Hobo Jungle
Re: Hobo Jungle
You can find Jon on FB. Gangus something. Not much help is it?
I spend entirely too many hours a day tying my shoes
Re: Hobo Jungle
I can just call him!
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
My poolroom seems to finally be finished. This was one of my threads that created such a scene over at OGR. Let's see what it does here.
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That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
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Rufus T. Firefly
- Posts: 41999
- Joined: Wed May 16, 2007 7:52 am
- Location: To be Determined
Re: Hobo Jungle
I like that the Reading Room is a Pool Hall; not much literature being pursued there, 
The average train of thought isn’t big enough to carry a full sized opinion on any subject.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Nice, Tramp. Looks like a set from “The Hustler”. You need a fat guy chalking a cue.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Healey, how is the car? How are the road trips? How is the driveway? Your wife"?
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
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MurphOnMillerAve
- Posts: 18489
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:18 pm
- Location: Kennywood Park
- Contact:
Re: Hobo Jungle
OMG, Tramp, that is beautiful - art, actually, far beyond craftsmanship. Really. (Pun intended.)
Art captures truths which can be seen and felt and heard by some.
Actually, like Helen Keller said, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." I make reference to that here because you felt something from scenes/places like what you have created there which came out for others to experience in your efforts there. You simply told the truth.
Art captures truths which can be seen and felt and heard by some.
Actually, like Helen Keller said, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." I make reference to that here because you felt something from scenes/places like what you have created there which came out for others to experience in your efforts there. You simply told the truth.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Murph! It SO SO gladdens my heart to know you are still with us. I have lost way too many friends over the last years.
Yes, that is my intention, to create the place I love from what is in my heart as a reality, as a truth. And I am SO enjoying it. How are you, my friend?
Yes, that is my intention, to create the place I love from what is in my heart as a reality, as a truth. And I am SO enjoying it. How are you, my friend?
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Hops Diner. Named after Edward Hopper. Two of his painted figures from NIGHTHAWKS are in my diner. Some of the amazing details are from LEE TURNER, my mentor and friend.
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That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
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MurphOnMillerAve
- Posts: 18489
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:18 pm
- Location: Kennywood Park
- Contact:
Re: Hobo Jungle
Tramp wrote:Murph! It SO SO gladdens my heart to know you are still with us. I have lost way too many friends over the last years.
Yes, that is my intention, to create the place I love from what is in my heart as a reality, as a truth. And I am SO enjoying it. How are you, my friend?
I'm taking the joy of your first sentence as a kind of blessing. It's very welcome to be considered a friend by you.
I am learning and making my way into a peacefulness, it seems. Having the world nearly closed-down by this absurd virus19 thing has added an additional layer of isolation to being in a home in which the absence of my wife is very loud, but I am grateful and cherish what we shared for 37yrs, and that gratitude helps give me a peace. Friends and relatives have added an additional layer of reasons to smile, so I am moving forward, carefully. Thank you for the graciousness of asking about how I am doing.
How is your gallery doing?
Murph
Re: Hobo Jungle
A few more!
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That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Murph, for me, you have always seemed to be a Jesus-like entity of kindness and generosity. Your spirit affected me, since way too much of the time I can be harsh and abrupt. I have learned from you, so of course I think of you as a friend. Loss of a loved one is so difficult. My father died 38 years ago and I still miss him every day. I just sit and cry sometimes. And a dozern close friends. But I hope to be with them soon enough. But when there is work to be done here, I attempt to do it as best I can.
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
For Murph: I wrote this in 2009.
CREEDS, HAPPINESS, AND THE POINT OF LIFE
Far too many people have a friend with inoperable cancer, and I'm no exception. According to his doctors, he shouldn't be alive, but miraculously he still feels okay, and the spread of cancer seems to be on hold. We talk on the phone perhaps every few weeks, checking on each other, but during our last call we started to discuss the weighty stuff—the meaning of it all.
He told me he believed the point of life was happiness. I didn't take this conclusion lightly since I knew he'd spent over thirty years studying philosophy. But after a moment I said, "If happiness is the point of life, then maybe you only need one thing."
This stopped him, and he replied with some skepticism, "Oh, what's that?"
"Acceptance," I said. "Complete acceptance."
Now it was his turn to pause.
I've always felt that living for personal happiness wasn't enough, and it's never overly interested me. Maybe because I'm melancholic by nature, or perhaps it's my contrary nature, but I don't want to live just for happiness. On the other hand, you have to believe in something, even if that's a vote for nothing and anarchy.
My big revelation as a teenager was living to feel, experiencing everything with intensity whether it was miserable or joyous. This has many advantages and worked well for a while: it had the acceptance maxim more or less built in. And it's basically true. If you're able to accept unequivocally what you have—be it in looks, health, money, companionship (regardless of how meager they might be)—you'll be reasonably happy. It's insatiably wanting more that creates certain discontent. But who doesn't want something more eventually? That's called being human.
Once I entered my thirties, I wasn't so enamored with misery even if I was still trying to make the best of it. As an artist, I'd always rationalized that suffering and difficulty would improve my work, so it was good for something, but this gets old after twenty or more years. There's no getting around the concept of balance. That was my grandfather's credo: everything in moderation. And there's a lot to be said about balancing work and play, accomplishment and self-indulgence.
My mother always said to me, "Life is very short. Enjoy yourself while you can, you work too much." But I can't enjoy myself unless I feel that I've earned it. This is a personal problem, and I'm intrigued by people who do nothing but try to have a good time, not that I respect them much.
In my thirties I found a philosophy that I believed was perfect. The idea was to live life by placing intense positive effort into everything you did, without being concerned for the outcome. The idea was to focus completely on the event at hand no matter what had just happened. In other words, if you were shooting pool for example, you concentrated fully on the immediate shot but never allowed yourself to be upset or elated about the score or whether you missed or pocketed the ball. The idea was to notice the caress of the felt under your palm, the balanced weight of the cue gliding through your fingers, the resonant click of the balls, and so on. Living completely in the moment, not spending any time worrying about the past or the future, success or failure. I'm sure one or more of the Asian philosophies spells it out in careful detail.
For a few weeks things were amazing, and I thought I'd discovered the secret to life, which was fortunate since a series of random events exuberantly tested my new system. I was on my way to California through New York City with about everything material object I cared about neatly packed into my hotrod Nova that I'd personally modified over thousands of hours. The test began gently enough with a miscommunication over a haircut. I'd asked for a James Dean style and found out too late that the barber didn't speak English.
It was with a nearly shaved head that I retrieved two of my paintings from a design show only to discover both of them had been damaged. Hey, I told myself, concentrate on the now, not on the scraped surfaces. Enjoy the polluted air, the hazy sunshine, your rumbling ride headed out of Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Bronx.
Next morning when I went out to cheer myself by sitting in my rig and listening to some music on the fresh sound system, I found only a vacant space which instantly transferred to my chest. The Nova had been stolen; it wasn't insured and nothing was ever recovered.
That night I was felled by a severe flu, and that's when I came to the realization that I wasn't the one to live that particular perfect philosophy. As much as I knew it could work, I wasn't up to it. Events from the past were too intrusive, and I couldn't help worrying about the future.
So, after many failed attempts at a solution, what do I think is the point of life these days?
I believe in living for three things. I place them in a specific order of importance, which is very deliberate, but I can accept any shuffle of the triad for others.
The first thing I live for is what I'll call poetry for lack of finding a better term. It's a concept not easy to verbalize exactly since it functions entirely in the realm of perception and feeling. It's caring about the quality of things, the aesthetics of life, from moments to nature to objects to people. It's probably what generates love, compassion and kindness. Poetry in life is illogical in terms of physical survival, but it's the basis of spiritual existence. It's the incomprehensible reason people create art, music, and literature as long as the motivation is passion and not greed. Poetry is laboring for weeks at some task or gift just to see a smile on the lips of someone you care about. It's a gesture toward a stranger who will never know what you've done for them. It's repainting a room four times until the color is finally your exact vision. It's an act of pure courage that no one witnesses and that you'll never mention.
The second thing is truth. Truth is practical. It's procreation and furthering the species through caring for children. It builds houses and roads, is grounded in science, informs medicine, grows crops and tends animals, and is even the basis of most philosophy. As we unravel truth, we live longer, healthier, warmer, and safer, but not necessarily better. It's recognizing that the air rushing at two different velocities over a wing foil will force a ridiculously heavy object into flight. It's electricity flashing through the minute gold channels of a silicon microchip. It's the undecorated, unadorned visible.
Many people think of it as reality, but of that I've never been certain. It does tend to be the one thing most of us agree upon. It's where all consciousness overlaps, and those who focus on and grasp truth—sometimes to the exclusion of everything else—tend to be the most successful among us. They aren't seeing any bizarre and terrifying visions in the middle of the night, or hitchhiking across the country just to drink a glass of beer in an uncertain bar.
The third is fairness. Fairness is the ethics of conduct. It's the choices we make between what we want and what we are willing to do to get it. It's the discipline of goodness and rightness, which changes for every person and culture, but certainly has tenets that are universally agreed upon. It's what religions profess to help us with. It's what gods tend to expect of us. When we make abnormal choices, it's how lawyers and courts amass their fortunes.
Undoubtedly there's a modicum of cross-pollination in these three, and the exact delineations are subjective, but I think the order in which you place them defines much of who you are as a person. Of course, you might not live for any of the above, but then I'd like to know what you live for. Or maybe I wouldn't.
Within my personality, I'm only so capable of achieving positive results within the three categories, but they're what I believe in and what I put my effort toward. If I were reasonably successful in all three areas, for myself and for others, particularly those people I care about, then I would consider my life as having been well lived, and perhaps that would be my contentment or happiness.
So maybe my friend understands the point of life after all. Of course he must think of these things every day. As I've gotten older, I've thought of them less and less, but I think the possibility of terminal illness brings them forth.
I wrote this column for him since he asked me what I believed in. If I've succeeded, it was poetry that gave it heart and humor, truth that made it logical and readable, fairness that gave it balance. Compiled together, I hope these words might bring him a slice of happiness.
CREEDS, HAPPINESS, AND THE POINT OF LIFE
Far too many people have a friend with inoperable cancer, and I'm no exception. According to his doctors, he shouldn't be alive, but miraculously he still feels okay, and the spread of cancer seems to be on hold. We talk on the phone perhaps every few weeks, checking on each other, but during our last call we started to discuss the weighty stuff—the meaning of it all.
He told me he believed the point of life was happiness. I didn't take this conclusion lightly since I knew he'd spent over thirty years studying philosophy. But after a moment I said, "If happiness is the point of life, then maybe you only need one thing."
This stopped him, and he replied with some skepticism, "Oh, what's that?"
"Acceptance," I said. "Complete acceptance."
Now it was his turn to pause.
I've always felt that living for personal happiness wasn't enough, and it's never overly interested me. Maybe because I'm melancholic by nature, or perhaps it's my contrary nature, but I don't want to live just for happiness. On the other hand, you have to believe in something, even if that's a vote for nothing and anarchy.
My big revelation as a teenager was living to feel, experiencing everything with intensity whether it was miserable or joyous. This has many advantages and worked well for a while: it had the acceptance maxim more or less built in. And it's basically true. If you're able to accept unequivocally what you have—be it in looks, health, money, companionship (regardless of how meager they might be)—you'll be reasonably happy. It's insatiably wanting more that creates certain discontent. But who doesn't want something more eventually? That's called being human.
Once I entered my thirties, I wasn't so enamored with misery even if I was still trying to make the best of it. As an artist, I'd always rationalized that suffering and difficulty would improve my work, so it was good for something, but this gets old after twenty or more years. There's no getting around the concept of balance. That was my grandfather's credo: everything in moderation. And there's a lot to be said about balancing work and play, accomplishment and self-indulgence.
My mother always said to me, "Life is very short. Enjoy yourself while you can, you work too much." But I can't enjoy myself unless I feel that I've earned it. This is a personal problem, and I'm intrigued by people who do nothing but try to have a good time, not that I respect them much.
In my thirties I found a philosophy that I believed was perfect. The idea was to live life by placing intense positive effort into everything you did, without being concerned for the outcome. The idea was to focus completely on the event at hand no matter what had just happened. In other words, if you were shooting pool for example, you concentrated fully on the immediate shot but never allowed yourself to be upset or elated about the score or whether you missed or pocketed the ball. The idea was to notice the caress of the felt under your palm, the balanced weight of the cue gliding through your fingers, the resonant click of the balls, and so on. Living completely in the moment, not spending any time worrying about the past or the future, success or failure. I'm sure one or more of the Asian philosophies spells it out in careful detail.
For a few weeks things were amazing, and I thought I'd discovered the secret to life, which was fortunate since a series of random events exuberantly tested my new system. I was on my way to California through New York City with about everything material object I cared about neatly packed into my hotrod Nova that I'd personally modified over thousands of hours. The test began gently enough with a miscommunication over a haircut. I'd asked for a James Dean style and found out too late that the barber didn't speak English.
It was with a nearly shaved head that I retrieved two of my paintings from a design show only to discover both of them had been damaged. Hey, I told myself, concentrate on the now, not on the scraped surfaces. Enjoy the polluted air, the hazy sunshine, your rumbling ride headed out of Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Bronx.
Next morning when I went out to cheer myself by sitting in my rig and listening to some music on the fresh sound system, I found only a vacant space which instantly transferred to my chest. The Nova had been stolen; it wasn't insured and nothing was ever recovered.
That night I was felled by a severe flu, and that's when I came to the realization that I wasn't the one to live that particular perfect philosophy. As much as I knew it could work, I wasn't up to it. Events from the past were too intrusive, and I couldn't help worrying about the future.
So, after many failed attempts at a solution, what do I think is the point of life these days?
I believe in living for three things. I place them in a specific order of importance, which is very deliberate, but I can accept any shuffle of the triad for others.
The first thing I live for is what I'll call poetry for lack of finding a better term. It's a concept not easy to verbalize exactly since it functions entirely in the realm of perception and feeling. It's caring about the quality of things, the aesthetics of life, from moments to nature to objects to people. It's probably what generates love, compassion and kindness. Poetry in life is illogical in terms of physical survival, but it's the basis of spiritual existence. It's the incomprehensible reason people create art, music, and literature as long as the motivation is passion and not greed. Poetry is laboring for weeks at some task or gift just to see a smile on the lips of someone you care about. It's a gesture toward a stranger who will never know what you've done for them. It's repainting a room four times until the color is finally your exact vision. It's an act of pure courage that no one witnesses and that you'll never mention.
The second thing is truth. Truth is practical. It's procreation and furthering the species through caring for children. It builds houses and roads, is grounded in science, informs medicine, grows crops and tends animals, and is even the basis of most philosophy. As we unravel truth, we live longer, healthier, warmer, and safer, but not necessarily better. It's recognizing that the air rushing at two different velocities over a wing foil will force a ridiculously heavy object into flight. It's electricity flashing through the minute gold channels of a silicon microchip. It's the undecorated, unadorned visible.
Many people think of it as reality, but of that I've never been certain. It does tend to be the one thing most of us agree upon. It's where all consciousness overlaps, and those who focus on and grasp truth—sometimes to the exclusion of everything else—tend to be the most successful among us. They aren't seeing any bizarre and terrifying visions in the middle of the night, or hitchhiking across the country just to drink a glass of beer in an uncertain bar.
The third is fairness. Fairness is the ethics of conduct. It's the choices we make between what we want and what we are willing to do to get it. It's the discipline of goodness and rightness, which changes for every person and culture, but certainly has tenets that are universally agreed upon. It's what religions profess to help us with. It's what gods tend to expect of us. When we make abnormal choices, it's how lawyers and courts amass their fortunes.
Undoubtedly there's a modicum of cross-pollination in these three, and the exact delineations are subjective, but I think the order in which you place them defines much of who you are as a person. Of course, you might not live for any of the above, but then I'd like to know what you live for. Or maybe I wouldn't.
Within my personality, I'm only so capable of achieving positive results within the three categories, but they're what I believe in and what I put my effort toward. If I were reasonably successful in all three areas, for myself and for others, particularly those people I care about, then I would consider my life as having been well lived, and perhaps that would be my contentment or happiness.
So maybe my friend understands the point of life after all. Of course he must think of these things every day. As I've gotten older, I've thought of them less and less, but I think the possibility of terminal illness brings them forth.
I wrote this column for him since he asked me what I believed in. If I've succeeded, it was poetry that gave it heart and humor, truth that made it logical and readable, fairness that gave it balance. Compiled together, I hope these words might bring him a slice of happiness.
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Tramp wrote:Healey, how is the car? How are the road trips? How is the driveway? Your wife"?
All good, mate. A couple of other projects have kept me out of the garage (where the roadsters live) and the basement (where Eddie’s, Josh’s, and Will’s stuff lives). Looking forward to getting back to it in the next few months. The layout looks great, by the way...looking forward to seeing more.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:01 am
I would like to see the Lionel Visionline Challenger running on your layout, Tramp.
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:20 am
I am not sure if posting has improved. The image file on MTJ was always overfull. Lee kept emptying it but it would soon be full again. Almost everyone turned to external image hosting sites. We have a new hosting site for MTJ and I see by your photos that we have space to host image files on MTJ again. The question is, how many images will fit? Enjoy it while we have it, Tramp.
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:18 am
The answer from me is, "YES!" And thank you for what you already posted.
by Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:22 am
Hirailjon changed his name to 2railjon and moved to the O-Gauge, 2-Rail, Model Railroading side of MTJ.
2railjon: Last active:Fri May 08, 2020 2:29 am
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:40 am
I couldn't answer some of your questions. I thought I could find the answers but failed. I apologize for not getting back to you with, ''I don't know."'
I think I can answer now. Would you like an email?
If you did not know about Jon, you might also not know about the founder of Model Train Journal, Bill Lango.
https://scanlanfuneralhome.com/tribute/ ... tuary.html
Tramp wrote:Lionel Visionline Challenger arriving on Monday for the huge top loop. Who wants to see it run?
Has posting pictures improved over here?
I would like to see the Lionel Visionline Challenger running on your layout, Tramp.
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:20 am
Tramp wrote:So cool to have easy photos. WOW!
I am not sure if posting has improved. The image file on MTJ was always overfull. Lee kept emptying it but it would soon be full again. Almost everyone turned to external image hosting sites. We have a new hosting site for MTJ and I see by your photos that we have space to host image files on MTJ again. The question is, how many images will fit? Enjoy it while we have it, Tramp.
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:18 am
Tramp wrote:Would guys like me to post pictures of Penobscot Falls?
The answer from me is, "YES!" And thank you for what you already posted.
by Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:22 am
Tramp wrote:Where is HiRaiJon?
Hirailjon changed his name to 2railjon and moved to the O-Gauge, 2-Rail, Model Railroading side of MTJ.
2railjon: Last active:Fri May 08, 2020 2:29 am
Postby Tramp » Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:40 am
Tramp wrote:Wayne, how are you? You ended our very interesting religious conversation after I sent you the 10 commandments as I heard them from God. Why?
I couldn't answer some of your questions. I thought I could find the answers but failed. I apologize for not getting back to you with, ''I don't know."'
I think I can answer now. Would you like an email?
If you did not know about Jon, you might also not know about the founder of Model Train Journal, Bill Lango.
https://scanlanfuneralhome.com/tribute/ ... tuary.html
----Wayne----
Back when I was growing up, if you didn't start someth'n, there wouldn't be noth'n.
--Merle Haggard
Back when I was growing up, if you didn't start someth'n, there wouldn't be noth'n.
--Merle Haggard
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