howl to summon her spirit, despite the popularity of a tired old story.

Photo courtesy of Hyperblogal – David Remley

Venturing along Gladstone Boulevard, I witnessed residents cultivating lonely azalea patches or big stands of isolated irises, both made vulnerable in isolation. To creatures, single-species approaches lack the strengths of allying. Near closing time when humans possessed an aroma resembling soured berries, I walked a tree line north of Gladstone Boulevard, passing close to the Indian Mounds .

State.sc.us

A curious cottage industry paralleled Bennett’s garbage-to-pork scheme. An elderly couple risked hog pen crush injury to retrieve flatware. Their day’s effort created a washed bucketful of mostly unmatched flatware. Monogram-based detective work resulting in its return usually created a small reward for them.

Photo courtesy of the Kansas state historical society

Old-yet-new Taylor-moved houses joined others on streets such as Prospect, Montgall, Chestnut or Agnes. Preservation’s homes numbered about sixty, spread eight blocks north-to-south but only six east-to-west. Some were erected on-site while others were dragged-in – they were all located KC’s Ft. Hazard landfill.

Photo courtesy of BuildDirect

At eight a.m. that Monday Consuelo and Brooklyn blocked the landfill’s access road.

Met by an immaculately dressed brown flannel suit lady and a Mr. Wizard look-alike, the garbage scow pilots were flummoxed, stopping well ahead of the forty-or-so citizens in the road. Brooklyn held the all-in-one microphone so Consuelo could read aloud. We want to get out of your way but we also need to know what the city can do to correct this odor problem, one that is choking our children.

Fierce green fire – Mother nature network

Chief Carroll had reviewed her flyer, perhaps accounting for police and fire’s presence. An asthma sufferer, he recognized breathing challenges. Neither he nor the mayor wished to prematurely disperse an angry coughing crowd. He instructed his media spokesman to ask her to wrap-it-up, to make her aware he would speak to the public work officials. Fifteen-minutes into a no-permit demonstration, this was good news. Consuelo wrapped-it-up. We are leaving now and would like to thank Chief Carroll for his concern.

Photo credit Marilyn Leistner – Times Beach, Missouri’s last mayor

Federal workers resembled radiation in that they were unheard, unrecognized even. The colossus where they worked had a name, the Federal Office Building, in abbreviated terms, the F-O-B. As the city’s largest office blg., it dominated 2 downtown blocks…

Courtesy of Squeezebox City – Skyline evolution

The year 1970 witnessed Congressional passage of more environmental acts than any prior or since. Staffers assembled and sent to committee the same number of legislative bills as Newport jazz festival acts, eight apiece. The complexity of regulations baffled agency staffers, much less the public, or as Director Ruckelshaus labeled them, stakeholders.

The raid had origins in a thunderstorm‌the Star reporting that winds collapsed a section of Kemper Arena roof, adding an unnamed plating shop in Preservation suffered similar damage. A KCMO dispatcher indicated the fire department should send an inspector.

Behind a crude partition that inspector uncovered two carboys containing liquid plating wastes, both lines umbilical’d to a well shaft.

Photo credit Michigan Dept. Environmental Quality former Electro Plating, Inc.

TJ’s recommendation to take production off-line to remediate was poorly received by Chicago. The conference call ramped from heated to personal and then to disconnected status. On a Friday 2-weeks following the call, 6 heavy thuds on step's announced P-I-S-C-O managers who shortly shuttered Kansas City.

Photo courtesy – Kansas State Historical Society

A local resident, Andrew, aka Agent Orange, Smith was apprehended by the “Beyond Metro” task force…he attempted to sell two female paddlefish, each weighing more than twenty-pounds, along with fifteen-pounds of processed paddlefish eggs to an undercover agent for a six thousand dollar payment. The federal Lacey Protected Species Act protects both paddlefish and their eggs.

Image courtesy - In-Fisherman

A local resident, Andrew, aka Agent Orange, Smith was apprehended by the “Beyond Metro” task force…attempting to sell 2 female paddlefish, each weighing more than 20-lbs., along with 15-pounds of processed paddlefish eggs to an undercover agent for a $6000 payment. The Lacey Protected Species Act protects both paddlefish and their eggs.

Image courtesy - In-Fisherman

A mother suspicioned of shoplifting meat from Monteil’s would be calmly questioned. If the justification were one of stealing to feed hungry children, Vince checked to see whether cheap hamburger or pricy steaks had been pilfered. Steaks generally resulted in a trip downtown but the more believable hamburger story merited a ride home with police-purchased meat.

Photo credit – NY Daily News (unrelated)

Patch and Dog Man first encountered one other at the 291-Highway swap meet‌Dog Man had inherited a family farm, one near Blairstown, Missouri. Not inclined toward physical work, he repurposed it as an unlicensed Animal Sports Center, hosting fight-to-the-death contests that victimized dogs or roosters. Animal fighting highlighted the worst human characteristics, evil magnified by large cash purses attracting unruly crowds from out-of-the-way places across Missouri and Illinois.

Image courtesy Missouri Dept. of Corrections

Morris straddled the bike, bearing down on its handlebars, positioned in a semi-racing position, he attempted to replicate George’s photographic posture. Handing it back, Morris’ body language spoke volumes, variably chewing gum even though none was present, hands in and out-of-pockets, nothing there to retrieve.

Well, Morris Johnson, Jr., I’m going to make some phone calls on your behalf. Why don’t you return Monday when we’ll try to find some work for you? So you don’t forget, here’s a wearable reminder.