Philip Spiess

Which brings us to the puerile elementary school joke:

Q.:  What well-known seasonal figure is brought to mind by a cat walking on the beach?

A.:  Sandy Claws.

[High school version:

Q.:  Why will you never starve at the beach?

A.:  Because of the sand-which-is there.]

[College version:

Q.:  Where do you get the driest martinis in town?

A.:  At the sand bar.]

Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

Those were groaning puns. Excellent, I enjoyed them. 

Jon Singer

GRACEFULLY ESCORTED FROM A MUSIC LESSON

On the runways of my first decade of paper craft,

My airplane assemblies were of generic cover stock,

Point-0-seven millimeters and twenty-pound everyday

Writing/typewriting paper not particularly bonded for flight.

I'd pinch and re-crease the flexible sheet along its lengthy axis

Then modify the leading edge to create the pilotless cockpit.

The second symetrical flap-fold gave birth to the dynamic wings.

The last flip and exalting fold conferred the up-drafting potential.

If to be directed at my sibling's eyes, I'd first blunt the tip,

Otherwise, I'd grasp the central body and only briefly pause

To calculate the coefficients of friction against the wind.

Then I'd fling the construct as a dart, unparallel to mother earth

Knowing the flight could be fanciful up-tempo, or sorrowfully flat.

Resolutely bored, but quite spirited, I purposed the program notes

And fashioned the rectangular high-resolute card stock into a dynamic rocket.

In homage to misbehavior, I exhaultingly launched thefanciful composition

On the downbeat, surrounded by my fifth-grade field-tripping colleagues

From the recess of the third floor Venitian-Gothic symphony balcony.

She immediately descended, thoughtfully stopped, languishing beside the chandelier

Where, for more than an instant, she enuciated her majestic presence to all.

Unable to suppress gravity longer, she collapsed into a prolonged and sorrowful spiral

Before accelerating suddenly toward the stage, landing at performer's foot.

I couldn't discern if it was upon the caressed appendage of the oboist or bassoonist,

As I was gently escorted from the remainder of Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf.

My best to all, Jon

Paul Simons

Bravo Jon! Your poem made my lunch far more enjoyable than it could have been without it! My only quibble is with the phrase "suppress gravity." I think your plane was able to escape or evade gravity but nothing can suppress it. These days people are out to suppress votes and voting, but even with their pristine heritage and billionaire-funded foundation they can't suppress gravity. How do I know this? Neil DeGrasse Tyson told me! 
But all kidding aside that youthful rebellion against - some might even say disrespect for  - cultural norms and authority sure made life interesting. But when it dominates the adult personality there can be hell to pay. 
I just read your poem aloud which we know is how it should be done with poetry and that magnified the experience. Again thanks!

Philip Spiess

Jon:

It's clear (since you wrote the poem many years after the event) that this incident at a Young Persons' Concert had been either a moment of triumph or of trauma -- or possibly both.  Undoubtedly Music Hall, dark and Gothic as it was in those days, may have lent a certain depressing atmosphere to a rather captive event; certainly Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, charming as the music may be, can drive a thoughtful youth into a tizzy (or do I mean a frenzy?), given that a narrator has to explain the extremely simple story and how the oboes carry out this theme and the bassoons carry out that.  Lacking the Walt Disney cartoon accompanying the music, the whole thing can be pretty much of a bust.  Hence the launching of a Wright Brothers Special.

But I would suggest a more psychological motive for your very plane effort:  you were listening to an orchestral work, and you managed to land your missile at the foot of an orchestral performer (possibly performing on the oboe, or hautboy, as Shakespeare would have it, an ill wind that nobody blows good).  Here, then, is the cause of your fit of pique and ennui, and the reason for your animus:  when it comes to music, YOU are not an orchestra enthusiast -- you are a Singer!

[I may just note, in this context, that, in my early adulthood, I was going to try to make paper airplanes commercially -- much like paper kites -- and thus I formed, as the basis of the business, an origami factory -- but the whole thing folded.]

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Curious about why, for many months, notifications from our class webpage had not sent out notifications of upcoming birthdays, messages, etc. via email.  All of a sudden last week, they started again and today, Nelson's post about his birthday (happy 78th) and his and Cindy's 56th anniversary!  Congratulations!! You two are blessed.  
I too, got married on my birthday.  Ed never forgot! 

Dale Gieringer

Ann -  I was wondering the same thing.  I miss the nudge the website used to send me when a new post had arrived,   What happened?   

Jeff Daum

Dale, you mght want to check your setting.  I get still the email notification each time a new post is put up (like yours ).

Thomas Lounds Jr.

Hi to all.  Just raising my head from Helene's hell here in Spartanburg, SC after 9 days without power. Hope you survived well.  Before I was so rudely interrupted, I wanted to thank Philip for keeping us going with his scholarship, most recently about Music Hall.  For what it is worth, I seemed to be in a position to add an unusual additional perspective to that history. You see, my late parents, kindly Cora and Thomas, were employees of the large Music Hall Ballroom ( known as the Graystone in the black community in those days) and as an only child, I got to know that place pretty well  

You need to remember that before TV took over the entertainment business, individual stars, Big Bands, comedy teams, etc. toured the country by train, bus, car and so forth.  When those stars--some going up,  others  going down, "played" Cincinnati, they would often appear at the Music Hall ballroom.  Some were even booked by the larger Cincinnati social, civic or fraternal groups, all of which were segregated, often as their "big event of the year".  Often, for those big events, my parents would take me along to see the "star" although I had to remain out of sight  a good deal of the time because, as you might imagine, it was a totally adult environment  in every respect. However, as such it was my introduction , as only a seventh grade student, to almost the full range of adulthood, especially when liquor is involved.

Yes, I saw-often met- many stars. Some I remember, most I have forgotten in 70 or so years.   Harry James, Billie Holliday, The Maguire (?) Sisters . Ray Charles  I  even witnessed a fist fight between two members of Ray Charles' band while people were dancing.  On the public side,  I saw some famous stars and Cincinnati names--men and women--at their best and some at their worse, often miserably drunk.

Boy, if the walls of the Music Hall ballroom could talk!

Paul Simons

Jazz at Music Hall must have been terrific! I got to hear a country show with Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, and Boots Randolph there, even got to shake hands with Mr. Atkins but the big thrill for me there was hearing Bob Dylan with The Band in about 1966. They were doing something that hadn't been done before and so the atmosphere was electric figuratively and literally. Good to hear from you Mr. Lounds, but a damn shame that much of the country doesn't seem to have done so well in science class.

Philip Spiess

STONE LIONS, STONE EAGLES:  Petrified Creatures from Cincinnati’s Past

Two Academic Lions:  Although many of us did not attend the University of Cincinnati, almost all of us are surely familiar with the two guardian marble lions of McMicken Hall at the University:  “Mick and Mack.”  Once they faced each other, but now they face away (did they argue?).  Most people are aware that the one on the left, as you face McMicken Hall, is “Mick,” and the one on the right is “Mack.”  And everyone is pretty sure that “Mick” is named after Charles McMicken, who left a large portion of his fortune to found a college for white students [!], which was chartered as the University of Cincinnati in 1870, and for whom McMicken Hall is named.  But they’re not so sure about the naming of “Mack.”  (I posit that “Mack” is named after William McMillan, one of the first settlers and surveyors of Cincinnati and Delegate from the Old Northwest Territory’s at-large district to the U. S. House of Representatives in the Sixth U. S. Congress.  Further, McMillan Street in Clifton Heights, which borders the University on the south, is named for him.)  The lions are copies of larger versions carved in 1600 by Flaminio Vacca in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy, which in turn were copies of a lion sculpture from ancient Rome.  Because the lions’ tails have been broken off and replaced numerous times, the university keeps molds of the tails in order to re-create them as needed.  There is no truth to the legend that the pair roars whenever a virgin walks by – at least, the lions have never roared.

The lions originally were part of the extensive collection of classical statuary that graced the gardens of Jacob Hoffner’s estate in Cumminsville.  He was a real estate and business speculator who often traveled in Europe and had copies made of sculptures which he saw there.  He died in 1894 at the age of 96, leaving everything to his wife Maria, but stipulating that his statuary was to be donated to the city of Cincinnati.  When Maria died in 1904, the statuary passed to the city, and the city placed the lions at the original McMicken Hall (1895-late 1940s), the first university building built on the Burnet Woods campus.  More recently, the lions have been a prominent feature of the current McMicken Hall, built on the site of the old one in 1950.  They have been adopted as the official mascots of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association.

Two Hopped-Up Lions:  For many years, as we were growing up, if you rode west on Central Parkway past the main YMCA at Elm Street, you came up abruptly on a gigantic 5-story brick building and had to turn north to continue on the Parkway.  This giant was the old Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Company, better known as the “Lion Brewery,” founded in 1866 on the Miami & Erie Canal by the brothers-in-law Conrad Windisch and Gottlieb Muhlhauser, who emigrated from Bavaria and who operated the brewery until 1922, when Prohibition shut it down.  (After Prohibition ended in 1933, the Burger Brewing Company set up shop in the old brewery in 1934 and operated there until 1973.)  Called the “Lion Brewery” because of two giant stone lions that could be seen way atop the twin gables of the brewery building, Windisch-Muhlhauser was Cincinnati’s second-largest brewery.  Each sandstone lion weighed 10,000 pounds and neither (it was found when they were taken down) actually was attached to the building – they were just sitting up there on concrete slabs!  The two lions, much later to be named “Leo” and “Leona,” were brought from Germany to grace the brewery and are calculated to be about 150 years old; each is about 10 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 6 feet high.  Removed from the building for safety reasons by the Doran Transfer & Rigging Company circa 1952, the lions ended up guarding the entrance to the Doran family’s property in the 4800 block of North Bend Road in Western Hills, where they could be seen for many years.  The brewery building itself was first repurposed after Burger Brewing closed in 1973; since then, the building has been razed in sections over the last fifty years.

However, for the lions it’s been a different story.  Dan Doran of the Doran Transfer & Rigging Co. family, and Dale Rack of the V & G Rack Co., recall playing around the lions in the 1950s and 1960s, often sitting on them.  It is believed that the lions were separated in the 1980s, when the Dorans moved one lion (“Leo”) with them as they moved around; the Rack family got the other lion (“Leona,” once called “Kitty Cat” by Dale Rack’s father).  At present, the Racks’ lion can be seen in the 5000 block of North Bend Road in front of the family business; it is practically across the street from where it and its partner once stood.  It is painted yellow and brown and sits on a custom-built stone pedestal.  As for the Dorans’ lion, “Leo” (which they do not wish to move with them to Florida) has just gotten a new home.  In the 19^th century, the Muhlhauser and Christian Moerlein families owned and operated farms in Butler County, Ohio, where they grew grains for the brewing of beer; they also had summer homes there.  In 1881, a timber-frame barn was constructed for the storing of grain on the Muhlhauser farm on Seward Road in Fairfield.  In 2002, this barn was donated to West Chester Township; moved, rebuilt, and restored, the Muhlhauser Barn now stands at 8558 Beckett Road in West Chester Township’s Beckett Park.  And it is there that the Windisch-Muhlhauser lion “Leo” will sit on a path outside the Muhlhauser Barn – and where children can sit on the old stone lion once more.

Two Eagles of Commerce (and Two More):  The Melan Arch Bridge (named after the Austrian Josef Melan, designer of the bridge’s reinforcing system), the oldest reinforced concrete bridge in Ohio (1894) and the second-oldest reinforced concrete bridge in the United States [see "Forum" Post #2531 (12-15-2016):  "Early Concrete Architecture in Cincinnati:  The Ingalls Building and the Melan Arch Bridge"], spans Eden Park Drive near where it joins Victory Parkway at the northeastern entrance to Eden Park, close by the Twin Lakes Overlook.  Prominent as part of the overall appearance of the bridge today (but not part of its original design) are four 5-foot tall elegant stone eagles, which stand on pedestals at the base of the bridge’s arch, one at each of the four corners of the bridge.  These eagles were part of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Merchants’ Exchange building (1889-1911), designed by the renowned American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, and which stood on the southwest corner of Fourth and Vine Streets downtown.  The eagles, of pink Milford (Worcester) granite (as was the rest of the building), flanked the peaks of the two large dormer windows which stood at the roofline of the north and south sides of the building, crowning glories of this massive and turreted carved stone building in the Romanesque style.

But alas!  The famed architect had planned not wisely but too well:  in order to make the main trading floor completely open, he had suspended the two main floors from truss girders at the top of the building.  Thus, when a grease fire broke out in the restaurant on the evening of January 10, 1911, the girders, weakened by the fire, could not sustain the weight of the building’s interior, and the whole building collapsed inward, crashing down on itself.  Because the building’s stones were massive and some beautifully carved, there was an effort made to save them.  The Cincinnati Astronomical Society salvaged 3,000 tons of the stones to build a new observatory in Cleves, Ohio, to replace the one in Hyde Park, but it ran out of funds and nothing came of the project, the stones languishing in a field off of Buffalo Ridge Road in Cleves for nearly sixty years – all except for the dormer eagles, which were donated to the Cincinnati Park Board shortly after 1911.  (Some of the more attractive stones became part of the UC College of Design, Art and Architecture’s student-led H. H. Richardson Memorial in 1972; it stands at the southern edge of Burnet Woods park, adjacent to the College of Design, Art and Architecture classrooms.)  In 2016 a car hit one of the pylons in Eden Park and the eagle fell off and cracked, but it has now been repaired and put back in place.

Two Garden Gateway Eagles:  Jacob Hoffner and his Cumminsville (some persist in calling it Northside) estate (corner of Hamilton Avenue and Blue Rock Street) are summarized above in the second paragraph of “Two Academic Lions.”  A late 19^th-century photograph of the entrance to the Hoffner estate and its house has been published on the Internet; it shows two stone gateposts with what look like bedraggled stone eagles on top of them (are they really eagles?).  Numerous articles on the Internet and elsewhere copy each other in stating that these are “the eagles that were placed in Eden Park.”  Nonsense!  They look nothing like the Eden Park eagles [see above, “Two Eagles of Commerce.”].  However, they must have come to the city of Cincinnati in 1904 under Hoffner’s will with his other statuary (the Chamber of Commerce eagles were still on the Chamber of Commerce building at that time); I don’t know what became of them.  Hoffner’s estate in Cumminsville (minus the house and statuary) became the Northside Playground, and then eventually Jacob Hoffner Park.

Two Lions at Rest:  High on a hill in Section 57 of Spring Grove Cemetery is the Jacob Hoffner family burial plot and monument. The monument is a tall, narrow, open Gothic spire with a lady (angel?) inside; she looks to the south.  The hill this monument is on, on the cemetery’s eastern border near Winton Road, is steep; a steep set of stone stairs descends the hill from the spire’s eastern side – but the steps descend only part way down the hill (there was once an iron fence along this boundary of the burial plot); you cannot reach them easily from the bottom of the hill (I know; I’ve tried).  If you take the drive around the hill to its western and more level end, you can approach the monument on foot through Section 57A.  This monument is singular in itself, but the pleasing part of the monument (if you can reach it!) is at the foot of the stone stairs:  on either side a large pair of stone lions recline on pedestals, looking as if they are sleeping – or perhaps they are in their eternal sleep.  And there they can stay, for they do not need to guard the steps or the monument – you cannot get to either easily!

Two Metal Eagles:  In our youth, when one went west on Hopple Street from Central Parkway, one immediately passed, on the north side of the street, the great Haffner Brothers “Eagle” Tannery.   Over its entrance, surmounting the tannery, was what proposed to be a sculpture of a great wing-spread eagle, but which frankly looked more like a ruptured goose from the street below.  When the tannery went out of business after 102 years in 1959, this 85-year-old hollow zinc sculpture eventually ended up in the backyard of Louis Haffner’s daughter, Mrs. James Headley, at her residence at 8280 Kugler Mill Road in Indian Hill.  (It’s since gone from there, I don’t know where; the tannery itself was torn down to make way for the Mill Creek Expressway, now part of I-75.)  A much more modern-styled eagle is “The American Eagle” (a.k.a. “Victory Eagle”) on the John Weld Peck Federal Building at 550 Main Street downtown.  Made of cast aluminum and sculpted by Marshall Maynard Fredericks (1908-1998), this rapidly descending “neo-Art Deco” eagle is 21 feet high and has adorned the Federal Building two stories above its entrance since 1964. 

One Lone Stone Eagle:  So far our eagles have been more or less in pairs.  But there is one lone eagle we should mention; it stands atop a designedly broken fluted column, just inside Spring Grove Cemetery after you pass under the Railway Arch, in Section 20.  The eagle is bowed in grief with a laurel garland in its beak, mourning a life cut short, for it is the monument and grave of Mexican War and Civil War General William Haines Lytle, the last descendant of Cincinnati's Lytle family, for whom Lytle Park is named.  General Lytle was something of an anomaly:  he was more famed as a poet than he was as a military man.  Among many turgid and sentimental verses was his most famous poem, often set to music in the Victorian era -- "Antony and Cleopatra" (1857), also known as "I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying!" and "Listen to the Great Heart Secrets."  Here is a sample from its first and last verses:  "I am dying, Egypt, dying! / Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast, / And the dark Plutonian shadows / Gather on the evening blast; / ... / Ah, no more amid the battle / Shall my heart exulting swell; / Isis and Osiris guard thee, -- / Cleopatra, Rome, farewell!"   General Lytle never married; he died in 1863, mortally wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, while leading a counterattack on horseback.  Confederates, knowing his poetry well, placed a guard over his body and recited his poetry over their evening campfires.

Lytle's  funeral cortege in Cincinnati was so long -- from Christ Church on Fourth Street to Spring Grove Cemetery in Winton Place -- that it did not reach the cemetery until dusk.  His monument there (1865), formerly of Italian Carrara marble and carved by sculptor Louis Verhagen, by 1915 had suffered such severe damage from the weather and acid rain that a copy was made (the present one) in Vermont granite.  At that time, a bronze plaque in relief by famed Cincinnati sculptor Clement J. Barnhorn was added; it depicts Lytle leading his troops, the 10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, into battle.  Lytle is one of forty Civil War Union generals buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

And a Sphinx!:  Yes, there is a sphinx in Spring Grove Cemetery, a bluestone one on a granite base.  Davis Bevan Lawler, one of the founders of the cemetery, erected a rather Greek sphinx (although in an Egyptian headdress) on his family’s plot in 1850.  (No, it does not ask riddles, as in antiquity; you have to go to Riddle Road in Clifton for those).  The monument created a controversy at the time:  it was not a good Christian symbol, you see – but neither were all of those Egyptian obelisks and Greek Revival mausoleums.  Lawler (1786-1869), whose father was a mayor of Philadelphia and a sugar refiner, is buried with his wife (Augusta Kreutz Lawler), parents (Matthew Lawler and Ann Bevan Lawler), and other relatives.  The Sphinx is located in Section 45, Lot 49, Space 5.

"Mick" and "Mack" at McMicken Hall, UC.

Windisch-Muhlhauser "Lion" Brewery, Miami & Erie Canal (Central Parkway), lions on top of gables.

"Leo" the Brewery Lion being loaded to be removed to Beckett Park.

One of H. H. Richardson's Chamber of Commerce eagles in Eden Park.

Jacob Hoffner's estate in Cumminsville, droopy eagles on pedestals beyond the gate.

The Jacob Hoffner monument, Spring Grove Cemetery, sleeping lions at foot of staircase.

One of the sleeping lions at the Hoffner family gravesite, Spring Grove Cemetery.

The Haffner "Eagle" Tannery eagle being removed, 1959.

"The American Eagle" on the Federal Building, downtown Cincinnati.

(1) General William Haines Lytle.  [During my first summer at the Cincinnati Historical Society (1965), I, being more lithe in those days, dressed in Gen. Lytle's uniform -- this very one -- and the secretary announced me to the Director, "General Lytle to see you, sir!"  You can imagine his reaction.]  (2) Gen. Lytle's monument in Spring Grove Cemetery, eagle atop.

AND . . . The Sphinx on the Lawler family burial plot, Spring Grove Cemetery.

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Laura Reid Pease notified me that Gary Beck passed away last night at his home. He had been under Hospice Care. Gary was the husband of our classmate Mary Jo Smith.

I will post Gary's obituary once it is available.

Another classmate no longer with us. Such sadness. Carpe Diem.

Bruce Bittmann

Just read about Gary Beck's passsing last night.  Very sad moment for me.  Gary was my best friend at WHHS.  I met Gary in 7th grade, and we became life long  friends.  Fortunately, Gary called me last week to update me on his health., which was not good.  We had a nice long chat - basically a 'good by' call.  A great friend, man, husband, father and grandfather.  I will miss beyond words.

Sandy Steele (Bauman)

I was so sorry to hear about Gary Beck. My husband and I sometimes saw Gary and Mary Jo during holiday breaks from college. Mary Jo was in our wedding, and we saw her a few years ago while visiting Nantucket. Gary did not feel well that day, so did not come into town. He will be missed.

Nelson Abanto

Gary was a superstar. He made us all proud to be associated with him. He will be sorely missed. 
 

Charles Judd

Very sorry indeed to hear about Gary' Beck's death. We roomed together during the summer after our senior year, studying french in Swtizerland, on a trip organized by Walnut Hills french teacher Mme O'Neil. He will be missed.

Dale Gieringer

    Sad to see yet another WHHS alum in today's NYT obituaries - Richard Hamilton, a mathematical genius who helped solve a fundamental problem in three-dimensional topology.  He was 81, three years ahead of us, but skipped his senior year.  Does anyone remember him?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/science/richard-hamilton-dead.html

Laura Reid (Pease)

Laura Reid (Pease)

Here is the link to Gary's obit; it has a wonderful photo of Gary.  As you all know, Gary was married to Mary Jo Smith.  Mary Jo is my husband's first cousin; Chip's father and Mary Jo's mother were siblings.  Mary Jo said, "I was the luckiest Walnut Hills grad to marry Gary and be together for 55 years."  I will always remember Gary for that twinkle in his eye and his wicked sense of humor.

Happy holidays to all my wonderful classmates....

https://www.springgroveobituaries.org/obituaries/Gary-Walter-Beck?obId=34045218

Philip Spiess

All of you above might want to put your very valuable sentiments and memories of Gary in the "In Memory" section of this site for posterity.

Philip Spiess

Season's Greetings to all my Classmates!  Here is a seasonal present for all of you:

A TRADITIONAL WASSAIL BOWL:   [From a recipe of Cedric Dickens, Charles Dickens' great-grandson]

Ingredients:          3 pints Ale     1/2 oz. ground Ginger     1/2 oz. ground Nutmeg     8 oz. dark Brown Sugar

1/2 bottle of Sherry or Madeira Wine     2 Lemons     3 lumps of Sugar     12 Crab Apples or 6 small Red Apples

Directions:          First, roast the apples:  slit the skin for easier cooking, and bake the apples in a moderate oven [350 degrees F.] until their texture looks soft and mashable.  (During the cooking, baste with a little ale if the apples appear to be becoming too dry.) Second, place 2 1/2 cups of the ale in a saucepan; add the ginger, nutmeg, and brown sugar, and bring to a boil.  Rub the lumps of sugar on the outside of one of the lemons, removing all the zest; thinly slice the other lemon.  Add the sugar lumps, the sherry or Madeira [I recommend the Madeira], and the rest of the ale, to the saucepan, and make it very hot, but do not boil.  Place the lemon slices in a large punchbowl, and pour the hot liquid over them.  Add the sizzling roasted apples [this is the origin of Halloween's "bobbing for apples"], and enjoy! 

And here is the present I got:  a genuine 1950s Lionel Train Set!  (It is shown as set up in my backyard.)

And may 2025 turn out to be good to and for all of us!

Paul Simons

Thanks Phil, your post brings back memories from years ago of both that type of drink and that type of railroad yard. One summer a job that I had was as a brakeman about when the Pennsylvania Railroad split into Amtrak the passenger service and Conrail for freight which is where I worked, out of the Sharonville yard. Similar layout to yours - the main tracks and off to the side a number of classification tracks. One aspect - they'd slowly push a train of maybe 100 cars along past the buildings on the right in your image and I'd use the uncoupling handle to cut loose a car or two or three as required which would roll down the slight incline and be switched to whichever classification track they had to go to. The air hoses uncoupled automatically but the air valves had to closed to maintain air pressure which kept the brakes off. Major safety feature - any accidental loss of air pressure stops the train. This might have been George Westinghouse's extremely important innovation. Thanks for the holiday wishes, let me echo that to all. 

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Thanks,  Phil. My brother Karl loved his Lionel trains - he had them set up on a large table my father had built for him in what I think was originally a billiard room in our attic. In order for Dad to work on it and help setting up the trains, Karl had to attend Mme Fedorova's ballroom dance classes every Fridat night at the Alms hotel. Remember those? (Karl hated them!)

Becky Payne (Shockley)

PS: Karl's train table occupied just half of the old billiard room. The other half was my personal space, and I named it "Miss Lane's Club" (after my 2nd grade teacher, who I thought at the time was just wonderful!) 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Thanks Phil!
With the beginning of Hanukkah and Christmas falling on December 25 this year, I extend greetings for a joyous holiday season.