Wednesday 20th May 2009 – Everyone is so Friendly

I expect you know that Americans call a train driver the engineer.  Glasgow is a staging post for the Railroad.  Both the BNSF (freight) and Amtrak (passengers) change crews here.  Some of the local hotels have computer terminals where they can check their rosters.  I had a fascinating chat with a BNSF engineer: he tells me that a grain train can be sixteen-and-a-half thousand tons, and that they can be up to eight thousand feet long (I make that just over a mile and a half).  He reckoned that some of the trains in the south (like at Glasgow California) could be two miles long. 

He was busy telling me how the 'dead man's handle' worked these days (apparently, if he's not doing anything with the controls, the system requires him to press a button a some interval determined by how fast the train is going) when we were soundly interrupted by a group in cowboy hats who clearly had a large amount of alcohol concealed about their persons.  They turned out to have come from a joint meeting of the Masons and the Knights of Columba, a coming together I find almost unimaginable, even in their cups.  They seemed to be the local gentry, ranchers, bank managers and the like.

One of them claimed ancestry from Aberdeenshire, saying his mother and father were "Full-blood Scots".  He wanted me to come and stay with him.  "That's very generous", I said, "but you don't know who I am.  I could be a lunatic."

"Oh, I'm not worried about that", he said, "this is Montana – we've got guns!"  And I believed him.  I had spent the previous day at an inquest discovering that, not only did they have guns, they used them.  It hadn't occurred to me that this might make them more friendly.

Anyway, I made a note to check with him in the cold light of day.  And since he told me he had three young children, one a baby, I thought I had better check with his wife as well.

 

The day had started with me visiting the Chamber of Commerce, who immediately adopted me and dragged me off to lunch.  Then they introduced me round the hospital (biggest employer after the railroads), and the High School, and took me to see the cemetery being prepared for Memorial Day, which is Sunday.  They seemed to know everybody.  It wasn't just a formal round of offices: everybody they passed in the corridors exchanged pleasantries.

At the hospital, I was introduced to the lady who had survived the shooting (although that was never raised) and could recognise the scene from the court photographs.

At the school the Principal gave me a school flag, with their Tam O'Shantered Scots Terrier mascot on it.  Their teams are known as the 'Scotties'.  The gym is really a basketball arena, and as she went through it to get the flag she was 'dodge-balled' by the students playing there.  The music teacher showed me the band's uniforms, which are proper kilts, in Dress Stuart tartan.  They are quite old, but he was not sure of their exact age.  The band will be playing at the Graduation Ceremony on Sunday.

The Cemetery, which includes a Veterans' (military) section, was, indeed a hive of activity.  I was promised that on Sunday it would be a field of flowers.  I was surprised at how big it was, and how much space there was between the graves.