Try this on for Cy's

For suggestion or comments contact Cy Martin via E-Mail

My wife and I once owned a small rural telephone company out in West Texas. It was a family business. She and our oldest daughter ran the switchboard and the office. The line crew consisted of me and our two sons.

Part of a Lineman's job is climbing poles and we climbed telephone poles nearly every day. Out in that country, a gray scally lizard lives on every pole, or so it seems.

As you climb up one side of the pole, the lizard is on the other side. You can hear him scampering up the pole trying to get away from your advancing hands. I am sure the poor thing just knows he or she is about to be eaten.

When you finally get to the top of the pole, you find yourself are eyeball-to-eyeball with this monster. He may be a giant foot-long grand daddy lizard or he may be a mere two-inch "baby," but it makes no difference. When you see his eyes a mere 18 inches away, your heart will skip several beats. You better hope you fastened your safety belt.

After having the hell scared out of me a few times, I tried to mentally prepare myself to face the lizard and made a game of it. I found that if at the moment I saw him I shouted, "BOO!", he'd jump off the pole and hit the ground running. Better him than me. Also, as long as you didn't move your head above the top of the pole, he would try to stay out of your way.

These critters really are harmless, but I'd bet a lot of macho linemen have hurt themselves trying to get away from them.

Actually, after we got used to lizards, we preferred meeting one of them, to unknowingly climbing into a wasp's nest, or hearing the "Buzzzz..." of a rattlesnake as we started to step off at the bottom of a pole.

"Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check". -- From the Internet.

"Yesterday is a memory; tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift. That's why they call it the present! --Source Obscure.

At a certain time in the spring every year we get fleas in the cab. They may not really be fleas, but they sure bite like them. Maybe they are stealth mosquitos. About eight years ago, I was on a switch engine one night when they got so bad I stopped at the yard office and asked the trainmaster if he had any insect repellent. After I told him what the problem was, he said, "We don't have any, but I will go buy some down at the 7-11."

This man was one good trainmaster, and represented everything that was good about the the UP. I'm happy to report that a few years ago, he went on to better things with the Union Pacific -- he runs the UP-Link TV Studio.

His name is Don Mantooth. Someone once told me that he is the brother of Randy Mantooth, who starred in "Emergency!" in the late '60s.

By the way, Don earned the nickname "two dawgs..." while he was at his first assignment at Arlington, Texas. Today, he has it engraved on a sign on his desk in Omaha. It is another story that he enjoys telling to anyone who asks about it.

We recently read that railroad efficiency was up to where, a ton of freight can be transported 379 miles on one gallon of fuel.

Wish I could do that in my auto. Humm... If one ton of freight on steel wheels gets 379 miles per gallon, a one and one half ton auto on rubber tires would have to get 252 mpg to achieve the same performance.

"The trouble with being a Liberal is the son-of-bitches you have to defend."
-- H.L. Menchen
It applies to Conservatives, too.

Job insurance is another name for the insurance that railroaders and other professional people carry to protect their earnings.

Airline Pilots call it license insurance. Doctors, lawyers and accountants call it malpractice insurance.

Many of us can remember working for the Missouri Pacific, when no one wanted to sell us job insurance.

Today, many job insurance companies, such as LE&CMPA, pay a "Policy Dividend" each year based on the policy holders claim records and his time with the company.

If you received one of these, it just further illustrates the point that a person's work record is his most valuable asset.

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon- Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Mark Twain, 1866.

A lady came into the newsroom to place her husband's obituary. She was told by the kindly newsman that it cost a dollar a word, and that he remembered Pete, and wasn't it too bad about him passing away. She thanked him for his kind words and bemoaned the fact that she only had two dollars. She wrote out the obituary:

Cy Martin is a locomotive engineer at Centennial Yard in Fort Worth, Texas.

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