Willits/Ukiah/PotterValley/Redwood Valley/Hopland/FortBragg?

[Monkeypoo]

SHOUTING OUT to peeps in the Northern California Wine Country.
Anyone in Willits, Ukiah, Potter Valley, Redwood Valley, Hopland,
Fort Bragg, Redwood Forest, Clear Lake??


I'm not a newbie burner. Just moving up to the wine country.
Bittersweet. Just hoping I can hook up with some friendly burner
folk up there. PM me, OK? I know you hippies and burner freaks
are up there.

[Bounce530]

We just spent a couple days in Fort Bragg earlier this week...

[SilverOrange]

Sorry monkey. As a ten year Mendocino resident I can tell you there's not a lot of burners in the area. Everyone's up in the mountains growing their weed in August-September and don't have time for burning man. I'm sure there's gotta be a few, I just never met them.

[ygmir]

I love going over there..........nice break from the heat here.......

[Ugly Dougly]

All aboard!

[ygmir]

Casey Jones was a son-of-a-bitch
drove his car into the whorehouse ditch,

came to the door with his cock in his hand,
and said: "I'm a railroad man."

he lined a hundred of 'em against the wall,
bet a hundred dollars he could fuck 'em all,

fucked 98 and his balls turned blue,
drank a quart of whiskey
then he fucked the other two

[wedeliver]

April 29th, 1900 was the date of the accident. Casey Jones, probably the most famous of a long line of locomotive engineer heroes who have died at their post of duty, one hand on the whistle and the other on the airbrake lever. Casey Jones' fame rests on a series of nondescript verses, which can hardly be called poetry. They were written by Wallace Saunders, a Negro engine wiper who had been a close friend of the famous engineer, and who sang them to a jigging melody all his own.

Mrs Casey Jones still lives in Jackson, Tenn. She has two sons and a daughter. Charles Jones, her younger son, lives in Jackson; Lloyd, the older son, is with a Memphis auto agency; and her daughter, Mrs. George McKenzie, lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Although 41 years have flitted by since Miss Janie Brady said "I do" and became the bride of John Luther (Casey) Jones, Mrs Jones still keeps green the memory of that glad occasion. Today, still on the sunny side of 60, the plump blond woman with her cheery smile tells graphically the story of how her husband was killed, and how Wallace Saunders composed the original air and words that later swept the country for years as the epic ballad of the railroader.

"My husband's real name was John Luther Jones," she told her latest interviewer. "He was a loveable lad - 6 feet 4 1/2 inches in height, darkhaired and gray-eyed. Always he was in good humor and his Irish heart was as big as his body. All the railroaders were fond of Casey, and his wiper, Wallace Saunders, just worshipped the ground he walked on."

The interviewer asked Mrs. Jones how her husband got the nickname Casey.

"Oh, I supposed everyone knew that!" she replied. "He got it from the town of Cayce, Kentucky, near which he was born. The name of the town is locally pronounced in two syllables, exactly like 'Casey'."

Mrs. Jones remembers Wallace Saunders very well, although she has not seen him for years.

"Wallace's admiration of Casey was little short of idolatry," she said. "He used to brag mightly about Mr. Jones even when Casey was only a freight engineer."

Casey Jones was known far and wide among railroad men, for his peculiar skill with a locomotive whistle.

"You see," said Mrs. Jones, "he astablished a sort of trade mark for himself by his inimitable method of blowing a whistle. It was a kind of long-drawn-out note that he created, beginning softly, then rising, then dying away almost to a whisper. People living along the Illinois Central right of way between Jackson and Water Valley would turn over in their beds late at night and say: 'There goes Casey Jones,' as he roared by."

After he had put in several years as freight and passenger engineer between Jackson and Water Valley, Casey was transfered early in 1900 to the Memphis-Canton (Miss.) run as throttle-puller of the Illinois Central's crack "Cannonball" train.

Casey and his fireman, Sim Webb, rolled into Memphis from Canton about 10 o'clock Sunday night, April 29. They went to the checking- in office and were prepared to go to their homes when Casey heard somebody call out: "Joe Lewis has just been taken with cramps and can't take his train out tonight."

"I'll double back and pull Lewis' old No. 638," Casey volunteered.

At 11 o'clock that rainy Sunday night Casey and Sim Webb clambered aboard the big engine and eased her out of the station and through the South Memphis yards.

Four o'clock of the 30th of April. The little town of Vaughn, Miss. A long winding curve just above the town, and a long sidetrack beginning about where the curve ended.

"There's a freight train on the siding," Casey yelled across to Sim Webb.

Knowing the siding there was a long one, and having passed many other freights on it, Casey figured he would do the same this night.

But there was two seperate sections of a very long train on the sidetrack this night. And the rear one was a little too long to get all its length off the main track onto the siding. The freight train crews figured on "sawing by"; that is as soon as the passenger train passed the front part of the first train, it would move forward and the rear freight would move up, thus clearing the main track.

But Casey's speed-about fifty miles an hour-was more than the freight crews bargained for.

But when old 638 was within a hundred feet of the end of the siding the horrified eyes of Casey Jones and Sim Webb beheld through the gloom the looming shape of several boxcars in motion, swinging across from the main line to the side-track. In a flash both knew there way no earthly way of preventing a smashup.

"Jump, Sim, and save yourself!," was Casey's last order to his fireman. As for himself, Casey through his engine in reverse and applied the air-brakes-all any engineer could do, and rode roaring 638 into a holocaust of crashing wood that splintered like match boxes. Sim Webb jumped, fell into some bushes and was not injured.

When they took Casey's body from the wreckage (old 638 had plowed through the cars and caboose and turned over on her side a short distance beyond) they found one hand on the whistle cord, the other on the air-brake lever.

"I remember," Sim Webb told Casey's widow, "that as I jumped Casey held down the whistle in a long, piercing scream. I think he must have had in mind to warn the freight conductor in the caboose so he could jump."

Probably no individual, excepting a member of Casey's family, was more affected by the sad news than Wallace Saunders.

A few days later he was going about singing a song to a melody all his own. The air had a lilt that caught the fancy of every one who heard it. But Wallace, honest old soul, had no idea of doing more than singing it as a sort of tribute to his white friend's memory.

But one day a song writer passed through Jackson and heard the song and the details of Casey's tragic death. He went off and changed the words, but retained the lilting refrain and the name Casey Jones. That was about 1902.

Come all you rounders that want to hear
The story of a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder's name,
On a six eight wheeler, boys, he won his fame.
The caller called Casey at half past four,
He kissed his wife at the station door,
He mounted to the cabin with the orders in his hand,
And he took his farewell trip to that promised land.
Casey Jones mounted to his cabin,
Casey Jones with his orders in his hand
Casey Jones mounted to his cabin,
And he took his farewell trip to that promised land.

When he pulled up that Reno hill,
He whistled for the crossing with an awful shrill;
The switchman knew by the engine's moan
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones.
He looked at his water and his water was low;
He looked at his watch and his watch was slow;
He turned to his fireman and this is what he said,
Boy, we're going to reach Frisco, but we'll all be dead.
Casey Jones - going to reach Frisco
Casey Jones - but we'll all be dead,
Casey Jones - going to reach Frisco,
We're going to reach Frisco, but we'll all be dead.

So turn on your water and shovel in your coal,
Stick you head out the window, watch those drivers roll;
I'll drive her till she leaves the rail,
For I'm eight hours late by that Western Mail.
When he was within six miles of the place,
There number four stared him straight in the face.
He turned to his fireman, said Jim you'd better jump,
For there're two locomotives that are going to bump.
Casey Jones - two locomotives,
Casey Jones - going to bump,
Casey Jones - two locomotives,
There're two locomotives that are going to bump.

Casey said just before he died,
There're two more roads I would like to ride.
The fireman said, Which ones can they be?
Oh the Northern Pacific and the Santa Fe.
Mrs. Jones sat at her bed a-sighing
Just to hear the news that her Casey was dying.
Hush up children, and quit your cryin',
For you've got another poppa on the Salt Lake Line.
Casey Jones - got another poppa.
Casey Jones - on the Salt Lake Line.
Casey Jones - got another poppa.
For you've got another poppa on the Salt Lake Line.

[SilverOrange]

All aboard!

Nice UD! That train used to shake my house a couple times a day. I lived in the last house on the train line that was accessible by road, and they delivered our mail! Threw it off in mail bags, which we would hang on a post for them to grab on their way back. I was bummed when they stopped cause it meant an eight mile drive to the base of the mountain to get our mail. Rumor has it I was the last person in the US to get mail by train.

[Ugly Dougly]

Man that would be cool.