Rice Brothers' Gang performs Railroad Boomer written by Carson Robison & Frank Luther
Uploader: Mark n Victoria Macham
Original upload date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Mon, 06 Dec 2021 14:38:11 GMT
Rice Brothers Gang on Decca Records 78 rpm
When Mark first played this song for me on the old 78 player I immediately felt this connection. I was raised up from a baby right next to the tracks. On t
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he corner of Highway 210 and Lammi Road (364 Lammi Road Google earth) in Carlton County on the Fond du Lac Reserve in Cloquet, Minnesota. Just South of the Great Missabe Iron Range.The giant iron ore trains would run south from The Missabe Iron Range down to Duluth,Minnesota.
So literally, our house sat just a ditch away from the railroad tracks. The house trembled and would fill with this loud, low growling sound of the train every night. These trains are the heaviest in the world filled with Taconite pellets so the house would really ROCK! Yet somehow, the sound along with the trembling was very soothing for me. For years, my siblings (6 sisters and 4 bros) and I would do the very thing that are stated in the lyrics of this song. We would count the train cars as we waited for the Caboose with its conductor. These railroad men had this tradition whereas they would always wave and throw candy to us! It is an awesome memory! I don't ever remember knowing the whole count of cars that went by.....we'd forget as soon as the caboose came along.
Years later when I was a teen, my mom was driving home and noticed a broken down train sitting along the tracks near our house but the other end was quite a ways away. She spotted one of the railroad workers walking along so she stopped and asked if he could use a ride. As they traveled and talked, my mom had mentioned where our house was located and the gentlemen immediately said "oh the happy family". Then he told her that all the Caboose guys on that route called us the Happy family! He said they all loved buying bags of candy to throw to us because we were always so smiley and happy and that made them happy.
So, we would like to thank all the kind people that work for the railroad..
Story by Victoria Welsand-Macham
Years before I ( Mark ) started working at the (now defunct) book & record store, I used to visit there as often as I could. On one occasion I met the man who was running the bookstore at that time. During our conversation I had asked about 78 rpm records, he said that he had many upstairs but no one goes up there without his consent. That seemed to be that....until one day he approaches with a proposition, I go through his mess of 78's, straighten it up so that he could present his collection to buyers and I get a deal on any 78's that I might want...except I was to give him all of the SUN label records. I accepted with the understanding that if he was selling any of his SUN records that I would have a chance at them once he had them appraised. Well, I found several and he never offered one back....he just sold them off.
I used to spend hours in a dusty/musty dark room (upstairs of the record store, before & during the time i worked there) going through thousands trying to guess which one is worth the effort... you have to, there was literally thousands waiting to be discarded. I just can't process the thought of what didn't get saved!