“Bandits on our tail at twelve o’clock high! Climb for the clouds!” “Rustlers, and they’ve captured the ranchers daughter. Let’s ride buckaroos.” “Crocodiles. Beat them over the head with that boa constrictor!” “Oh, oh, she just raised the Jolly Roger. They’re pirates. We’re in for a fight maties. Give them a broadside, and prepare to board.” “A bank heist on 33rd street. This looks like a job for Captain Marvel ‘Shazam’!” “Hold everything. Run for cover behind the house. It’s Ol’ White Shirt!”
The civilized world may never appreciate what it owes to the heroes who did battle against the forces of evil at 455 East Utah Avenue in Payson, Utah.
An unheralded band of sandlot superheroes conquered foreign warlords, thugs, rustlers, space aliens and assorted enemies of goodness and the American way. The only opponents who could route these champions were Ol’ White Shirt, and Mom calling them home for chores, homework and/or supper.
I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks I guess. This was embarrassing – for the tracks and the Orem Train Line who owned them So much so that the company eventually pulled up their spikes, ties, and rails and went out of business. But they left us with unforgettable make believe adventures. We were at the south end of the line which featured not only the turntable to head the engines back toward Salt Lake City, but the repair and maintenance yard that had old box cars, flat cars, coal cars, and assorted wheels and axels, junk or treasures depending on your perspective, sand and coal piles (for the shops’ heat. (The train was electric with a wheel on a spring arm to draw current from an overhead wire.)
The pounding of double jack hammers on steel, the clanging of cars being hooked together, the muscular men, including my dad, in rolled up shirt sleeves, the magic of the forge turning black steel to glowing orange; this combined with the lure of danger underlined by the warnings from our mothers to “be careful over there” to whet our imaginations.
Our mothers scenarios of what could happen were well intended, but pale compared to the ones we dreamed up ourselves. The rails running to the back lot were perilously close to one of the massive brick train car garages.. Instead of moving the tracks, the company put up a one by two foot black sign with white letters reading, “Warning: Will not clear man on side of car.” I pieced the message together one word at a time; that being the level of my third grade reading skill. But the message still didn’t make sense. I had seen workmen hang on the ladder rungs on the side of box cars being shuttled to the back lot for storage or repairs. I figured those were the men the sign was meant for. But what was the “won’t clear man” part of the message.
Not a problem. Mildred Bjarnson who lived next door knew everything because she was four years older (half a lifetime at this age). She explained, “It means if you are hanging on the side of a train car when it passes that corner of the building, it will squish you like a June bug against the box car. The company won’t clear you off. Your family members will have to come and scrape you off the side of the car.” Enough for me. I resolved then and there whatever others follies I might stumble into in life, I would never leave this world as bug juice on a box car.
The only thing more frightening that not clearing was “Ol’ White Shirt.” He was a mysterious stranger with a paunch who sometimes stalked the train yard even in broad daylight. We would spot him from a distance and run in panic out of the yard, across the street and hide behind our house. He was easy to spot, being the only white shirt in the train yard, or maybe in the town on a week day. Rumor was that he came down from the head office in Salt Lake ostensibly to check out the workings of the shop, but in reality to capture children and do who knows what with them, bury them in the coal pile and feed them to the furnace, put them “on side of car?” No one ever told us; not surprising since those who found out were never seen again.
I am impressed by the fertile minds who create amusement parks, computer games and sci-fi movies. But they are rank amateurs compared to kids whose imaginations are light years ahead of their information banks and reading skills. Especially if they have a train graveyard and Ol’ White Shirt with which to create their fantasy world.
I would like to hear from you, click on the ‘view comments’ link below.
Pioneer Integrity
Category: Commentaries
“Have that repaired. I want them to know that a man of integrity lived here,” Wilford Woodruff said as he walked out the door to his comfortable home for the last time. His concern for a hole in the floor he noticed as he left might be expected from a person who was preparing his house for the real estate market, and wanted to get top dollar for it. But Elder Woodruff and the rest of the Mormons were being driven out of their homes by armed mobs. If they received anything for their homes, it was pennies on the dollar. Many of them would simply be forced out while the lawless bands pillaged their possessions and usurped ownership of their property.
Elder Woodruff’s integrity was shared by most of those in the exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois in the winter of 1846.
I am reminded of these stories of pioneer integrity as Sharon and I are in charge of the music for our stake’s youth handcart trek at Martin’s Cove in Wyoming. The cove is hallowed ground to those of us who love and admire the courage and character of the pioneers. They crossed a continent of plains and mountains to find a place where they could worship in their own way and “…allow all men the same privilege.”
Particularly moving to me are those who made the trek pushing and pulling their meager possessions and food in handcarts. The Martin and the Willy handcart companies were trapped by ferocious early winter storms. Frozen and exhausted they took what little refuge they could in the cove. More than 200 of the 600 in the two companies died at the cove or along the trail. Those who perished and those who survived did so as heroes. Sharing, sacrificing, and committing their lives to God and each other they left us an immortal heritage.
I have always been intrigued and inspired by the stories and songs of the pioneers. That is why The Three D’s recorded three albums about them and toured the country performing their music.
This combination of pioneers, recordings, and integrity has come together in our business recently. We have learned that some of the CD’s made from those recordings are flawed. The volume on one of the tracks is inconsistent, making some of the scenes hard to understand, and the harmony of some of the music unbalanced.
So we have re-digitized the songs and stories and corrected the problem. The title of this two CD program is “Heritage, Songs and Scenes of the Mormon Epoch.” If you have one of the flawed recordings, please go to our website duanehiatt.com, send an Email, or call us, and let us know. You don’t have to return your CD’s, just tell us how we can get the new recordings to you. There will be no charge for the new CD’s or for postage.
We appreciate your friendship, and apologize for sending you an imperfect product. In a modest way, we want to follow the example of Wilford Woodruff, and the other pioneers, and be considered “men of integrity.”