nostalgia

Fay and I recently spent a week in the northern part of our province (or should I say in the central interior) - Prince George. P.G. is a growing city with a population approaching 100,000. We celebrated Thanksgiving with several members of our family.

While in Prince George we took a trip down memory lane and visited the train museum. I'm really not a railway buff, but it was for us the only way to travel from Prince George to Penny, which was 70 miles away. A penny in your pocket is a piece of metal almost worthless; Penny as a community was to us, 51 years ago, a community of several hundred people with whom we had the privelge to share the message of God's love and grace.

Back to the museum. The Penny railway station just as it was a half century ago is now sitting in the train museum. That was the coolest exhibit. We saw the station agent's living quarters with the usual furniture in the living room and the bedroom The coffee pot on the stove was a reminder of the need for the Agent to be awake day or night as trains arrived and departed. We smelled the old wood and the old typwriter and in our minds we heard the dot-dot-dash-dot of the Morse Code being tapped out. Also we "heard" the lonesome whistle of the steam engine; the swwoooosssh of the escaping steam as the engine came to a halt; the clunk, clunk as each coupling that joined the train compacted. On our way out I spotted, in the souvenire department, a piece of wood measuring about 10 inches long and 1 1/2 inches square with notches at one end. I bought it for $12.00 to amuse my friends -- It's a whistle that very accurately mimics the old steam engine whistle. Ladies you should buy this, it would wake your man any time of the day or night.

If I can do this I'll post a picture.