Library

My parents were still discussing what to do with me. I was visiting my father who took me into Terry Montana. I had a letter from library and was going to open when I got introduced to Jack.

This is a tale from Terry, Montana and a man I got to know as Jack who was known to the town as Ole Pierce. To me, I got to know him through my great cousin Albert, who visited him being of the same trade junkmen at heart.

The tale of the princesses.

Bootlegging whiskey in Havre, Montana during the 1918s was a dangerous field of work not to pay taxes was an issue to the federal government. This was not prohibition era, but the government wanted its tax revenue. The Kennedy boys were a mean vicious lot. This tale is told by an old timer junkman to children that visit him every blue moon. Canada the road to rum, whiskey and beer ran through Harve towards Chicago by train and Denver via truck. Jack the story teller was a little orphan boy who was a watcher for the Kennedy's during the night and thief of passing trains cargo during the day.

One night while the Kennedy's stored their whiskey on a train bound to Alaska Jack accidentally fell asleep. He awoke bound to Alaska in a contain that was supposedly filled with whiskey from Canada. Three days he had nothing to eat only whiskey to drink. Finally, the train stopped at a port town because Jack could smell the fish. No one came that he recalls. The container was hoisted onto a ship, and all the yelling and screaming Jack could do no one heard him. He started to catch rats in the container and eat them raw. The container onboard had been placed high on the ship so all his calling to ship men and crew went unheard. The steamship smoke clouded his view so much of the time he spent hoping to catch a rat. Two weeks later the ship docked. Everything was unloaded onto a train. Finally, a soldier opened the crate and saw Jack. He was brought to an armed tent where he was asked about his circumstances. The soldierly commander congratulated Jack on surviving and told him he had just been drafted. The group on the train was a combination US and British soldiers with train men from the states. Jack got to know the brake man and learned that whole group was off to save the Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family.

The train adventure was something out of an old medieval war story. The train being a steam engine would puff and stop at times due to the lack of coal. Several times along the way the whole attachment was put forth to cut wood, and or look for coal. Jack was useful during these times knowing a little Russian and Yiddish from his grandfather. Jack also got to learn how to slow the train down by applying the brakes going downhill.

One time when people were out searching for fuel for the train, a group of locals dressed as Mongolians attacked the train with swords, and arrows. The sentry with the steam powered machine gun made short work of the m. The British having to bribe both the White Army of the Czar, Bolsheviks, wild revolutionaries, and the Red Army of Vladimir Lenin to get through the Siberian train railroad. Bribing the White Army was easier said than done. A lot of the old Czar’s military felt betrayed by the Czar by his lack of leadership. One White General even order a bayonet charge against the train while it was pulling away from a station. The tale of that ride brought me back for several visits to Jack the junkman in Terry, Montana. There was the Japanese army of a million men who were taking up positions on long the road. The bribe was a jewel the size of a baby's fist to the general in command. They were attacked several times and held the train with three machine guns and a cannon.

One of the more memorable tales was when Jack’s train had to backup fifteen miles because of no side rails to let the train of General Kaledin by. Jack wild story here was more reflective in his face. Talking about how handbraking downhill was easy but keeping a whole train at a steady pace going backward in snow was terrifying. After that he was tired however because he knew some Russian and Yiddish he was forced back to work.

The tale Jack had was that General Kaledin invited the officers and he was drafted as their messenger for a night party. The party was like a medieval banquet inside a train. Drinking wine, vodka, and dancing with women. His tale was of several professional night ladies dancing singing and drinking more vodka and spirits than he could remember doing so in his life. All he did was watch. Like many medieval tales the General was not such a good guy. During the night General Kaledin required an extra bribe which the Brit paid several costly jewels and another ruby the size of a handful was the description.

After that the train went to two stops to find the Czar. The first was a bust meaning the Czar had been moved, and the second was Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Finally, they reached Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. This time an American office, a British officer/royal and Jack as a scout went into Yekaterinburg. The British officer spoke flawless Russian, however, no one in public wanted to speak with him. Finally, Jack took the lead asking for some bread. Jack was a quick child and knowing some Yiddish allowed him to ask the right kids around the train yard to find the family. Upon getting to the house, there was not much to the tale. The officers bribed the local official and were preparing to leave with the whole family. However, the family doctor said Alexei could not be moved. The Czar would not go without his son. Finally, the four daughters were allowed to go. Getting back to the train yard, there was a run-in with the locals.

One of the daughters was murdered there. Jack's description was not of an execution more like a disagreement with the person accepting a bribe and then that person trying to retake the four girls. Anastasia Nikolaevna got separated during a melee between the Brit and five Russians. The Brit pulled out a sword and rushed the Russians cutting three of them down and forcing the other two to flee. Knowing that name Anastasia I asked what happened to her? He said Anastasia was next to a building when the local official pulled out a pistol and five men rushed the Brit and awkwardly was being restrained by the Brit when the gun went off. Olga was shot dead. Jack only said that after Olga had been shot that Anastasia just was not there. One moment she was and the next no sign. There was snow, so he looked but could not find her. Anyway after looking for a few minutes both officers, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna and Jack got back to the train. That was Jack's saving a princess tale.

The fighting on the way back across Serbia was a wild tale. Jack on more than one occasion was put in charge of braking the train while the regular brackman went to sleep or was repairing parts of the train which was kept moving as fast to the east as possible. There were three melees that Jack gave great detail about. First was when the Red Army in front of the train required that everyone get off the train and be searched. The diplomatic papers, and bribes were not working this time. So the plan laid out by the Brit rather fastly was to engage the Reds upon seeing them and open fire with the machine gun. This was the plan. However, the Reds brought only a few soldiers to the train. They were easily bribe when the wrong officer was in charge. Pulling out of the blockade however got crazy and the machine gun was used cutting town several soldiers of the Red Army.

The train moved along for hundreds of miles without seeing a sign of human life. Then all of a sudden there was a vast amount of people escaping the Red Army. The melee here was more sadness. The people Jack said the people were just trying to escape the cold but their numbers and rioting was slowing the train down. The soldiers on board were ordered to clear a path which they did with swords and bayonets.

The final big melee was between the Japanese which had sent several thousand troops into the area to secure the railroad. This part was interesting in that the Japanese at first deferred to the General that had let them pass through the first time. But during their passing a new General arrived and he was either more honorable or had not been bribed was trying to retake the train. The melee was short the machine gun cutting down several hundred soldiers in an open field.

He said that the British office married Titiana and that Maria ended up as a missionary in Africa. His tale was fun, and he had many more about Butch Cassidy being a bootlegger in Nevada and such, but this one when he was done he pointed to a cabinet. Inside was one of those Russian eggs, which looked like the frame was made of gold. There too was an old book written with strange letters. Jack was old in his eighties. He saw my eyes on the book. He laughed and gave it to me.

Heading home that day we stopped by the gas station where a Greyhound bus was parked. A man came out and started to talk with me right away upon seeing the book in my hand. He was going to Helena Montana and wondered if I would be willing to sell him my book from Jack. He asked if there were more books at which point my father introduced himself. The man introduced himself as John Smith asking if my father knew anything about Scientology. With that my father picked me up and left.

There are secrets and then there are secrets. Some of them are known. Like hearing in November 2015 that more emails were discovered about Hillary Clinton's email server filled with classified emails. Some, however, are hushed up much better. This is one of those stories.

Working on the Orion program was fun. Meeting people that were building the future spacecraft to go to the asteroid belt was intense. The program continued to have problems both politically and technically. The technical issue was a female engineer whose quality inspection of safety to the parachute system cost an additional fifty-five million dollars to show that the mathematics of her probability would never come true.

On one of the many teleconference that I had to listen into the inspector started yelling and screaming that math does not prove anything.

Myself, I was curious enough to open the document which was a probability statement. The charges to fire the parachute had to malfunction than the door would have to hit the parachute line not once but eight times. The end summary was a one in 32 million chance that all eight charges would goof at once hitting the eight lines attaching the parachute causing a fatality. The math was simple enough for me to understand. So I interrupted the teleconference being only an analyst person new and tired of hearing a woman screaming about a probability. My question was pretty simple. Which part of the math statement in the equation did she not agree with. Silence on the phone. She did not reply. Her comment after a time was to ask who asked the question and what right did I have to ask it. I responded who I was and silence. Someone was laughing; I think they, thought they were on mute. The woman just was silent. The meeting continued in a different direction.

Since I had to present on my information at the end of the meeting, I was quick and precession on detail on my topic. The meeting ended, and I stayed online to finish off the minutes. I had not cut off the conference call when I heard two of the NASA team members talk.

“Anyone on?” a voice said over the phone. I tried to get my mute button off but the headset and paperwork on my desk got in my way. The tone - laughter "Well that was an unexpected meeting," said a person. "Yes, I thought (name of the woman) was going to explode," said the other. "Who is Clinton?" I was not sure, which asked the question. "He took over for Shirley." "Well, he is trying to do his job and keep the program on schedule."

"Yes, I wonder if no one has told him we are punting the program until 2021." "What? Why?" "Unofficially technical problems. The whole program is going to be oil canned for two or three years. After that it will be brought back. By that time, the government will announce that they have been contacted by aliens."

This conversation took place so fast that by the time I got the mute button off that was what I had heard. "Forgive, me," I said with that the conference call talker's hung up. I finished my notes from the meeting and sent them out and checked out.