"My Life as an Amusement Park Employee" by Mark L Trainer

"For every page written, a hundred have been left out"

Chapter One: The Amusement Park

I spent the summer of 1979 transitioning between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, working the summer at the local amusement park called  Hamels. It was now owned by Milton Hamel, who was lucky enough to have inherited it from his late father. Milton was in his early 30s, a tall man with light blond hair, and a very pleasant demeanor. But he rarely spent any time at the park, as his interests were more or less geared for spending the money generated by the park.  His name would surface occasionally in the local papers, and I gathered that the man had a very active social life.

It was all thanks to Milton Senior, who had founded the original farm 40 years ago.  The senior Milton had managed to turn a small but thriving dairy operation into a profitable private park with an emphasis on catering to children's birthday parties.  In time it would grow to become much more than that.

The kids liked it because there was lots of room to run about. Parents like it because it was nicely located on the edge of the country just south of Shreveport Louisiana, running parallel to the Red River, near the Jimmy Davis bridge.

Through the 60s and early 70s the park was little more than a dairy and petting zoo. It was a favorite for birthday parties because they had picnic tables and shade, and the backdrop scenery was beautiful.  It was a peaceful place, built around a series of small ponds that surrounded the park. They added a train that circled the zoo, and a kiddie barn full of rides for children. The whole operation was profitable enough that by the late 1970s the park had become a small thrill park with rides that included roller coasters and an outside race track with go-karts. Nearly every weekend one corporation or another was hosting a celebration of some sort.

All of the outside ride had names that described what they did, the "Yo-Yo", "Tilt-a-Whirl", "Scrambler", "Magic Carpet", "Bullet".

(seeing the yo-yo fall. people who got sick on the magic carpet)

Just beyond the roller coaster going East, flowed the Red River, gently winding it's way slowly toward Alexandria, where it would eventually merge with the Mississippi before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico 500 miles downstream. It was called the Red because of the muddy looking water that it carried. My friends and I were enamored with that river, which had two personalities depending upon the rainfall. On the one hand, it could be a peaceful, if somewhat large, stream that didn't give the appearance of wanting to get anywhere in a hurry. This always happened toward the end of every summer, as the water would recede and leave large sandy white sandbars on one side or the other. During the spring and fall, the river would swell right up to the tops of the river banks, and watching the torrential mass of water slide by only feet away was both breathtaking and scary. The sense of power at that moment is one of those rare times when you can actually feel the right side of your brain thinking.  When the river was full, you could see trees, logs, even swollen dead cows floating by. Watching the river was something my friends and I never tired of, and we loved to watch it.

To the North of the park, small lakes and cow pastures dotted the fields. To the South was a small dairy operation that still processed milk from the cows. They had a small store and workshop on top of a shaded hill. It was a cozy arrangement, and although located a bit out of the way, the store did sell a fair amount of it's own brand of Milk and Ice Cream, although dollar for dollar they probably made most of their profits from the constant stream of beer sales.

Eventually the park came to include a train which circled the zoo, a kiddie barn full of kids rides, a go-kart race track, log ride, outside rides, picnic barn, food court, you get the idea. The park was smartly designed and made liberal use of landscaping and shrubbery, which kept a team of maintence workers busy throughout the season.

My coming to work at the park wasn't completely my own idea- it had been suggested by my good friend Ed Martin, who lived only two houses down the street.  We had been friends since the 3rd grade.  Edward and his sister already had jobs there and they said they could give me rides to and from the park- would I like to join them?  It seemed reasonable- after all I was looking for ways to earn money to buy more HO scale model railroad supplies for the 4x8 layout I had been constructing since the start of the 7th grade.

With lots of nervous energy, I started off at the bottom of the ladder at Hamels, like most on the newbies at the time, in the kiddie barn. I must qualify the use the word "most" here because the park manager, Jerry Totushe, when making initial assignments for new employees, always seemed to put the big people on the outside rides. Jerry's style of passing judgment on people in less than a second was one that would be repeated over and over again, but one did have to admit that Jerry was never one to get bogged down with indecision.

My Rightful Place Denied

I was happy to be working my first paying job, as I was now finally able to make real progress on the railroad at home.  Things that would have taken 1/2 year to save for could now be purchased in a week. The only major disappointment I had was the sinking feeling that working in the Kiddie Barn had a social status that bordered on non-existent.  On an park evolutionary scale, I was a toad.

And it was no secret that working in the barn sucked horribly.

For starters, it was very noisy in the barn because of the screaming kids, merry-go-round jukebox, and the motors of all the machines turning the circular  rides. The sound seemed to bounce off the metal walls of the barn and resonate back and forth until the roar was about the same same as jet engine at full afterburner. 

Another low point was the fact that the rides were the simplest to operate in the park and because of that, the status of being a kiddie ride operator wasn't one that anyone coveted. These rides were usually operated by a simple on/off button, and made a fixed number of circular loops before coming to a stop, at which time you had to assist the little ones off, and then load a new batch on. 

Although conceptually simple, the job carried a fair amount of stress- it was nerve racking having to watch the kids closely all the time, since you never knew when one was going to freak out and jump out unexpectedly.  Certainly it had to be every ride operators worst fear.  So it was the scared looking young ones you watched the most.  And worried about.

The "Boats" were the absolute worst ride to be assigned to. It consisted of 8 boats that floated in a circular tank and connected on the inner side to a wheel that moved the boats through the water.  It only had an on/off switch and a timer.  But each boat had a string and a bell, which was furiously yanked by all who rode.

The "whip" was a noisy and oily ride to operate.  The kids loved it though.  I lost one of my favorite hats to that contraption when it fell into the path of the cars- and within seconds it had been reduced to a greasy rag. 

There was some good that did come out of working in the kiddie barn: I became good friends with all the ride operators who also worked in there. We bonded as few can because no one else could really understand the hell we were going through everyday. They were nice gentle people, all of them, which makes perfect sense because that is where Jerry always farmed the small, the meek, and the quiet: TO THE KIDDIE BARN.

Take for instance the Inside Ride Supervisor, Amy. She was the manager of the kiddie barn, no more than 16 years old.  She was short, sweet, and very friendly to everyone. She went to Captain Shreve with a girl who had taken an interest in me named LeAnn Burlback, who worked in the concession area inside the barn. In fact they were good friends and it was Amy who first told me that LeAnn "liked me". Amy would know; they rode to and from the park together everyday.

I knew I wasn't right for the Kiddie barn, and it was with intense and frequent jealousy that I watched the Hamels Train pull out from the train station, cross the midway, and wrap around the kiddie barn as it started its journey- a tour of animals of sorts.  By now most of the animals were ZeeDonks, named as such because they were a mixture of Zebras and Donkeys. There was also an old osterich that had a bad temper and was easily provoked.  But the scenery was nice, and the ride included a bridge, views of two small lakes, and a tunnel.  

The train could be seen everywhere from within the kiddie barn, because the walls were mostly metal bars to keep the kids in, and the train wrapped it's way around as followed the barn on two sides. And it made four trips an hour- it's bell clanging away as they crossed the midway. Every clang rang through my heart, a painful reminder of how cruel fate could be.  How I longed to be on that train!

For a long time it was hard for me to accept the fact that life had denied me my rightful place on that train. After all I was an avid HO scale model railroader who had been building a train layout since the 7th grade. Furthermore I had spent my life reading everything I could about trains- the history, the mechanics, even the signals.  I also had a camera and used it primarily to photograph all things related to railroads- locomotives, box cars, even broken down sheds along the tracks. I loved it all  as the mystery surrounding the rails was something that always fascinated me.  The endless rails always seemed to represent a journey to somewhere unknown. I subscribed to Model Railroader, had my questions published, and had read all the railroad books the local libraries had to offer. In short, trains were my life. They were all I ever thought about. I belonged on that train and unfortunately I was the only one who knew it. I was also certain that the guys driving it had no idea how cool their job was.

Being an avid railfan, I naturally wore my blue "Chessie System" baseball cap a lot. Chessie System was the rail line I was modeling in HO scale, which was mostly based in the northeastern part of the united states, especially Virginia and West Virginia. I know this because I grew up summers watching these trains blast out of the sides of mountains near my grandmother and grandfathers house. Every hour or so a string of coal cars being pulled by 5 or 6 chessie system locomotives would emerge from the big mountain, cross a bridge that spanned the Greenbrier River far below, and dissappear into another tunnel on the other side of the bridge. In time I began to hang out at the tracks with my camera, taking all the pictures I could. Between trains I would throw rocks off the bridge at the telephone wires, which made a very unique "twang" that would continue to ring for many seconds.  In between trains, I would walk through the tunnels, explore, and take pictures. At some point I began to acquire several HO scale Chessie System engines, which were beautiful Athern U-30B Units.

Meanwhile back in Shreveport, most people had no idea what the "Chessie System" was- the trains didn't operate down there and most people in Louisiana were not "well traveled". So I was often asked what the hat meant- I assume the others just didn't care.

I was wearing this particular hat on break at Hamels one hot afternoon. All Hamels employees were given periodic 15 minute breaks, which were to be taken behind the trolley. The Trolley looked like a green trolley car on the outside but served corn dogs and natochites meat pies to hungry on the inside. Behind the trolley were a group of plastic picnic tables, shaded by a casual structure that used slanted tarp sections as a sun block. The days could be long, so on break most of the time people would order a corn dog and a coke and eat it at the tables behind the trolley before returning to work. The girls that worked concessions at Hamels were all good looking, and it always made me nervous to go in there in spite of not being particularly fond of corn dogs. The meat pies always looked disgusting to me, and I was never hungry enough to try one. 

I was behind the trolley, sitting alone at one of the picnic tables quietly enjoying my corn dog and coke when Robert Della Pietra, the lead train engineer at the time, happened by. He wasn't on break, but between train runs. Technically he should have probably been at the train station, but mobility was one of the many great perks of being assigned to the train, as it was the one of the only rides where a person wasn't completely chained to their ride.

Robert walked up, took one look at the hat, looked down his long nose at me, and pointed to the hat. "Chessie System sucks."

I didn't know at first if this guy was a joker or a bullshitter.  Or perhaps just plain argumentative.  He continued his assault on my chosen rail line, until I asked him, "Do you even know what the Chessie System is?"

 "Sure it's a sorry-ass rail line that merged with the B&O in 1977."

I couldn't help but to burst into a smile because I realized right away that he was the one, the first one ever in my short life that actually understood my hat. My reaction didn't phase Robert for even a second though. He proceeded to thoroughly bash the entire rail line, and he did a good job of it because as it turned out, Robert was also a model railroader, and rail fan extraordinaire. The guy was an encylopedia of knowledge when it came to anything that rolled on steel rails.  Once we had established we were both model railroaders we naturally we hit it off right away, even though I was a sophomore at Parkway High in Bossier City and Robert was a Senior at Captain Shreve.  Social barriers aside, model railroaders were uncommon enough that when you found one, you immediately had a million things to talk about.

Robert and I found reassurance from each other with regard to trains. We were complete train fanatics in a world of mindless idiots. We were soon making weekly trips to Cooks Collectors Corner on Youree Drive in Shreveport, which was a model railroad store that was packed to the ceiling with small wonders. The shop had a million nooks and crannies, and was staffed by people who loved the hobby.  Robert and I both knew the people who ran the store.

We would also explore the railroad tracks and bridges near his mom's apartment, take pictures, and build models.  

We also spent a lot of just driving around in his new car, which was a beautiful yellow 1976 Cutlass Supreme, which had a white interior w/ bucket seats. It had a strong 350 cu motor in it, an Alpine Cassette Deck, and overall was one extremely sharp vehicle that Robert kept immaculate both inside and out.  

It was tough to not be on that train, even more so knowing that Robert's secondary engineer, Jim, wasn't really interested in trains at all. Jim was short but a ladies man to the core. He was hoping to make outside ride supervisor the next summer, which wasn't completely out of the question since Jerry had always seemed to promote his train people into the position.

The Rightful Promotion

One incredibly hot day I was operating the "Boats" when I was told that Jerry, the park manager, wanted to see me. It was a short walk from the kiddie barn to his office but I couldn't imagine what he wanted with me. I had no idea what was up- all I knew for certain was that the man frightened the be-Jesus out of me every single time I saw him. He was tall and skinny, and at 6' 2" he commanded quite a presence. He used to be a Green Beret in the Army, during the Viet Nam war. The green beret is the equivalent of today's Special Forces, except it's widely believed that the Green Beret was even more elite, after all this was a division that saw regular combat in the early 70s in Viet Nam.  He admitted to some that he had killed people with his bare hands. Although he never talked about Viet Nam to me, he would talk about his training to us whenever it suited him. He used to tell us that in training they would wake up well before dawn, run all day long with 60lbs of gear on their backs, go to sleep, and wake up the next day and run all day long again.

Once I was so scared-dumbstruck in this man's presence I found that I wasn't listening to a word he was saying. I was just staring up at him watching his lips move and the sweat bead up on his bald head. And right when I realized that I wasn't listening, I started paying attention but that is precisely the moment he choose to stop speaking. Left with a big gap of silence hanging in the air, I didn't know what to say or even if a response was expected of me. There was only one thing to do- look stupid as gracefully as possible. "What?" I asked.

Turning over the boats to my relief operator, my mind raced as I made the short walk to Jerry's office. Here I was, a kidde barn ride operator about to talk to the park manager. I was scared. I had no idea what this man could possibly have to say to a nobody like me.  I thought hard about all the things I could have possibly done wrong- had I offended a customer?  Jerry always stressed that the customer is always right. He had said if anyone was to tell a customer that they were wrong it would be him and no one else.  But it couldn't be that.  What did I do? Did I take to long on my last break? Was I being let go? I took a deep breath, knocked, entered, and sat down in his small office.  It felt nice and cool in there because it was the only air conditioned place in the entire park.  Jerry, being not only the park manager but park maintence man as well, rarely used his office and so it was usually pretty messy and often had a few greasy parts with red rags laying around. His desk was a bit disorganized and his ashtray was always full of butts and ashes.

In fact it is safe to say that Jerry was never without a cigarette, the man being an old world chain smoker who choose to roll his own. He claimed it was the environmentally friendly way to smoke, never hesitating to point out that there were no butts to clean up on the ground because the home rolled ones burn completely up after you flick them away. And he had a point there....keeping the park free of butts was the job of a full time crew of "pooper-scoopers", who used a small broom and pan to pick up small debris.

So with great fear and trepidation I sat down in front of Jerry's desk while he  leaned back in his office chair and took a long draw on his cigarette. He was staring me in the eye the whole time.  Inhaling slowly and deeply while staring at someone was his signature "psyche-out" move.  He loved to see people under pressure.  Finally he said, "Jim's becoming the outside ride supervisor next spring. Robert says you'd make a good engineer. What do you think?"

Yes! It was as if I was in a dream! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself and barely heard another word he said after that. There was only one problem and I figured I better get it out in the open quick:

"But I don't have a driver's license.", I confessed.

Jerry laughed and shook his head. He told me not to worry about it, and had me start training with Robert right away, since there were only a few months left in the fall before the park closed for the winter. Everyone else at the park was both amazed and jealous at my incredible good fortune- after all the train and the roller coaster were the two most coveted rides to be assigned to at the park. Personally I think the train was the best job of the two because it was the only ride that you got to ride while it was being operated.  It never got boring. It was also pretty fast and could be as much of a thrill ride as you wanted it to be. It could also be very relaxing if you drove it slow.  Soon everyone was well aware of the fact that I had leap-frogged every ride in the park between kiddie and rollercoaster, which generated positive comments from people I had never spoken to before, such as "Dang! How did you score that?"

I too was impressed with my good fortune. Providence had looked down upon me and smiled for once. I was going to be driving a train engine and I didn't even have a driver's license yet! Although it now seems obvious that you don't need experience behind the wheel of a car to operate a engine that follows a set of tracks, I failed to see the logic in it.

A few times over the winter Robert and I were allowed to take the train out, for practice and because we wanted to clean and polish it. We scrubbed the engine and cars as only true railfans could. Robert and I were both sons of Air Force men, but Robert completely adopted the military model for our train operation.  Perhaps it was because his father had been an officer.  There were lots of rules, and procedures, which we followed with precision.

Take for instance the first run of each day, which had to be performed without passengers. You had to charge up air tanks for brake and whistle pressure, and one person would have to wax the outside rail of every curve by hanging out the back of the last car. It kept the cars from squealing on the curves.

The Grand Failure

When spring came the park opened and I got my first real training and operating the coaches with a full load. Robert had warned me about the many perils of operating with a full load of people- most of which were related to the brakes being completely ineffective. The only brakes on the entire consist were on four steel wheels of the engine, so when there was a train full of people the train didn't stop fast at all, because of the poor traction afforded by the steel wheels on the steel rail. This is compounded my many factors, one of which was the park design, which had the train tracks coming out of a tunnel and down a long grade, which then turned into a steeper grade which then crossed a street and then came into the train station. What this meant, and I quickly found out, was that one could apply full brakes, bringing the the locomotive wheels to a complete stop, and still have practically no effect on slowing down the train. The engine would just be pushed along by the weight of all the cars behind it.

This phenomena was bad enough that even the moisture in the grass could be problematic on the final stretch so we kept that stretch cut as short as thoroughly  possible. If the grass grew long enough to get between the wheel and the rail, it was promptly smashed by the wheels into a very effective lubricant.  The morning runs could be the worst- the dew on the grass only made things worse.

It was also SOP (standard operating procedure) to back the entire train up, the entire distance, if it began to rain before one exited the tunnel, which marked the beginning of the downward slope.  The wet rails robbed the locomotive of the traction it needed to effectively stop.

On my first solo run on the train, what I needed to learn but didn't yet know, was that a partial air brake setting was more effective at stopping the train than a "full brake" setting. This seems counter-intuitive, but the train actually stopped much faster when you were able to keep the locomotive wheels in contact with the rail. Once the wheels locked up, the entire train became a sled on steel rails. Operating the train and performing a good maximum performance stop actually took a fair amount of skill.

So with this lack of skill and knowledge, I was coming into the station and had started to bleed off speed with the brakes. When I saw we were not stopping fast enough I continued to adjust the brake handle to the full open position- which allowed compressed air in a tank to flow through valves that applied the brakes. It wasn't at all like a bike or car brakes at all. Soon I was at nearly full brake application and we still were not stopping in time.  We were coming into the train station way to fast and the train wasn't slowing down at all.  The locomotive wheels had lost all traction with the rail because they were no longer spinning. I sailed into the station with Robert yelling "Let off the brakes! Let off the brakes!" This didn't make any sense to me because it was obvious I need more brakes, not less!  I thought in his panic he was shouting the wrong orders.  Not heeding his directions I continued to apply full brake, which of course did nothing to arrest our momentum. Seeing that the train wasn't going to stop in time, Robert ran to "flip up" the front board so I wouldn't crash through it. When the train came to a stop on the midway, he jumped up onto the engine and said with disgust, "I'll back it up." It was a personal low moment for me.

In time I eventually became a master at my stops, knowing how to listen for the sound that indicated the wheels had stopped spinning. We also trained for contingencies, such as a sudden loss of air pressure which would render the train brakeless. It wasn't entirely effective, but throwing the engine into reverse for a few seconds at a time while coming down the hill and into the station could bleed off speed. We practiced "reverse throttle" stops a lot that summer.  I'm sure it was hard on the gears, but we didn't care.

Another method used to communicate an emergency was to come out of the tunnel issuing a series of short toots on the whistle. This would signal to the engineer in the train station to lift up all the boards and clear the midway. The only drawback to the emergency signal was that a loss of brake air pressure also meant a loss of whistle pressure.

Chapter Three: The Grand Employees

Robert and I took turns taking the train out, leaving every 15 minutes exactly. Robert took his job as lead train engineer more seriously than anyone else in the park. We operated on schedule and had developed a system so efficient that on the really crowded days, we never had to say a word- we knew our jobs and did them professionally.

I use the word professional here because Jerry Touché hated the word "expert". I think it must have had something to do with his Green Beret days, because he had entire philpsphy on how an expert really isn't very good at anything. He said one should strive instead to be a professional. A person could never be sure if Jerry was playing mind games or not, perhaps even his wife Charollette didn't know.

We loved Charlotte Touché, Jerry's wife, was short, friendly, and supervised the park's many concession stands. My friend Ed Martin worked on her team as a "gopher", a person who did all the back breaking work for the concessions like moving ice and pop canisters. In typical Jerry Touché management style of placing people on different jobs depending solely upon their size, the biggest fellas always got chosen for that job, and Edward really enjoyed his position as it allowed him to work closely with a lot of girls from a lot of different high schools. Charlotte really like him and Ed was a park favorite among everyone.

It was because of Edward I even thought of working there. He had worked there the previous summer and had suggested to me that I give it a shot the next summer. So I did.

Edward was my best friend from 2nd grade on, mostly because he lived only two house down the street from me. His dad was in the Navy- a cook in fact. His father and mine would sometimes go finishing on Lake Bistenau or Toledo Bend, sometimes taking us along. They would wake up at 3:00 A.M. on these fishing trips, and it would still be dark an hour later while we ate breakfast at one of the greasy spoons before setting out on the lake. They would usually bring a bag of candy for Edward and I to eat while our dads drank beer. Once we were night fishing at Edward threw a small chunk of black liquorish a ways into the water, which made a "plop!" sound. "What's that?" my dad would ask, and he and Mr. Martin would immediately cast their reels in the direction of the sound.  Ed kept them going for a while before they caught on.

In fact Edward had always been a bit "wild" when we were growing up, but his rebellious nature was starting to show through in entirely new ways. For instance, when we went to the Parkway High dances, we would usually get Coke or Strawberry Icees at the neighborhood Pak-A-Sack and mix it with rum or whisky, which ever we could sneak from our parent's liquor cabinets. We would drink the concoction on the way to the dance, for courage. It never really worked though because we never did much dancing. We bumped into an policeman once as we were walking to the dance. We had finished our drinks, and I was content to just say hi to the policeman, but Edward started up a conversation. Soon the policeman said, "You guys have been drinking."

"Yes sir." Edward replied, looking down at his feet..

"Well....when I was your age I did the same thing. Now go get on in there. Don't get into any trouble."

It was my first good lesson in dealing with the police- don't lie to them. If they think you're BS-ing them, and they know it, you're screwed. I've seen it a thousand times if I've seen it once. Honesty is always your best bet.

If only he knew what awaited us, he might have hauled us straight to jail and left us there to rot.

On that particular dance, Edward's older sister, Anne, happened to be a senior at Parkway and had driven her dad's 1972 Silver Monte Carlos to the dance. It was a huge car with a hood that stretched out about 9 feet. We saw her there and she asked Edward to watch her purse while she danced. Edward told me to follow him so we went out to the car with Annes purse. He started it up and said, "Let's go for a drive!". Well even though neither of us had a drivers license, and even though we had both been drinking, it seemed like a great idea. His driving was amazing- he wasn't intimidated by the car or any obstacle out there. He wasn't afraid to drive hard and fast, weaving the car back and forth just for the hell of it. Up and down the subdivision streets we races, hitting 50 MPH as we wedged, weaved, and dodged parked cars. I was sincerely surprised when we finally made it back to the school and we hadn't crashed. We were lucky because this was a time when no one wore seat belts and air bags hadn't been invented yet. His sister never noticed the car had been taken out.

One day Edward's mom found a handful of ride tickets in a drawer in Edward's room. She was so upset that she made Edward confess to Charollette and Jerry, who had no choice but to let him go- stealing park ride tickets was a supreme no-no. I hated to see that happen, Charolette went to great lengths to try to keep him, but Milton Hamel, the park owner had a strict rule and didn't want to start making exceptions. It affected me directly because until then I had been hitching a ride to the park with Edward and his sister Susan, who also worked there and could drive. I would have to start riding my bike (about 40 min each way) there or have mom or dad drive me.

The time Robert and I got a beer from the Dairy while doing a maintence day on the train.

the many times he got in trouble.

It was the start of Edward's "wild years", which saw him through a lot of trouble.

That was when Ron Della Pietra started, Robert's younger brother by 2 years. Ron attended Captain Shreve in Shreveport with Robert, and had a pretty wide wild streak.

Edward taking tickets.

Ron starting the park, train.

Ron becoming gopher.

Robert's younger brother, Ron applied at the park and was also placed on the train. Ron was the complete anti-Robert: Everything that Robert was, Ron was not. And vice versa. They were perfect opposites. Robert and his brother had an odd relationship- they had no problem arguing amongst themselves, but don't let an outsider speak bad of either one of them to the other!

Robert had a myriad of ways he would use to try to piss Ron off. He would walk around sing the Simon and Garfunkle song, "I'd rather be a hammer, than a nail...." except he had changed the words and would sing, "I'd rather be a Robert, than a Ron....yes I would....yes I really would....if I only could...." Coming up with new lyrics to songs was one of Roberts many talents.

But it didn't stop there- every time Robert went to the john, he would proclaim, "Excuse me, but I've got to go take a RON."

But their bathroom humor went both ways.

Every time Ron would proudly announce that he had to "download", Robert would proclaim to anyone within earshot, "Ron doesn't wipe......he SMEARS." And Ron, every time he pissed in a toilet, would exclaim, "Damn that water's cold!" as if he could somehow feel it.

One thing they did have in common is their talent as supreme bullshitters. They were both just smart enough to BS most people on just about anything.

Ron had his ways of getting back at Robert though, most of them crude and disgusting. For instance, Ron could literally fart on command, and often commanded himself to do so. He loved to take his cigarette lighter (he smoked) and light his farts. Well, he said he could but I was always to disgusted to even watch. I was usually trying to get away.  

Ron also loved burping as loudly and as forcefully as possible. He would save up a really big one and get right up in Roberts face and let out huge disgusting burps. Personally, I couldn't stand Ron at first. It took many years to begin to appreciate his unque brand of humor.

The Della Pietra brothers and myself operated the train with Robert as the lead engineer. Soon we started going out after work, driving around in Robert's 1976 Cutlass Salon singing Beatles songs until our voices were shot.  He loved that car and it was stunning, the previous owner was a doctor.

Because we loved cruising to Beatles songs, Robert was always making great Beatles cassettes from his vast Beatles albums collections, and although I hadn't been a Beatle fan before, I was hooked now. I had never realized how many of the songs that had been "redone" by various artists were in fact written by the Lennon / McCartney team. Every change we could we would get a six pack of beer and drive around town singing and laughing.

Robert's entire outlook on life fascinated me- I had never before met someone who seemed to know EXACTLY what he was going to do with his life, and his goals were high.  No one else I had met in Louisiana had as lofty goals as Robert: He was going to be an Air Force Thunderbird Pilot. And that was all there was to it.  It sounds ludicrous but Robert's convictions were very serious to him. He didn't joke about it and it as as certain of a fact to me as it was to him. I knew that if I had ever met anyone in my life that could make it that far, that it had to be Robert. He was smart and quick witted and had the vision of an eagle.  

At Hamels Park, it seemed that most of the promotions to the top spot, outside ride supervisor, came from the train. So once Jim moved on to greener pastures, Robert was selected by Jerry to be the next outside ride supervisor. He was torn- he loved driving the train. But a shot at the top spot was something no one turned down. The outside ride supervisor made ride assignments everyday, and granted breaks and vacations. Best of all, it was pure freedom to spend the day walking around the park, talking to people.

Robert made a great outside ride supervisor. It was in his blood to command, his father being in the Air Force as a Major. His dad was in the Guinness Book of World Records in fact, for being the Radar Navigator on a B-52 that circumvented the globe. You could tell Robert and Ron really respected their dad on one level, but it was tough on them because their dad basically abandoned the family a few years earlier. He never showed a lick of interest in seeing them, choosing to remain in the Air Force stationed at a base in California. His wife, Janet, divorced him and moved to Louisiana a couple of years ago.

With Robert running the park, Ron and I were left to operate the train. We added another fella to the train, a relatively new fella named Tony Prather. Tony was witty and cynical, and fit right in. We soon found out that Tony also shared our love for drinking, and he was promptly added to the group. With a Cutlass Supreme filled to four, we were the Beatles, complete. Robert was John Lennon, obviously. I was Paul, Tony was George, and Ron was Ringo Star. It was perfect and we all loved out parts. Robert made us learn our harmonies and we were only allowed to sing the parts where our counterpart was singing. In time we got very good at it and decided to try it with real guitars. It just so happened that I had a Bass Guitar and old amp, and Robert had a guitar. We bought the Beatles sheet music and began to teach ourselves the songs for real. Being new at guitars, we mostly sucked. But it was great loads of fun.

Six Flags Over Texas Concert

Fishing w/ Frank the night before?

Robert read that a group of professional Beatle Impersonators were going to be giving a concert at the Six Flags over Texas amusement park on the far side of Dallas Texas, and that we should go. It was a great road trip out there, about a 4 hour drive straight west down I-20. They were playing twice that day, and Robert was hoping that we could make both concerts. It was a speedy trip to Dallas, as Robert wasn't one to hold back.

We didn't make the first show, but the second show was scheduled just before dusk. We got there early and the concert was great- even better than we had hoped for. It wasn't crowded, so we were able to sit in the front row. Robert pointed out that the fella playing the part of Paul in the band was even playing the bass guitar left handed. Amazing. After the concert we stopped in a souvenir store and bought a couple of hillbilly  hats....somehow the looked cool sitting on the wall underneath the track lighting but the minute we got out of the store and put them on I knew they were all wrong for us. I hated wearing mine, but never told Robert. The hats were not cheap either, nearly $20 a piece for them.

On the long drive back, Robert told me to drive because he was tired- said he had been up all the night before. That was bad news for me, because I was dog tired from having been out drinking the entire night before with my friend Frank, and it had now been more than 24 hours since I had slept. He insisted, what could I do? Normally it was a great honor to be allowed to drive Robert's car. How was he going to feel if I wrecked it? So I drove. Staying awake for that long drive back was the physical equivalent of lifting 500 lbs. I struggled the whole way, as everyone else slept to the soothing voice of Jim Reeves, whom Robert loved almost as much as the Beatles. He was never without a few homemade Jim Reeves cassettes.

"Put your sweet lips, ever closer, to the phone...."

The Grand Excursion

The Dallas run had been such a successful road trip that it inspired Robert to begin hatching the plans for another outing, one that would appeal to our psyche on many levels because it combined our love for trains with our love for exploring. Best of all, it was sneaky and illegal.

Robert had figured out that the Kansas City Southern freights that pull out of the KCS yards make a long slow turn to the South along Barksdale Blvd, and were then committed to a journey to Alexandria, Louisiana, where there existed another KCS classification yard. To take this train south all we would have to do it wait for one to come creeping around the curve, where it had to go slow and where neither the engineer or cabooseman could see the outside of middle of the train. It was a perfect blindspot- the perfect plan. Because Alexandria is about 4 hours south, we had all told our parents we were spending the night with each other.

All we had to do was wait near that broad 90 degree curve that ran under the I-20 overpass, where the train always crept slowly, look for an open container car, and hop on. It was well thought-out, Robert had the maps, timings, every conceivable detail was carefully considered.

It took a couple of evenings to hit it right, but in time a slow KCS freight could be heard in the distance just as we were returning to where Robert had left his car parked. We were a ways from the tracks and catching that train meant hauling ass. We tore out, across a street and through a parking lot, which unfortunately attracted the attention of a passing police car. He couldn't understand why 4 teenagers appeared to be running for their life.

The policeman drove over and stopped us. It seemed obvious to me, that since we were running directly for the train, that we were going to hop on it. But the bossier city policeman hadn't put it together, hadn't made the connection. So Tony thought up an alternate lie, one that sounded good at first but as we soon found out beckoned its own further line of questioning. Tony told the man that we were being chased by "some kids". The policeman had plenty of questions and the whole time the train is creaking by, not 40 years away. We convinced the policeman we were fine, and acted like we were walking away. It worked because the policeman drove off and we then high-tailed it over to the train, where it was remarkably still rounding the curve.

It was just beginning to get dark when we staggered out at fixed intervals, and took turns climbing on the steel ladder of a scrap iron car. It was an open-top car that was about 1/2 full of scrap iron. We had to stay down until we cleared the city, because if we were spotted someone could report it to the police who would contact the railroad. I got a little angry with Ron, who kept poling his head up and looking around, especially right as we were passing the entrance to Shady Grove, where my parents lived. I was also a little angry with Ron wearing nothing more than a long-sleeved shirt, it was 50 degrees and dropping and we were going to be in a 50 MPH wind for over 4 hours. He was always deciding to not wear a jacket and then being the first to complain about how cold it was. I had several shirts and a jacket on, so I was able to give Ron my jacket for the 2nd half of the trip. I was cold, but strangely my upper lip was sweating the whole time.

The entire journey I never once saw the engines or the caboose. It was a strange sensation riding a train in the dark that you can't see the beginning or end of. It stopped once in the middle of nowhere, and you could hear a pin drop. We had to be very quiet because there was always the slim chance that we had been spotted and the engineer was walking the train.

We pulled into the Alexandria classification yard a little after 4:00 A.M. The train came to a complete stop and we wasted no time departing- it felt great to be out of that relentless wind, which had nearly frozen us all to death. We climbed off and decided to head for the downtown area in search of a payphone and diner, where we could get a bite to eat. It was prearranged that Carson Swindle, one of Robert's friends from Captain Shreve, would drive out and pick us up and drive us back once he got the "thumbs up" phone call. When Robert made the call, Carson's mom answered the phone. Robert asked to speak to Carson, and his request was granted. But because of the absurd hour of the night, Carson's mom was concerned that something was wrong so she never hung up the phone on her end. Among other things, she heard Robert tell Carson, "We made it. We're in Alexandria- come and get us. We're at a Stacys at the corner of Jackson and State."

Four hours later, we were expecting Carson to pull up into the parking lot. We just happened to be out in the diner parking lot, dancing actually, when our jaws totally dropped- it was Robert's mom! She was driving her car, and Carson was in the passenger seat. She was mad as hell. It was a long, long, quiet trip back to Shreveport. Robert's mom, Janet, had made it clear that she was calling our parents to let them know what we had done. Being a Saturday morning, I knew mom and dad would be at the farm until late that evening. Grandma was home- maybe Janet could tell Grandma and I could "re-educate" grandma after Janet called, which is just what I tried to do. I figured it would be easy to confuse Grandma with enough half-truths that by the time she mentioned it to mom or dad, it would sound perfectly insane.

But when Janet called the house later that afternoon, she wasn't entirely satisfied just having related this to my grandmother- she made it a point to call back later. After she got in touch with dad, they agreed to meet in a few hours. Dad was saying he had notified the "railroad police" and that they were on the way. Janet drove over with Robert and Ron.

Janet, being an officers wife, had a very bold personality. She spoke slowly, and loudly.

She said, "Mr. and Mrs. Trainer, I just wanted you to know what sort of a JACKASS stunt these boys decided to pull last night."

She made Robert confess in front of everyone that the entire thing was his crazy idea and that as the oldest one in the group he should have known better. She dressed him down pretty good and it was extremely uncomfortable there for all us there for a while.

Lucky for me dad drinks a lot of beer because he offered Janet one, and she accepted. I knew then that the end of this horrible nightmare was in sight.

As it turned out, Janet had a lot in common with my parents. They each had lives that revolved around the Air Force for most of their lives. Soon they were drinking beer and laughing and dad even let it slip that he had done the same thing when he was a kid. He drove home the point how one of us could have lost a leg or been cut in half. Janet and my parents hit it off that night, and if nothing else they all had become new friends.

Which in some ways was worrisome- now Janet wouldn't hesitate to double check our facts with mom and dad. The all-night excursions would have to stop. For a while anyway.

After work me, Robert, Ron, and Tony went to the nearest Pak-A-Sak and got a couple of six packs of Old Milwaukee, Robert's favorite. It's not that we only drank beer Robert liked, its simply that none of the rest of us had a preference for any particular brand. Old Milkwee always went down smooth and tasted best when it was ice cold, which is why Robert's car was never without a cooler. Best of all, Old Milwaukee was dirt cheap, $2.15 for a six pack of 12 oz. cans.

Things would get a little wild now and then- while jamming to the Beatles tune "Ticket to Ride" lone Friday night we thought it would be cool to sit hanging out the window, holding on to the roof. Driving around like that got the attention of a Shreveport cruiser pretty darn fast on Mansfield Road.  He pulled us over and seemed beside himself with anger as he approached. He was thoroughly irate and yelling, "What in hell do you think you are, a bunch of damn dogs!?" I knew when the yelling continued for more than 30 seconds that we were getting off. Otherwise he'd be filling out one form or the other. Or telling us to get out of the car.  But it didn't come to that because his walkie-talkie jumped interrupted us with a serious female voice, the police dispatcher. Something about a man chasing a woman with a knife. The policeman pointed to us and said, "Go home. If I catch you out again tonight, you're going to jail."

As the policeman sped away in his patrol car, Robert threw his nose in the air and said, "We'll just drive in BOSSIER. Ha ha!"

So that is what we did. And it was a darn good thing we did because while driving down a street in a residential area that contained a house of a girl one of us were interested in, we noticed flames on one of the roofs. Robert notified the owner who started dousing the flames, which were still pretty small- it looked like embers from his chimney had ignited a spot of tar. Robert even jumped on the roof and used the garden hose to douse the flames. Ironic that the house saved that night, was the house of a policeman.

We made a huge circuit around Bossier City. After making a swing past my house in Shady Grove, we were driving on Shady Grove Blvd. as Robert slowly began to pass two girls in the right lane. But he stayed back in their blind spot, a great position because you can watch the other driver and the passenger and they have to turn completely around to see you. Robert toyed with them and you could tell the girls were trying to subtly maneuver so that we had to pass them. Robert was always quick to come up with mind tricks, so he said, when I give the word, snap your head to the left and look completely away, so they can't see your face. Sure enough, just as we began to slide past the girls, just as they started to look over Robert shouted, "Now!" and we turned and looked away as we passed. This was classical Robert, getting the upper hand and denying the other a chance to even know how badly they had been taken.

Since we were all military dependants, we could even cruise around on base. W all had base ID cards and Robert's car had a base sticker- a blue one in fact because his father was an officer. The blue stickers always got the formal salutes at the gates upon base entrances. The yellow ones represented NCO, which is what my family's cars had. The dark brown ones were reserved for airmen, the newbies. Barksdale Air Force Base is 80,000 acres, one of the largest Air Force bases in the world, home of the SAC 8th Headquarters, home to B-52s and KC-135s.

As we were entering the base, an interesting thing happened. The MP saw the car was full of teenagers and gave the normal wave to continue on the base. Robert immediately slammed on the brakes. Right away, you saw the MP begrudgingly begin to give the formal salute, and an ice cold stare as Robert proceeded on base. Robert said, "He dammed well better salute! He is supposed to be saluting the STICKER, not who is in the car!" Robert had balls of steel, he wasn't afraid to tell a MP how to conduct his job.

His unflinching reaction should have come as no surprise though, as Robert was an expert on all things related to the Air Force. Deep down both of us knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would someday be an officer in the Air Force. It was my dream as well, although unlike Robert, I had some doubts as to whether or not I was really up to being an officer. I had just started high school and college still seemed a million miles away.

School for Robert and Ron was one of trouble and misdeeds. These boys lived for practical jokes. The loved to call the payphone in the cafeteria hall at their school, from home, knowing that the group that hung out on that side of the cafeteria were all black, and ask things such as, "Hello? Hello? Are there any black people there? I need to speak to a black person...." He would infuriate whoever was on the other end because they just didn't know enough to hang up.

Robert and Ron both hated Captain Shreve and to show it, they decided to let a small collection of white lab mice out in the cafeteria. It caused pandemonium and the unfortunate death of the mice. The authorities never did find out who was behind it all.

When Robert found out his mother's telephone at her insurance office could connect two parties, he used play pranks on various establishments whenever he had a moment alone with the phone. He would call a Pizza Hut in Bossier, and while it was ringing call a Pizza Hut in Shreveport, so it was as if they called each other. Robert would laugh like a hyena relating the conversation between the two poor saps. This was way before caller id was invented.

Robert had a lot of stereo gear for making 8-tracks and cassettes. So one evening Robert decided he would "borrow" one of the main 8-track tapes that Hamels uses for the music on its Merry Go Round and replace a section of a song with a very carefully chosen lyric from a Frank Zappa song. The name of the song was, "Titties 'n Beer" which had a section of the song where the song title is repeated about 4 times in a row. He was very excited and insisted I hear it, but the kiddie barn during regular house is still way to noisy for anyone to be able to make out what is being said.

Ron had Robert topped however, when it came to outdoing each other in the disgusting department. Robert would draw the line at anything that made him look disgusting as well. For instance, Ron's signature tricks all involved farting, usually in confined spaces. He loved to "leave one behind" when he got off elevators, and always waited until he was in the car to fart.

I thought Ron had crossed the line one afternoon when we were staying at a camphouse on Lake Bistenau. We were swimming in the lake in the waist deep section not to far from shore, when Tony began screaming like a little girl and thrashing about in the water. Tony was never one to hold back on screaming like a little girl, so it didn't fully alarm me right away. I couldn't make out what Tony was screaming about but Robert had picked up on sure enough. He looked at me in alarm with wide eyes and quickly yelled, "Ron laid a turd in the water and it's chasing Tony!" We all got out of the water.

Ron was the youngest of the four of us but because he was bigger than anymore else he looked the oldest. When we went to see R-rated movies we would send Ron in first because he wasn't 17, and if he got carded at least the rest of us hadn't paid yet. But he always got in. The rest of us would get carded, but we were just old enough. In spite of his age, Ron drank like a Navy sailor. He could drink a lot, but he always got to drunk, that boy never once knew when to quit. I lost track of the number of times we would have to carry him back. But when he was drunk there was absolutely nothing he wouldn't do.

At this time I had become taken with one of the kiddie ride concession workers, LeAnn Burlback. She was very nice, and pretty as well. Her driving was horrible though, one of those drivers who never really seems to know where the center of the road is, and as a result simply bounces back and forth between the lines. We would so somewhere, park, and kiss for hours on end, slobber practically drooling off our chin, but it was great fun. She was the girl that occupied my mind as we drove around night after night practicing our Beatles harmonies. We would stop at the picnic tables between the parking lot and the zoo fence, turn the car around so that the rear was facing the tables, open the trunk, Robert would disable the trunk light, and we would turn up the volume to concert levels as we danced and sang on the picnic tables.

It sounds unlikely, but a strange thing began to happen at the park. A strong "Beatle" following developed. Stories of our after-work escapades were spreading and it turned out that everyone wanted in on a piece of the action. People would take to driving by the Hamels Parking lot after work, hoping to catch us there. On a typical Friday or Saturday night, it wasn't uncommon to have a small crowd of Hamels Park employees, partying in the lot, drinking beer, and dancing.

Sometimes we'd be spotted by someone we wanted to ditch, like John Fant. He was an OK guy but for some reason Robert didn't like him. If John Fant ever spotted us driving around he would follow us. So Robert always had to lose him, at any cost. Robert had a move he had perfected that worked only at night but almost always threw people off. Near Hamels park, if a person developed a small lead on the chaser, you could take a hard right around a wooden fence that kept a group of horses confined to a small pasture, and proceed down the road to the hill, where the maintence barn and dairy resided. To the left of this road was a levy, built by the Army Core of Engineers back in the 1940s to prevent the Red River from flooding valuable cropland. Robert would round the corner with the wooden fence and shut off his lights and actually drive sideways up the levee until he was up on top of it, where he would continue to barrel down until he got to the dairy, where he would pull in one of the drive up stalls and wait with his lights off. It was a scary maneuver, which is why we all always wore our seat belts in Robert's car. In fact Robert was the first person I had ever met who always insisted they everyone wear their seat belts in his car. I came to realize that it just wasn't for safety, it was so you wouldn't come flying out of your seat with all the crazy driving Robert did.

Take for instance the the hill the where the park dairy and maintaince shop resided. The road that came around the dairy made a sharp turn downward as the road led into one of the park's parking lots. Robert would routinely ramp his car off this hill, and a few times we were practically airborne and struck the ground so hard that you could hear the bottom of the car scraping the pavement.

One of the outside ride concession workers, Shelia Hackerl, had taken a strong liking to me. She told everyone that would listen- her co-workers, her sister, Charoltte, is was pretty embarrassing to have such a public affair before I had even had a chance to participate in it. Everyone would stop by the train station and ask, "Shelia wants to know what she can do to make you like her." What an approach- were we suppose to simply have this relationship completely through other people?

I found out she lived in the trailer park near the Hot Wheels skating rink, which was on my way home so I wound up driving her home a few times, and we would stop and park. I didn't really care for Shelia, at least not like she cared for me, so I resisted letting myself get to involved with her. She was quite a character though, and very strong- one day when it was raining outside we had Boys PE in the girls gym, where we just sat on the bleachers and watched the girls finish a kickball game. Shelia was dressed out and her team was up. On her turn at bat, she kicked the ball so hard it flew through the air and bounced off the far wall of the gym and sailed half way back before it hit the floor. Every single guy in the bleachers was blow away. "Damn!" someone let out. I don't think any of the guys in my gym class could have pulled that off. It was a hell of a kick. And because Shelia had been letting everyone at Parkway know that I was a taken man, someone in the bleachers with me teased, "That's your woman Trainer! Don't piss her off or she'll kick your ass!"

When Shelia found out that Ed Martin was one of my closest friends since Childhood, she sought him out for advice on how to win me over. So Ed told Shelia if she wanted to get her way with me, she would have to get me drunk on Jim Beam, which is something Ed and I had shared on a few occasions, to excess. It was the very next Friday night as I was driving her home she pulled out a unopened pint of Jim Beam.

"How did you get that?" I asked.

"Ed Martin got it for me!" she said as she smiled and held up the bottle next to her face.

Dang that son of a.....Ed Martin was not helping me at all here, I had explained to him I wasn't interested in dating this girl and here he was helping her out. Edward wasn't old enough to buy liquor but it didn't seem to stop him- you had to be 18 and Edward looked old enough. Other times he would talk his older sister Ann into buying it, or an older friend we had named Greg Matchuka who lived right down the street could always be counted on.

I drank some of the booze that night, and we made out a little bit but I didn't let things get out of hand because then I'd never be able to shake her. I had my eye on a few other girls, who had also started looking my way.  The last thing I needed was to be saddled.

I was having such a good time working at the Park that I convinced my good friend Frank Mastrilli to apply. He was accepted right away and started working the outside rides. He would join Robert, Ron, Tony, and me out on more than a few occasions, but Robert and Ron felt the Beatles we completed at 4, and that the only role for Frank to play was Pete Best, they guy who got kicked out of the Beatles early on. I really liked Frank, he was a sincere, honest, and pleasant person (the same couldn't always be said about Robert or Ron) but the beer we drank would go straight to his head and he'd be out of it fairly quickly. Robert and Ron seemed to spare no expense poking fun at him, nicknaming him "Hair" because Frank once mentioned he was operating the YoYo one afternoon, and due to the advantageous angle of the seats swinging through the air, actually saw some "hair" on one of the more babely female adult patrons.

Their nickname for me also stupid, "pu" (pronounced pooh) which they said was short for puss. I didn't like it because people who heard me called that would always ask you what it meant, did I stink or something but how can you explain something like that, I just couldn't bring myself to say that word around girls so it was always an uncomfortable moment when it came up in public. Also, it just seemed trite and unimaginative. I never felt singled out though, because they had equally disgusting words for all their friends.

When Robert was being pleasant, he would call his brother, "Brother Ron!", spoken in Louisiana Ebonics form. The rest of the time Robert would rotate nick names for Ron at the rate of about one a week, replacing the previous one when he had something new on Ron.

It horrified me to hear how they spoke to their mother- I had never heard anything like it. For starters, they called their mom "Free". Not "mom", not "Janet", Free. They said it meant "stupid" in Swahili and that described their mom. She knew this but never seemed to care one way or the other- the relationship between the boys and their mom was more like that of apartment mates than family, especially given the language and subject matter they used around their mom.

****

Ron's named for Robert changed daily, but they were mostly a mix of curse words and bodily functions.

LeAnn Burlbach

Berry Shackleford

Shelia Hackeral

Laura Lee

Gayle Green

Lisa Abrahms

Laurie Jeter

Getting the Nova

Frank Rollercoaster setup

Ed Martin

For a while, Ed Martin hung out with us, whom Robert cristened our Manager, .. As usual it was a good fit. We usually didn't travel with 5 though, which put 3 people in the backseat because Robert's front seats were leather bucket seats.

Frank - time we threw all the lawn chairs into the pool.

Tony "She's a cow!"

Tony disabling the train locomotive.