Re: C&TS 40th Anniversary Slide Shows

I have so far only watched several of the many fine videos, with their fascinating views of the earliest days of the C&TS, but also with some sadness.

I don't know how nor when I met John Prichard; it had to have been after early July, 1979, when my wife, Resident Brat, and I moved from Crested Butte, Colorado, to Eldorado, a development on a former cattle ranch outside of Santa Fe, NM.

John had by then left the Los Alamos National Laboratory, moved to Eldorado, and started a consulting business on industrial respiratory protection; he was so well-versed on this that he was accepted as an expert witeness in courts around the United States.

John and I had several interesting conversations about his work on saving the railroad. As I learned about his profession, I began convincing him to join the Eldorado Fire & Rescue Service, the fire department I had started. He finally consented, we trained him in how the fire service used Self-Contained Breathng Apparatus (SCBA), and I turned that part of our training program over to John. This is mentioned in my online early history of the fire department, although not by his name; given the number of people who interfered with the formation of the department, many of them illegally, and how many of them are still around, I left out all names in the history.

Out of respect for John, I will refrain from any discussion of how he went into a terrible personal decline, leading to his death a number of years ago.