Thanks Rich,
I had an incredibly interesting childhood. I was raised on a horse ranch near Tucson, Arizona with my father and grandfather. But, after my parents separated I was bouncing between Tucson and Hollywood. where my mother lived and remarried. It was two different universes. My Mom always knew I had an interest in railroading and my Father knew I loved flying. Mom bought me my first HO engine which was the TEXAS. I still have it. I met many interesting people in Hollywood as a kid, but it just was not my lifestyle. I much preferred life on the ranch. However, while in Hollywood, I did become friends with Johnny Crawford (Mark McCain on the Rifleman series). John was working with DelFi records at the time so he would come over to our house and we became friends. John portrayed a boy living in the old west on the TV show, and I was actually living it in Arizona. We also found a mutual interest in Will Rogers. John would bring a projector over to our home and he and I would watch old Will Rogers films together. This was in the days before video tapes and DVDs. He also had a couple horses at a nearby stable near Griffith Park, and we often went riding. John was an interesting guy. It is a little known fact that after the Rifleman ended and work with DelFi finished, he went on the rodeo circuit for awhile. I guess we became friends because he portrayed on TV life in the west, and I got to live it.
As fate would have it, EUREKA was owned at that time by Warner Bros Studios, and appeared in films also. In fact, the last motion picture it was used in was John Wayne's last movie, The Shootist. It appears in a distant shot near the beginning of the film even though they filmed with it for about a week. Oh well, film editors just do not have an appreciation for mechanical artifacts.
There were a lot of other people I got to meet there, but those stories are for another time.
Dan Markoff
