A while back, I did something I haven’t done in ten years or more—went to bed before midnight! That may seem late to a lot of people but for a guy who usually stays up until 5:00 or 6:00, it was quite early. The reason for going to bed at that time? Well... I’ll get to that in a minute.
 
Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I went to bed so early; it may have been longer than ten years ago. I am pretty confident of the ten years though because I’ve been on the night shift for that long. Weekends and vacations I still maintain the same hours. If I didn’t, Mondays would be very tiring. And when driving a truck, tired is not the thing to be.
 
But even before I started this shift, I rarely went to bed before midnight. It just isn’t me. I’m a night person. I remember the days of getting up at 4:30 am to go to work, and I still went to bed around 12:30 or 1:00.
 
Even as a kid, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning—and then went to school. In fact, this has been my lifestyle for most of my life. Lucky for me, I don’t require much sleep.
 
My dad once told me that consistently staying up late would eventually catch up to me. He said I’d look old by the time I was thirty. (Okay, he said that more than once). But of course, I didn’t listen. Lately though, I have to admit, he was right, it is definitely starting to catch up with me, though I’m long past age thirty!
 
Switching gears slightly now. The other night, I gave a ride to one of the drivers at my job whose truck had broken down. I didn’t know him because he just recently started working there but the guy was very talkative and asked a lot of questions. I answered his questions, telling him about various things, including my grandchildren. After a while, he looked at me and said, “How old are you anyway?”
 
“Forty-eight.”
 
He shook his head. “I thought you were about thirty.”
 
I laughed a little at that. It’s been a while since someone mistook me for a thirty-year-old.
 
“You must have a very healthy life and get plenty of sleep,” the guy said. “That’s hard for a truck driver.”
 
I laughed again. If you only knew... I’ve never been accused of being healthy or getting plenty of sleep in my entire life!
 
I’m not sure if the guy really thought I was thirty or if he was just talking. He’d been up a while and it was dark so his perception may have been way off. One thing I do know, I certainly do not look, or feel, thirty—unless, this is how my dad pictured of me at age thirty. I’ll have to ask him.
 
Oh, I said I’d give the reason for going to bed so early. It’s really quite simple, it was my day off, and I was tired! ~

Back in the ’70’s, when I was a kid, burglar alarms were not that sophisticated. They were quite easily defeated—although, I would know nothing about that, of course! At least nothing I’ll admit! But burglar alarms back then had another flaw and that was, they went off without much of a reason. This I did seem to learn about.
 
We lived a block away from a locksmith store and as you can expect, the owner of the business had an alarm. One day, quite by accident, I discovered that bumping into the picture window would set off the alarm. I wasn’t sure though, if it was the noise or the vibration that had set it off. Obviously, I was nowhere to be seen when the cops showed up and after checking things out once the owner had arrived, they all went on their way.
 
The next day, I decided to see just what had triggered the alarm, the noise, or the vibration. It took only a few minutes to learn it was the vibration from the partially loose, and rattling glass. I should have known this, I guess, since car horns or sirens had never set it off but hey, I was a kid! Anyway, I found that if I tossed small branches at the window, the alarm would sound. Yay!
 
Being a kid, a troublesome and mischievous kid, I made it a point to set off the alarm once or twice a week—just because. It must have driven the storeowner a little nuts to have to continually respond to these false alarms. I’m sure the police weren’t too happy either. Thankfully, I never got caught. Not sure what would have happened, after all, I hadn’t broken in or anything but they might have had some sort of punishment for being a nuisance—like tell my dad or something!
 
We moved from that house a few months later so my prank had to come to an end. And although the locksmith hadn’t known who to blame, the sudden halt to the problem coinciding with me being gone most likely wasn’t too hard to put together. I imagine he was probably happy to see me go, as were the police. Which was good, happy people tend to forget things!
 
I hadn’t thought much about it myself until a few years ago when I was in need of a key. This was an old key that couldn’t be copied due to its deteriorated and twisted condition—and the serial number was missing. Every place I visited in town told me the same thing; the only one around who could help me was the guy at the store I used to live by. People tell me I haven’t changed that much, but I wasn’t too worried about returning, this was thirty years later, after all. He couldn’t possibly know me all these years later, could he? So, I paid him a visit.
 
When I walked in, the guy didn’t appear to recognize me and I didn’t offer to remind him; just handed him the key and told him what I needed. He didn’t talk much as he went to work and whatever small worries of him suddenly remembering who I was dissipated. In a few short minutes, I had my key. We tried it and it worked.
 
Then, it came time to pay. And by pay, I mean PAY. A lot. I know the guy did what no other locksmith would even try but at nearly $40.00 for a single key, with no chip or anything, the cost was bordering on the edge of insane. I did paid him, since I already had the key but I left wondering if the guy’s prices were actually that outrageous or if he had recognized me after all and I was paying for something more than a key! ~
 
Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

For several months, my wife has been wanting to take the grandchildren to a train park, specifically, the Pacific Northwest Live Steamers in Molalla, Oregon. She’s been planning the trip with my daughter and this past weekend we finally loaded up everyone for the journey. I’m not sure who was more excited, my wife or the grandchildren.

After a two-hour road trip with only an occasional “Are we there yet?” we arrived at the park—nine of us: my wife and I, our son, a daughter, and all five grandkids! By this time, judging by the looks on their faces, the grandkids were definitely the ones who were more excited—I think.

I suppose I should tell you a little about this train park. It was built in 1954 and features almost a mile of 7½-inch track with miniature, but real, steam engine powered trains. The trains are built to scale (1:22.5) and yes, visitors get to ride them! And, it’s free! Not even a parking fee! My kind of place! (They do accept donations).

And apparently, it was my grandkids’ kind of place too. They rode the trains, over and over, around and around the track, laughing and smiling, happily taking in all the scenery and the authenticity of the setting. 

The setting was just as impressive as the trains. There were crossings, with lights and bells, a switching yard, steel bridges, and a depot—all built to the same scale as the trains. The track wound around the property through the trees, by the river, and across several roads. And, the place has not been overly commercialized! It’s a small park, in a small town, that looks, I suspect, much like it did in 1954.

While the train park may be intended for kids, I had a lot of fun myself as well. For instance, I couldn’t help but think of a few Johnny Cash train songs and serenaded everyone while we waited in line (a treat I’m sure they all could have done without but they indulged me). But as I was saying, I had a good time—probably more so than my grandkids. The trains, the grounds, and actually, the whole place, was really quite interesting. So, it was an enjoyable and entertaining day. And that is sort of ironic because originally, I hadn’t planned to go. I usually stay at home to work when my wife and daughter go on their excursions with the grandkids. And figuring this would be a kids only park, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea. But they kept asking me to go along. Repeatedly. Insisted, in fact. Almost forced me. I guess you might say I was railroaded. ~
 
Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

​​Did I ever tell you about the time I got on the wrong bus? No? Well...
 
I think I must have been in about third grade. I rode the bus to school, and home of course—usually the same one. Except on this day.
 
For some reason that I can’t remember, my class was running late and let out a few minutes past the normal time. When I got down to where the busses lined up, the area was full of kids. I was on one corner and my bus was parked on the opposite corner, a block away.
 
I did a pretty good job of cutting through the bustling crowd but with still a few feet to go, I saw my bus, the first one in line, start pulling away from the curb. I didn’t panic. It wasn’t that far to my house, I could walk and sometimes did. But walking would get me home late and I hadn’t told my parents I would be walking. I knew if the bus showed up and I didn’t get off, they would be looking for me. Pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble, once they learned why I had missed the bus but there’s always that small chance; that fraction of time that I would be missing that might prove me wrong. At least that was my logic on the matter.
 
So, since I didn’t feel like going back to the office and having someone call my parents, I just got on the next bus in line. At this point everyone reading this is probably thinking that wasn’t real smart, but seeing the kids who were getting on, I knew where the other bus was going—out of town. And to get out of town, it would go past my house.
 
Well, things worked out very well, or so I thought. As we neared my house, I went to the front and told the driver I’d gotten on the wrong bus and needed off at the next street. Problem was, he didn’t know me, didn’t know where I lived. And, he said, he couldn’t just drop me off. Great!
 
That little set-back was easily remedied though—if I hurried. We were almost to my house.
 
I pulled out my homework assignment—with my name written on across the top—and showed it to the driver. Then, I pointed to the sign by the side of the road. Satisfied, the driver stopped the bus and let me off.
 
What was on the sign? Well, my dad’s name. The sign was for our church, which is also where we lived. And since my dad was the pastor... you get the picture.
 
So, I thought my little genius plan to guarantee that I wouldn’t get in trouble had worked. I was home, what could go wrong? Well, it turns out that a bus traveling to the country, passing my house on the way, gets there a LOT quicker than a bus making the rounds in town and finally getting to my stop. Almost an hour quicker. And my parents weren’t home. And the door was locked. And I didn’t have a key. So, I went next door to play.
 
And then, my parents got home. And my bus arrived. Neither of which I saw.
 
They found me a while later. Let’s just say I was wrong about not getting into trouble for missing my bus. ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.