Hi, John -
What's an old fart like you doing on a nice website like this? I thought only Tom was older than me, and am pretty sure I have Roj beat by at least a year. I figured that your shots of Alamosa in December '61 were done on your way home from a ski trip during your freshman year in high school!!
Good questions as to what is worth trying to save and what is not. (Is snot?) Other than a few books like "Age of Steam" and "Pictorial Supplement to DSP&P" (both '59) and "Colorado Midland ('65), most of my RR collection is probably of little interest to anyone other than me - except that I was lucky enough to be on vacation in Colorado in late August, 1968 and able to catch the last D&RGW freights over Cumbres on August 28 & 29 ...
A few of my shots are almost as good as yours & Tom's, and some of them are probably of historical value and therefor worth donating to a museum - but which one? And I have a dozen or so 6x7 cm shots of the Freedom Train (one of which is good enough to have been the cover shot for CedCo's 'Magnificent Trains' calendar in '97) that were taken when I was a volunteer hostler / steam cleaner / mechanic's helper in 1975-76 that are even more problematic. They were taken in nine different states over a five-month period. Should the few good ones be divided up - one to Nebraska, two to Utah, one each to Idaho, Oregon and Washington, three to California, one each to Arizona & New Mexico and four to Texas - or should they be kept as a set? If the latter, then where to send them???
Except for two double-headed Greer (aka "Jeffrey") spikes from the RGS, I don't have much else of value other than the few books and photos described above - the other 99.44% of my stuff is junk. Is it worthwhile for me to even try to find a repository, or will the screen saver we are working on be about as good a "permanent" record of my life as an intermittent foamer as any old geezer can hope for?
- Russo de los Locos (Curmudgeon of the Conejos)
