A Feast of Friends

Arnold, the Doors were among my favorites as well. I lived in the New Orleans French Quarter back then and there was a club on the corner that I frequented often. A band from Kansas was the resident group one summer and they did a great cover of 'Light My Fire'. One night a group of bikers came in including a lady friend of mine with one of them. On the break, her 'date' went up to the band and spoke with them. Next set they invited him onstage to join them and it was Morrison!  He had a full beard and she didn't even know it was him as he had just introduced himself as "Jim" when they met earlier in the evening. They had all been drinking elsewhere for a few hours and he never mentioned who he was. He sang the whole set with them and was fantastic. I always thought he had one of the best voices in rock.

Remember reading a review of the group in Playboy where the writer said "Jazzmen take heed, this band can play! " How I remember that exact quote shows what an impressionable young mind I had back then.  LOL

The house band went on to become 'Kansas' the following year and we never saw them again.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Like you, this Forum has greatly expanded my enjoyment of the hobby since coming back to trains in 2009 and stumbling across this fine exchange. Can count quite a few of you as friends now, many of whom I've not yet met.

One member of the NJHR's club who moved from NY down to a town near here is a great guy and he took me to Trainstock several years ago and then to NYC and ground zero the next day when there was little traffic and it was 20 degrees!  We had a terrific time meeting many of the cub's members and guests and dining on the fabulous food I'd heard about for several years. In fact, I think I met you there Arnold - do you remember me? You may have been new to the forum as I recognized you but didn't recall anything about you at the time. One certainly has to be careful when meeting a lawyer you know...  It's an established fact that 98.72% of attorneys give all the rest of them a bad name!

@c.sam posted:

Arnold, the Doors were among my favorites as well. I lived in the French Quarter back then and there was a club on the corner that I frequented often. A band from Kansas was the resident group one summer and they did a great cover of 'Light My Fire'. One night a group of bikers came in with a lady friend of mine with one of them. On the break, her 'date' went up to the band and spoke with them. Next set they invited him onstage to join them and it was Morrison! He had a full beard and she didn't even know it was him as he had just introduced himself as "Jim" when they met earlier in the evening. They had all been drinking elsewhere for a few hours and he never mentioned who he was. He sang the whole set with them and was fantastic. I always thought he had one of the best voices in rock.

The house band went on to become 'Kansas' the following year and we never saw them again.

This, C.Sam, is wonderful! Thanks for sharing it.

@c.sam posted:

Like you, this Forum has greatly expanded my enjoyment of the hobby since coming back to trains in 2009 and stumbling across this fine exchange. Can count quite a few of you as friends now, many of whom I've not yet met.

One member of the NJHR's club who moved from NY down to a town near here is a great guy and he took me to Trainstock several years ago and then to NYC and ground zero the next day when there was little traffic and it was 20 degrees!  We had a terrific time meeting many of the cub's members and guests and dining on the fabulous food I'd heard about for several years. In fact, I think I met you there Arnold - do you remember me? You may have been new to the forum as I recognized you but didn't recall anything about you at the time. One certainly has to be careful when meeting a lawyer you know...  It's an established fact that 98.72% of attorneys give all the rest of them a bad name!

I sure do remember you, Sam, when we met at NJ Hirailers, and I agree with you about most, but not all, lawyers. Arnold

I can pretty much endorse your sentiment, Arnold, but with a few additional twists, or perhaps add-ons.

What drew me to the on-line model railroading community was not really the desire to make new friends, but rather the practical desire to figure out how to learn and do stuff. Even during the pandemic, I did not feel particularly disconnected from my family and friends even while we were not as easily (and safely!) able to be face to face, and I've always been satisfied with the social circles my wife and I have developed and maintained over the years.

Rather, as I got back into model railroading, local social opportunities to support the hobby appeared to be a bit thin on the ground. Oh, family and friends were usually at least *tolerant* of my hobby, but with a relatively few exceptions, there weren't many that felt more than a mild and somewhat bemused admiration for all my efforts, and few had more than childhood memories to offer me to help resolve my problems or make suggestions. At least within the parameters of the hobby, in person I was somewhat isolated -- even the local model railroading club was apparently exclusively a different scale, and into different aspects of the hobby than I was interested in pursuing.

By contrast, when I ventured on-line, there was a considerable diversity in interests, and enough hobbyists in total that I was easily able to find a number of fellow hobbyists with at least congruent interests, and more importantly, with expertise and experience far more detailed and in depth than my own. Moreover, there were also a number who, like me, were eager to progress, some of whom might even value my modest contributions. Over time, my on-line contacts have become more than just words (and pictures, and videos, and . . .) on the screen, but have grown into real people for me (at least to the extent they've been willing to present themselves on-line), and people I've grown to rely on to help expand my horizons in the hobby. Friends? Yeah, sorta-kinda . . . but don't worry, I won't be asking any of you for a loan any time soon!

All very interesting, Sam, Mark and Steve.

In a few wiords at this point, before the Forum, I was pretty much a lone wolf model railroader. Since the Forum, I have developed numerous distant and local model railroader friends. The distant ones are connected to me through this Forum and a weekly Zoom I participate in. The local ones include some on the Forum, some on the same Zoom and about 15 to 20 others that I meet in person in an informal local train club where we meet monthly or every other month at the homes of a few of us with layouts that are happy to host a local get together.

Some of you folks who want the above and don't yet have it, my recommendation is to stay connected to this Forum, keep the faith and, chances are, over time, you will get it. If I can do it, you can do it. Arnold

"Feast of friends". Hm.  Somehow my thoughts keep going back to Hannibal Lecter.

Interesting thread.  I’d also mention two of my favorites, The End, and The Soft Parade.
Great to share interests with other train fans.

Arnold

You should join in on Mr Muffins Wednesday zoom calls.  Lots of train friends.

A "Feast of friends" indeed, Arnold!

When I begin to lose the faith, and lack enthusiasm, reading the threads on this Forum changes all of that.

Reach out to a fellow enthusiast at train shows too - I did and have made a lot of dear non-Forum friends - try it.  Here is a post I made in December in response to another of your thoughtful inquiries.

Railboys & Other Local Train Clubs | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

Note that LITCA is now 21 strong, 15 attended our January lunch.

One of the things with a forum like this or the people you meet in a hobby, is that it is a community, our lives, families, etc get tied into the forum as well, even if it isn't the primary focus of it. You find things in common within trains and without, and it builds up. I was wearing my NY Jets jacket at the last York, and made some friends with come guys who were KC Chiefs fans and they loved I remembered the Chiefs of the early 70's.  Hopefully over time I'll get to meet more people in person, but it has been a really great experience.

My favorite tune by The Doors is "Love Me Two Times" because of the electric piano bass in the chorus.  Keeping this comment forum relevant (), the guitar licks in the song were inspired by John Koerner's "Southbound Train".

What, me worry?

Isn't it utterly amazing what interesting people model railroaders tend to be?

What do you think most of us fundamentally have in common besides model trains, real trains, layouts, and this hobby?

IMO, it is Joie de Vive, which is a French expression that means Joy of Living.

And, I believe that Joie de vive is what makes virtually all model railroaders very interesting people who can often talk to each other about anything under the Sun, and have a great time doing so. Arnod

We are all friends with similar interests.

My last layout was in 1976 before I got into hotrods  I have always had a layout under the Christmas tree but I’m planning my retirement postwar layout

Thoroughly enjoy this forum and Arnold’s post

I have some pic from north white plains dieselization that I need to post to forum

Family friend was a engineer and used to take let me ride in Fl9 cab to grand central

Have you run onto this from Woodlands Scenic Arnold???

The Morrison Door Factory building , no joke. Check it out. 😂 In fact I have one.

I don’t recall a Door factory on your layout when viewing on the Forum….

I really only recall the Yankee Stadium.

I always enjoy all of your thought up categories Arnold, keep them coming ☺️

Seth, it gives me great pleasure to show you and my Forum friends the section of my layout I call The Doors' corner.

First, the Whiskey a Go Go where The Doors got started in the Los Angeles area:

Before taking the stage, Jim drinks his usual case of beer (LOL, I think he would appreciate the humor here) and takes a nap at Sully's Tavern:

[That's Jim sleeping on the park bench on the left]

Which is across the street from, you guessed it, Morrison's Doors Factory:

LOL, Arnold

A Feast of learning and sharing

It was good that Jim invested in a business like that door company to help his legend live on!   In his wildest psychedelic dreams could he ever have imagined that he would be memorialized across this land by model railroaders!

Often wondered if there was an Aldous Huxley division?

@c.sam posted:

It was good that Jim invested in a business like that door company to help his legend live on!   In his wildest psychedelic dreams could he ever have imagined that he would be memorialized across this land by model railroaders!

Often wondered if there was an Aldous Huxley division?

This is the end!

@Seth Thomas posted:

Have you run onto this from Woodlands Scenic Arnold???

The Morrison Door Factory building , no joke. Check it out. 😂 In fact I have one.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Seth, it gives me great pleasure to show you and my Forum friends the section of my layout I call The Doors' corner.

Seth and Arnold,

RE:  Morrison's Doors Factory

A little humor at my expense: I bought a Morrison's Doors Factory because it was the size I needed to fill an area of my layout. Never gave any thought to the name. One day a friend (who was a contractor) was in to see my layout and commented on how neat Morrison's Doors was. I asked him if Morrison's was a famous door manufacturer. He just looked at me like I was from outer space. In my own defense, I'm a retired classical musician and never gave any thought to the name. Now, if anyone ever produces a Camille's Aquarium Shop (Aquarium, one of the movements in Camille Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals) I'd buy it in a minute.

I also have Sully's Tavern; I guess I'll have to put a bench in front of it for Jim (or Camille) to nap on.

Regards,

Bob

Liberté, égalité, fraternité
And certainly Joie de Vive are part of my fabric!
merci bien!

great thread Arnold.

Love the above reply of Bobfett, who sounds like the real McCoy of a musician as a retired classical musician.

I had the exact opposite reaction.

Here's why.

When I first heard of, and saw, Morrison's Doors Factory, I immediately thought what a clever name for Woodland Scenics to use to promote its model train accessory, and that I had to have it.

While not as famous as Elvis or The Beatles, The Doors and Jim Morrison were plenty big, as many of you well know.

For those who don't, probably no rock and roll group got off to a more meteoric start. Their first album, which was released in 1966 or 1967, had huge hits including Light My Fire, Break on Through to the Other Side, Crystal Ship, and The End.

As a teenager, I was so taken by their songs and Jim Morrison's dramatic and extraordinary charisma and voice, that I tried to look and sing like him, except I never had hair as long as him, was not as handsome as him, and I ruined my voice trying to sing like him. LOL.

Interestingly, when I was 60 to 65 years old,  I learned from the man that did the arrangements and recordings of my original songs (I have a couple reminiscent of Doors songs), that Jim would jump up an octave when singing the final verse of their songs for dramatic effect, and had a extraordinary ability to scream the last verse with a full throated resonant and rich voice hitting every note squarely, and with an amazing range. Quite frankly, I thought Jim's singing was awesome.

As a teenager, I sang along while playing Doors albums, sometimes with my mother, a Victorian lady, listening. She liked Jim's singing, and we both thought he was a very good crooner while singing songs like Crystal Ship, Wintertime Love, Love Street, The Spy and Blue Sunday.

On the inside cover of The Doors' Morrison Hotel Album, there is a picture of Jim staring into the camera, standing at the bar with a bottle of beer in his hand, wearing a very masculine sheepskin jacket. My mother bought a very similar sheepskin jacket for me that cost about $300 at Saks Fifth Avenue. I wore it during the winter for many years.

I have a great idea for Woodland Scenics: they should make Morrison's Hotel in O Gauge. If they do, I'm buying it! How about you, would you buy it?

LOL, again, Arnold

Twenty-two years ago, I asked a hobby store owner if he knew of any people in my area who could not explain to me about setting up a Christmas time O gauge train. He suggested Don whose business was Aardvark Arts. I called him and he invited me to a Thursday evening train group.

I first recognized his house as an interesting one at which I had stopped when I was designing my own home. "I was in your home ten years ago" got his attention.  Soon I invited the group to see my Christmas layout, running Protosound 1, covering the entire living room floor.

Within a year, the core of the group settled to five regulars and we met weekly. Within five years we were meeting each Tuesday to run trains at one of our houses. In another five years all five of us built work tables for modeling at my house.

Now every Tuesday we meet at my house for modeling, or sometimes running trains and working on our layouts, occasional hobby shop or museum trips. About every three months we get together for food and drinks with spouses and others.  We've supported each-other through illnesses, deaths of wives, and aging.

Wonderful, Ed, thanks for sharing. Your model train get-togethers and friendships are what this hobby is all about.

Arnold,

I knew Jim Morrison's father through work. He never spoke about his son or to people I knew. At the time I didn't even realize he was Jim's father. It was a Washington Post expose' article that made the connection between him and his son public. We were all a bit shocked.

The Morrisons Doors Factory was definitely a brilliant name for a model railroad building.

if we knew what we do now back then, perhaps an intervention could have saved that poet of a man, Jim Morrison. We honor him in many ways, enjoying his music is one way.  Adding him to our train layouts is a great Idea that never crossed my mind.  I do have the HardRock Cafe building on my layout.  I think Jim may be playing there some day, along with Robbie and Ray. 

As aways, thanks to Arnold for starting this thread. 

@Bruce Brown posted:

Arnold,

I knew Jim Morrison's father through work. He never spoke about his son or to people I knew. At the time I didn't even realize he was Jim's father. It was a Washington Post expose' article that made the connection between him and his son public. We were all a bit shocked.

The Morrisons Doors Factory was definitely a brilliant name for a model railroad building.

Bruce, I believe Jim's father was an Admiral in the Navy, had told his son he would never make it as a singer, and Jim disowned his whole natural family telling others that he considered his living parents and siblings to be dead.

Long after Jim died, Jim's father told a reporter words to the effect that his son was rather uncompromising (what an understatement. Also, the father was very surprised that Jim became a rock and roll star with such financial success and enduring fame, long after his death.

The Doors' songs made me feel good as a teenager.  Although I was a very disciplined student who did all his homework and stayed on a straight and narrow path through high school, college and law school, their songs made me feel a little wild and rebellious. I believe their songs will be played for centuries to come, especially by teenagers. Also, some of their songs are perfect music for bars. It's now over 50 years after Jim Morrison died and the Doors disbanded, and yet it is very common to go to a bar (which I rarely do) and hear one of their dogs like Roadhouse Blues playing on a juke nox.

I have also enjoyed running my trains while playing a Doors album in the background. Arnold

I'm partial to the soft parade album in it's entirety. So good from start to end. The soft parade has now begun. Listen to the engine hum. People out to have some fun. Leopard on my left, cobra on my right.

I went ahead and ran some trains, played some doors, and let the 12" subwoofers doing their thing. Life is good.

Great thread......it is bringing me back to my Rock N Roll days.....

....winter 71-72, my bedroom in the Bronx.....

....summer 1970, playing at an outdoor venue with my band, Albatross.....

.....as I look out on the black of night before the dawn, all I can say is......

You know the day destroys the night. Night divides the day. Tried to run. Tried to hide. Break on through to the other side......

Peter

@Putnam Division posted:

Great thread......it is bringing me back to my Rock N Roll days.....

....winter 71-72, my bedroom in the Bronx.....

....summer 1970, playing at an outdoor venue with my band, Albatross.....

.....as I look out on the black of night before the dawn, all I can say is......

You know the day destroys the night. Night divides the day. Tried to run. Tried to hide. Break on through to the other side......

Peter

Geez, Peter, if you had long blonde hair, you could have been another Ray Manzerek on the electric organ/keyboard!

So many of us Forum model railroaders also have, or had  a past or present passion for music.

Some of you know the way I got involved in the Forum. For those that don't, I called OGR Magazine to see if they might have an interest in my model train video/song, Who Am I (Rollin' By). You can access it by either going on my Forum Profile and clicking on the link to that song, or going on YouTube and typing my name in the YouTube search box, seeing the video song and clicking on to it. When you do, you will also see the video of Phil Klopp's magnificent O Gauge layout because Phil liked my song, and gave me permission to videotape his trains running on his layout and use that video, which I had professionally edited, for the video song.

When I called OGR Magazine in November 2017, I spoke to Alan Arnold. He told me he had just started at OGR 2 weeks before I called him. While we spoke on the phone, he went on YouTube and played my video song. To this day, I don't know for sure what he thought of it, but I guess he liked it because he referred me to this Forum. I had never visited any on-line Forum before, but needless to say, I got hooked! LOL.

I have only written a few songs since November 2017. Whenever I wrote a song, it was a very emotional and meaningful experience for me. I wrote about 50 songs in various genres of music from 1991 until about May 2020, and I have about 35 professionally made recordings of my songs. I had a connection, through an intermediary, to a star singer for whom I wrote a song, and was told that there was a 50-50 chance that he would record my song. I was told this for 3 and one-half years! If he did so, it would have changed my life, but he didn't. C'est la vie.

There is a happy ending to this somewhat sad story of my life since year 2012 when I started to take songwriting seriously, but ultimately ended up without achieving sweet financial sucess as a songwriter. The happy ending is thanks, in part, to model trains and this Forum (which provides me with light-hearted entertainment and A Feast of Friends); in part, thanks to having read a book entitled Wolfe with an E an Episodic Journey Through an Exceptional Life  (you can buy it on Amazon.com for $20) that my dear 86 year old first cousin, Camille Linen Cribari, wrote in 2022 about her father (my uncle) Wolfe Cribari, who was a great personal injury and criminal law trial lawyer; thanks, in part, to having fallen in love again with my life work as a collaborative divorce lawyer (like my uncle, I'm passionate about my work and love giving legal advice), and thanks, largely, to having a great wife and family.

Regarding model railroading and this Forum, these activities are very good therapy for me: "In my little world I leave this troubled world behind."  I'm very glad I did the songwriting, which I regard as a rich cup of tea activity, but I find my model railroad activities to be more fun at this time of my life.

One more think about me and this Forum, which some of you folks may find interesting. I'm well aware that I have a knack for dreaming up entertaining new Forum topics, having received compliments from many of you, both on, and outside of, this Forum. I believe the reason I have this knack is because it's very similar to dreaming up subjects and titles for original songs. I believe John Lennon would agree with me because he was quoted as saying that picking a good subject for a song was half the battle in songwriting.

Arnold

This was one of the wilder Forum topics I started a while ago, but I'm returning to it and sharing it because, boy oh boy, the way I feel now, and because you also do model railroading and are on this Forum and possibly for other reasons, it's likely to be applicable to you.

I did not dream up this topic title (wish I did). It was a lyric in a song by my favorite rock n' roll group, The Doors.

In their song, When the Music's Over, Jim Morrison sings: "A feast of friends, alive she cried, waiting for me - outside!"

The greetings from many of you at the York Train show in October 2022 and especially at Trainstock 2024 last Saturday, makes me feel like I, who for most of my life, was an introvert, now have a feast of friends.

The source of that feast is model railroaders from my local, relatively small, train club (The Railboys with maybe 20 members), a Wednesday night train guy Zoom club (maybe 50 members some of whom are Forumites), NJ HiRailers (don't know how many members because I just became an Associate Member) and mostly from this Forum (again don't know how many fellow Forumites there are but compared to the other sources, the Forum may have a galaxy of participants all over the USA and in other countries.

I also have some friends among my collaborative divorce lawyer colleagues (they are highly ethical, skilled and committed peacemakers), musicians and Church.

Most importantly, please remember, if you are a participant in good standing (follow the TOS) on this Forum, regardless of your life circumstances, you are blessed, and you have a Feast of Friends.

Arnold