I went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in May of 1979 and first stepped inside the depot that summer. I really didn't think much about it at that time and it was the last time I would be in it until May of 1984 when I went to work on the "peanut" gang(a three man gang with no foreman, just a "Lead Signalman") in Tehachapi. I would share the building for the next 25 years with some very colorful characters. Whether Track, whos office was in the center of the building or the Signal department in the northeast corner of the building, many people called that place home during my career there.

Bill Stokoe: My first Signal Supervisor who later became my friend, mentor and benefactor. He was a true railroad buff. He loved his job and it showed. He was a good signalman and a good man. He always asked about our families and had our kids come down and measure their growth on a door facing of the south wall of the signal office. He once took my step daughter out to Summit and put her on the head end of the work train so she could ride back into town in an engine. He was larger than life and to this day John Wayne makes me think of him. He passed away in 1999 and I miss him.

Phyllis Sparks: She actually ran the place in the 80s as a clerk. Nobody gave her any crap even though she was one of the nicest people I have ever known and someone I have kept in contact with. When I bought my 85 T-Bird I told her about the financing I was doing. When I came in that afternoon she had found a better deal and arranged everything. All I had to do was call and verify some info. She is the one who told me about the Challenger explosion when I came in for lunch that terrible day.

John Sparks: Phyllis' son and one of my closest friends and co workers for ten years. He taught me how to make sense of curcuit plans and how to plan work logically so as never to bite off more than we could chew. We had some awesome times, many doing things that would have gotten us fired had we been caught!

Kieth Drinnon: He was a Roadmaster. The boss of the track forces up there during the 90s. He was young, loud, cocky, short, stocky, bombastic and a great deal of fun if he liked you(which he did me)and very intimidating if he didn't. There was no doubt about who was in charge when he was around.

Roger Ricou: He took over when Bill retired in 1989. Short, fat, dour, pessimistic and incredibly brilliant. We butted heads on almost everything until 1997 when I went to Maintenance Foreman from Gang Foreman. All of the sudden I was his friend and confidant and remained that way through his retirement(I put together and MC'd his party)and through his death in 2005.

Don Ehler: His dad worked in the Superintendents office in Bakersfield when it was still a division HQ. We all thought he was a snitch when he came to work with us, but after the first week of he and I carpooling to Palmdale and drinking both ways, I knew he was OK. I was right. Today he is my best friend.

I could go on for hours, but these are a few who stand out in my mind. All shared the inner sanctum of that venerable building with its green interior of redwood tongue and groove. It's heavy wooden stairs leading from the offices to the upper shops through what I always thought of as secret passages to which the public were not privvy. The heavy sliding doors of the upper shops. The front shop with its huge freight scale last tested and balanced in the 50's and still dead assed accurate the last time I weighed myself on them in about 2000. It's beam and wieghts were solid brass.

The back shop was the signal departments and that was where we kept gate parts and the big workbench. Back in my band days we actually set up in that shop and did some recording while Keith watched us and made sure we didn't burn anything down! I spent many an hour at night building gates to take to the crossing at Monolith, my biggest hitter where broken gates were concerned. I also built about a million track batteries in that shop. Geez! We don't even use those those anymore except in very remote locations.

The lower shop was on the north side of the building at ground level and it too belonged to the signal dept. We stored our tools and pole line equipment in that room.

Some time in the late 80's the old wrap around deck on the west and north ends of the building were removed for safety reasons. It made the building look like someone had taken its pants off.

The restrooms were both in the signal office and were side by side replicas. The ceilings were twelve feet tall(as were all the ceilings in the builing) and both sported dual handle sinks with little mirrors with the old safety stickers that said "You are looking at the person most responsible for your safety". There were also the requsite "writings on the wall". One that always comes to mind was obviously penned by a trainman..It said "Uphill slow, Downhill fast, Tonnage first, Safety last".

In the signal office sat three desks. Bill's desk(we called it that even after he retired)sat at the window facing north overlooking the tracks and 'H' Street, the Gang desk looked out the east windows at Green street and the Maintainers desk sat against the south wall between the restroom doors. The old curcuit plan(we call them prints)cabinet sat against the east wall of the office and was my seat until I became the Lead Man on the peanut gang then later the Tehachapi Maintainer. I would sit on that old print cabinet and watch the morning rituals of the railroad go on around me, involving myself when necessary, but preferring to just take it all in as I prepared myself mentally for the day.

It was common practice to go outside and "roll" trains by as they passed and some mornings there would be so much train traffic that it was impossible to get anything done so we would forego the roll-byes once in awhile. The tracks were about 20 feet from the depot and talking on the phone was impossible if a train were passing so it was common to just pick up the phone if it rang and say "Call right back".

There were three phone lines in the depot and when Bill Stokoe was still there and someone in the track office would answer a phone and it was for Bill, whoever answered would shout "Stokoe"! and every track man in the office would follow with a chorus of "POOOOOOOOT". We all laughed every time and it went on for years!

The Tehachapi district, and thus the depot, were part of my territory until early 2000 when my district limits were changed. I would still go on the occasional trouble call on "The Mountain", but rarely needed to go to the depot and I have never even been in the new shop up there.

As the years passed the building began falling into disrepair. The railroad's Bridges and Buildings department no longer worked on buildings and the water service department no longer did plumbing in company buildings so managers(as supervisors were called after the SP-UP merger)were left to try and maintain their offices with their material budgets, something none were loathe to do, and things just got worse for the Tehachapi Depot. About 2004 construction began on a new office on the northeast corner of 'H' and Green Streets(the depot sat on the southwest corner of Green and Tehachapi Blvd)and in 2005 operations were moved to that building and the old Depot was granted to the City of Tehachapi to become the centerpiece of the restored downtown area. It was almost finished last week when the fire struck.

I heard about it on the Friday morning conference call. It was a busy day for me on my own district, but about 1pm my boss called and asked if I wanted to work on repairing all the signal lines and cables that were damaged in the fire(our pole line was directly over the building). I siad OK and went home to rest for the night of work ahead of me. I arrived about 11pm. The smell of the fire was still very heavy in the air. I couldnt really see much in the dark and I went to work bypassing the melted mess of cables and wires. Two of the men I was working with had also worked out of the old depot at one time or another and we traded stories about things that had happened to us there.

It was a long night and when the eastern sky began to glow, I was almost apprehensive of the coming light. I almost didn't want to see the aftermath. Just working next to the only standing wall left with 4x4s keeping it from falling on us, was bad enough. But like it or not, the sun rose and the damage was there in front of me. "Burned to the ground" is the term used for such a fire, but actually, the heavy wooden foundation of the upper shops was still there. What was left of the scales, tubing, pipes, wires. It was all there in a twisted mass. The sub floor of the lower level exposed for the first time since 1904. I'll bet there are some pretty cool trinkets down there waiting to be found.

As corny as it sounds, it was like losing an old friend, or aquaintance at least! All the history of that building. All the memories of all the people still alive that had worked in, on or around it. The knowledge of what was in there. The marks still on the jambs(last time I looked)of the heights of Cassie and Pam(my girls), Brandy and Robbie Baines and Missy and Robbie Hollett. Who knows what notes on some job written on a wall somewhere and who knows what else in there that meant something to someone. All the work of the City folks, paid and volunteers, who labored to re create the glory days of that building. Truly blood, sweat and tears.

Later Saturday morning I took a break and walked across the street to Kelcy's Reastaurant for some breakfast. Every single person who walked in had something to say about the blackened heap across the street. Some were questions, some comments. I heard a waitress talk about some person who had come in earlier in tears. Well, it didn't have THAT big an effect on me, but there is a place in my memory that is now forever changed. They say they are going to rebuild the depot, but it will just be a replica. The real depot will just have to live on in my mind.

The whole mess was precipitated by the kidnapping by a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda of a French family on holiday in Mauritiana. The family were murdered. Following that, direct threats were made against rally participants. The rally, which has been run across Europe and Africa since 1977(it was originally called "Paris-Dakar") will never be held there again, but will be moved to South America in 2009, running through Argentina and Chile, specifically. One of the most historic events in the world changed forever. Can you imagine the NFL cancelling the Superbowl over such a threat? I am glad I live here.

The rally will survive as will the the people and nations who have lost the event, but it is another example of how terrorism is changing the face of the world and how people are simply allowing to happen rather than do whatever is necessary to stop it. When people capitulate to these bullies it only emboldens and unites them. I pray that America stands firm in the face of this madness and never, ever gives in to these low lifes.

The GOP before them deserved to lose the house just as they deserve to lose more now, but who will fill these seats and will they make any difference? I think not. The domocrats will be next, just as they were in 1996. I'm not sure how long it will take but America has proven its intolerance of the status quo even as the people they elect to initiate change continue to fail to make those changes. The new kids will shame their party just as the GOP has done the last decade or so and cause the left to lose faith in them. It's just a matter of time.

Obama peomises change, but let's be realistic, Congress is where the real power to change resides and they have proven that change really isn't in their agenda because it really isn't in their best interests.

Change can be a good thing when done for the right reasons. The problem now seems to be tha change is in name only and aimed more at making the other guy look bad. It's time the two party status quo starts feeling the pressure from people who are more interested in true change than only a changing of the guard.

What gets my goat about this is that it never really about Gitmo or terrorism or humanity. The majority of the folks clamoring about the rights of the detainees could care less about the detainees. Hell, most of these do-gooders don't even believe terrorism is a real threat anyway! No, this has always been about the lefts hatred of Bush and their burning desire to do anything, no matter the cost or consequence, to see his policies, even the ones that help keep us and parts of the world a bit safer, fail. I will admit that, as I stated previously, this has a lot to do with these people believing terrorism is a phantom menace anyway. Why detain people who are accused of doing something that isn't happening? Again they have missed the big picture so they can feel good right now.

I am no big defender of many of this administrations policies, but keeping an eye on and keeping the military in charge of our enemies is, in my opinion, a vital policy. It has nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with the long term security of the USA. I mean, come on, these guys at Gitmo weren't rounded up in a raid on a nursery school. They mean to do harm to us and our way of life, and simply because they had yet to succeed, have been in custody and are now going to be released is no sign that they won't keep trying to accomplish theur sworn goals. And what if we end up in a REAL war with REAL enemies? These short-sighted bleeders have created a loophole that could very well destroy our ability to charge people with war crimes because we din't have concrete evidence when we took them into cistody. Could you imagine this in the aftermath of WW II? Go ahead, call me paranoid and tell that is not the way this change works and I'll tell you "Not Yet". Opening one door has, historically, always led to others being kicked in. I will also be interested to see which of those who end up being released on their own recognisance wind up involved in future acts of terrorism against us or our allies. Mark my words. It will happen.

I know there those who will castigate me for this opinion. Well, go ahead. You can spin it anyway you like, but the only winners in this are the terrorists.

Anyone has a right to voice their opinion and we welcome those who disagree to join in our talks at the table. They usually politely decline, but that's OK too. It's also OK to make a statement like that to someone you know if that is the nature fo your friendship with that person, but for someone to make such a statement to a stranger simply because they disagree is rude, crude and socially unacceptable. I hate the fact that so many liberals today seem to feel the need to make politics personal. I don't think liberals are stupid or idiots, I simply think they are wrong and I don't feel the need to be rude to express my disagreement. One of the guys jumped in and made his political(and now personal)opinion perfectly clear, to which the obnoxious ass had nothing to say. The waitress is our friend, the rude ass just a miserable stranger.

The guy was fortunate we were all in a good mood and that the waitress was not distressed about it. I have said it before and I will say it again. You have the right to voice your opinion, but you have to earn the right to get personal. It may not be legal or even ethical to punch someone for being a jerk, but never fool yourself by believing it won't or can't happen. You can be of the opinion that you will call the cops and have someone arrested, but if you don't know who someone is they will be long gone before a cop responds(if they respond at all) to your situation and you will be left with a fat lip and a briused ego for your trouble. You would have to get pretty lippy for me to get mad enough to take it to the dirt, but not everyone is as calm and collected as I am!

I routinely argue with liberals and I never feel I need to call them names. I argue with liberal friends and once in awhile it becomes very heated, but we rein ourselves in and, if need be, just change the subject. No biggie, it's easy enough to rise above our anger because we are friends, but if a stranger were to speak to me in the manner this pompous ass did to our friend(it would have to more than calling me an idiot..or so I would like to think)and I were having a bad day I don't know that I wouldn't take it to the next level before he realized his mistake. It's just politics folks. It's fun(sometimes)to joust with our opinions, but in the end, that's all they are.

Hey, you hate Dubya, fine. That is your right, but a waitress or a guy at the gas station has done nothing to you and can do nothing to alleviate your feelings, so why be an ass to them? So next time you are in a crappy mood, or just feel like being rude to someone just because you disagree with their ploitics you should carefully consider to whom you are talking. You may unnecessarily hurt them or they may end up hurting you, and in the end, is your opinion really worth the risk of either?