Yesterday, Saturday June 2, was supposed to be a wonderful day at Casa Feliz (The Happy House) for Ginny and I. In most respects it was exactly that. Lots of wonderful friends, some good food and drink, jokes, laughter, teasing, and a couple of trains that ran. In another thread started by Alex Malliae, you'll read about lots of happy people. I am very thankful for the OGR Forum and all of the wonderful friends that Ginny and I have made and we are so pleased our guests had a good time. After weeks of work in preparation for our Open House, I felt like I was a fireman. Running here, running there, trying to get trains to run that had run like a Swiss watch for weeks. Sweating bullets, apologizing, and imagining what out guests were thinking . . . . . "All this technology and he can't get a train to run. He's the real Scrapiron Scher."
The Day of the Dead, to Mexican folks (Ginny is a Mexican American) El Dia de los Muertos, is the Mexican version of Halloween. If you do not believe in the supernatural, if you are not superstitious, don't read this. For the rest of you, the story has not been changed. Period.
Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it attains the quality of a national holiday, and all banks are closed.
I know the story of what happens when visitors come to see our layout. The Gremlins come out, the Ghosts dance on the tracks, sparks fly, and everything that can go spitzensparkin goes spitzensparkin. I know this. Yada, yada, yada. Another thread about trains that don't run when visitors come over. I had actually said to Ginny the night before that I was wondering what would not work. Yada, yada, yada. I was NOT taking any chances. Even though the trains had run perfectly for weeks, I spent the night before our Open House testing and positioning. Each train was running perfectly. Yada, yada. I actually lined up the five unit Lionel Legacy F7's and the eight Atlas O California Zephyr cars so the train would come out of the tunnel timed to the deafening crescendo of a CD I put in our speaker system. 12 speakers surrounding the layout with a big subwoofer. What a show this would be.
And so the big day came. Alex Malliae and his wonderful wife Dina, Jim Policastro, Chris Shaeffer, Skip Natoli, Doug Neumann, Eddie Drach, Bill Fiore, Bill Seader, Steve Krupa, all the wives. We fire up the grill. We all knew it would be a great train day. At 2:30 we headed down to the train room where I had everything prepared including the CD all set to go. I positioned the crowd just outside of Fiore tunnel and hit the Legacy remote button for Train 96. The Cd starts blasting, everyone is smiling, the CD starts blasting, where is the train? I was the first to hear the buzzing. Sheepishly I ran around the layout and looked at the hidden staging tracks. I was just pleased as punch to find that three of the passenger cars had managed to derail in a place they had run a hundred times. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the Z-4000's red light shone like the ******* Statue of Liberty. "Just a minute everybody . . . . . . . . "
On and on the day went, everyone being very polite as this train stalled, that engine blinked, that whistle disappeared . . . . . yada, yada, yada. If I listed all of the things that happened that never happened before, you would click to another thread out of boredom. By the end of the day the highlight was my Class A taking off at top speed (that is 18 pounds of iron at 19 volts WITH traction tires) crashing into my brand new Vision Challenger like Lawrence Taylor and knocking the 18 pound Challenger and tender completely off of the track onto its side, bending the tethers so the engine would no longer respond to signals. Someone grabbed the Class A, "Shut the power, everyone yelled." I dove for the Z-4000. My eyes started to bulge out of my head, smoke poured out of my ears as Bill Seader grabbed me. He knew I was about to do something crazy. I wondered if the sheetrock could withstand the impact of a heavy engine thrown at high speed. Everyone consoled me. It could have happened to anyone. Reminded me of Rich Melvin at the #765 incident.
We got the trains back on the track and I headed upstairs to grill some shishkabob. We had a nice dinner and our friends could not have been nicer. We got lots of compliments for a nice day and, the truth is, I really enjoyed my friends. I was wondering though, if the Red Cross accepted donations of layouts. The end of the evening came and everyone said their good-byes. Ginny and I cleaned up and she consoled me. She knew I was really agitated and, without prompting, told me not to make any decisions when I was upset. She could see evil in my eyes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . . . . . we went off to bed. That's when the story starts to get really interesting.
You see, it was Alex or Bill who noticed the Headless Highwayman first. There he was sitting above the highway work crew all by himself. Eating lunch. Headless.
The previous day I was positioning my work figures and this poor soul fell from my hands, landed on the highway, and lost his head.
I searched for his head everywhere. On the floor. In the bushes. On the tracks. His head was nowhere to be found.
I decided to place the headless soul on the rocks above his fellow co-workers.
Ha Ha, I said. What a funny scene. The headless Highway man.
Ha Ha. Funny.
It was Alex or Bill who noticed him first.
He has no head.
Ha Ha. Yes, his head broke off so I put him up there like the Headless Horseman.
Only he is the Headless Highwayman of Carmel.
Ha Ha, Alex said.
Ha Ha everyone said.
As train after train broke down, died, crashed. You name it. It happened. yesterday.
Yada, yada, yada.
Until this morning, that is.
I see something on the floor.
Flesh colored with a yellow top.
Oh ****
It's the Highwayman's head.
That's when Ginny said to me . . . . "El Dia de los Muertos"
What?
The Day of the Dead.
That's why all the trains broke down.
A chill ran down my spine.
A really bad chill ran down my spine.
I raced downstairs with the head.
I was frantic. Sweating. Shaking.
I got out my Crazy Glue.
I said "Sorry" to the Highwayman.
I balanced the Highwayman on the table and gently replaced his head.
He was smiling.
This was really creepy.
I ran over to the cliff and seated him once again.
I looked down at the crew busy working as if nothing had happened.
I turned on the first train.
Ran fine.
I turned on ALL the other trains EACH of which would not run properly yesterday.
They all ran fine.
I started reading about Voo Doo on the Internet.
Remember the tune from the Twilight Zone?
Want to know why nothing worked yesterday?
What do YOU think?
Eliot
