Model Forum / General / Railroads / December 2008

When I was 9 years old I had been looking at the catalogs from Sears
and Montgomery Wards and JCPenny for about 2 months before Christmas.
Each time I turned to the page where the electric trains were
advertised. I dreamed of these trains and how they would look on my
living room floor. My next door neighbor Wesley had a Lionel and he
and I spent hours and hours making track designs in his house. then
just before Christmas we made a trip into the big city and went to all
of the stores.While my parents were shopping I was at the electric
train layouts dreaming and watching.. My father was always building
something in the garage he was a master carpenter and he told me he
was building my mother some new cabinets. On Christmas morning  when I
got up there was this big table in the living room and it looked
totally out of place. Then came time to open the packages and as you
guessed there was my electric train. The table was for the train and
my dad had made wooden houses and an entire city and built scenery. It
was beyond my wildest dreams. But as I look back on those days it was
not the material things that made Christmas but the presence of a
lovely family.
John in the Indian Nations.