Cool Trains and Famous Boxers

I spent many a day in the pocket of that steamboat pilot after he left the boat in St. Louis and headed toward New York City by train. We rode a train called,"The Diplomat" that connected St. Louis to NYC through Washington DC.  How exciting that I was off to the "Big Apple". It was a long and bumpy ride but I didn't mind because the pilot loved to talk to the other passengers, so I heard lots of great stories.

Most of the time we would walk to the dining car for meals. There was always a lot of story telling going on in that car. One day as we were leaving Washington DC after picking up new passengers, I heard a new voice ask if the seat next to us was taken. The pilot asked the man to have a seat. The new person introduced himself as Rocky Graziano, a boxer from NYC and the two of them talked non-stop all the way to New York City. Whoa, did I hear some stories.

It turns out Rocky Graziano had had a pretty amazing life so far. He was a boxer who was headed back to NYC where he lived. He had an fight coming up at Madison Square Garden. He was going to be fighting Freddie Cochrane. He had been boxing for a long time and several people recognized him on the train and asked for his autograph. It was hard to imagine him as someone famous, he was so nice to everyone and just seemed like an everyday guy. He told us that his father was a boxer called "Fighting Nick Bob". He made Rocky fight his brothers as early as the age of three which led Rocky to become a street fighter. He spent years in reform school and jail. After that he joined the army. but he didn't like the discipline there so he left the army. Rocky spent a lot of time in jail for leaving the army, But after a while the army saw how good Rocky was at boxing that they let him go after he agreed to represent them when he boxed.

 

Before his fight Rocky emptied his pocket and put me down on a table and climbed into the ring. There was another man in there also. Everyone was yelling "Freddie Cochrane!". I guessed that was the man Rocky was going to fight. After the first 8 rounds it looked like Rocky was going to lose but then at the last moment he came up from behind Freddie and knocked him down which led to Rocky winning the match. I was so happy! Rocky scooped up his pocket belongings, including me. Later went out with some friends to celebrate his win. 

When Rocky returned to his room that night he put me and some other coins in a small bottle on a shelf. I wondered when I would ever get out of this bottle and how. It seems like almost a year went by and I was suddenly awakened as someone poured the coins, including myself into their pocket and off I went. I remembered being handed around quite a bit. I was becoming impatient for a new adventure. 

List of Named Passenger Trains. 

Somebody Up There Likes Me: The Story of My Life So Far

Somebody Up There Likes Me

~~~Written by Loretta Coleman~~~~

Muddy Waters

I sat in the dirt on that street in Philadelphia, Mississippi for a long time before someone finally picked me up and spent me at a store close by. I laid in the cash register for a while until one day I heard a conversation between the owner of the store and a customer. The customer was saying that he had just visited his family and that he was headed back up to Vicksburg today.

“Oh yeah? What do you do up in Vicksburg?” the owner asked.

“I’m the captain of a steamboat named, 'Muddy Waters,'” the customer replied.

“Is that right? My nephew works on a steamboat up in St. Louis.”

“St. Louis is actually where I’m headed.”

“Is that so? Well, I wish ya luck on your trip Captain,” the owner said kindly.

I then heard the Ch-Ching of the cash register and felt myself in the captain's hand. I heard the captain say thank you as he slipped me into his pocket. As he opened the door to the hot and humid Mississippi day, the owner called out and said with a chuckle, “If you see my nephew in St. Louis, tell him Uncle Todd said that he still owes me that money.”

“Will do” the Captain laughed.

After a few hours traveling in the captain's pocket, I knew we had met our destination, because I heard him mumble to himself how great it was to see the boat. The captain started greeting his crew as he walked up to the deck.

“We'll be leaving the dock in about an hour, so be ready,” He told everyone. The 

clomp of the captain's boots told me that we were moving along the boat now. I could hear him asking a crew member questions about the engine, souls on board, and departure and arrival times. He was quite pleasant and respectful to his crew. He seemed to be a nice, happy man, and a good captain to work for. I came to the conclusion the captain was the man who gave orders and was in charge of this boat. 

The captain talked to a few other people and checked a couple other things before he went back on deck and announced to his crew it was time for departure. The sound of the scrambling footsteps told me they acknowledged the captain's orders. The next thing I knew, I was in the wheelhouse and I heard the whistle blow and I felt the boat move away from the dock. Once we where underway, the Captain took me out of his pocket and handed me to the pilot of the boat. I heard him say, “Here's a lucky penny I picked up a while back. Hopefully it will guide us on an easy trip today.” The pilot looked me over, smiled, thanked the captain and then laid me on a chair next to his post.

At that point I was the happiest penny alive. Being able to take a steamboat cruise and feel the boat rocking on the water, hearing the conversation between the passengers and the crew, not to mention the sights and sounds of this amazing river from Vicksburg, Mississippi all the way to St. Louis, Missouri was beautiful.

I stepped off the boat in the pilot's pocket, in the grand city of St. Louis, wondering what my future held. 

Author's note.

I started this post with the intent of it being about Pearl Harbor, but somehow I went a completely different direction.

How I jumped from Pear Harbor to Mississippi steamboats is anyone’s guess. Even though the change of ideas was quite abrupt, as usual, what happens, one ends up learning a lot more than they set out to. This certainly happened to me. I learned things about Pearl Harbor that I had never known . . . and I considered myself pretty savvy on Pearl Harbor Day history. Never hurts to change subjects mid-stream and do you research, now I know a lot about Pearl Harbor and the Mississippi Steamboats of the early days. 

MB

For more information about steamboats and the Mississippi river, checkout these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat

http://amhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/4_3.html

The General Store

It seemed like I was in that crate for weeks. I was rolled up tight with 49 other pennies in a paper roll. Then suddenly we all felt the crate move and I think we were loaded onto a truck. I remember a bumpy ride for several days and then I was picked up and carried somewhere and was plopped down on the floor. I had no idea where I was. I could hear a squeaking, then the top of the crate opened and I saw a man standing there. He started to pick up rolls of pennies and walk away.

Then came my turn, the man picked up my roll and opened it. I was laying on a counter top and able to see my new home. I saw a sign that said “Williams Brothers General Store, Philadelphia, Mississippi."  MISSISSIPPI!!!!!!  I started in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ....and now I am in Philadelphia, Mississippi???  I guess that was a long road trip. I could see the whole general store from the counter. There were lots of people sitting around talking and picking out food. I saw lots of tools, shoes, clothing, big pickles,  hams hanging off hooks, candy in jars and glassware. There were some old men playing checkers and smoking cigars, laughing loudly. I noticed a calendar on the wall that had the date, March 19, 1939 written on it. 

The man scooped me up and put me in a metal box where I saw other coins and paper money. This must be where he keeps his money.  After he had put me in the metal box he shoved it closed. I could no longer hear what people were saying, but then the box opened and it made a loud “Cha Ching!”  The man reached in the box and put more dollar bills in and then took out 3 pennies, including me! As he closed the box he handed me and some other coins to a little girl who was holding a lollipop. The little girl held me in her hand as she went skipping out the door. Then I got to see what the outside of "Williams Brothers General Store"  and I could see "County Road." 

As the girl walked with me down the street I felt myself falling. I slipped out of her hand. There I lay, in the dirt. . . what would happen to me next?

by LC

historical notation:

Williams Brothers General Store and History of Philadelphia, Mississippi

The Day I Was Born

The day I was born is one of my favorite memories. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel everything. I remember the feeling of getting cut into a smaller size, and then being thrown into a large pile of metal pieces that were the same size as me. After that, I recall it becoming extremely hot. At one point I thought I was going to melt! Just when I thought I couldn't take it any more, I felt myself sliding down a tube and then splashing into cold refreshing water. I felt so clean after coming out and getting dried off.

Once dry, I could feel myself moving again. I heard a banging noise that seemed to get louder and louder. Finally, the sound grew so loud that I knew I must be right next to the source. I felt something crash into me with a large amount of force. I fell into yet another pile of pieces that were like me. Now, I could see! Being able to see was fantastic. The first thing that caught my attention was the immediate surroundings. I was in some kind of wooden crate that had the “1939 pennies” stamped on the inside. There were thousands of small pieces of round, shiny metal all around me.  We all looked exactly the same. It was then I knew that I was a United States penny, made in the year 1939. I remember wondering what a penny was supposed to do and hoped it didn't mean I was going to lay around in a crate forever.

I laid in that crate for awhile longer. So many thoughts were going through my head.  Where was I going? What was going to happen next?  Only time could tell.

Suddenly, I felt myself moving again. I couldn't see outside of the box I was in, so I didn't know where I was going. I had no idea the amount of adventures and surprising days that were yet to come. 

M

Philadelphia Mint 1939.

Historical notes from Wikipedia:

The Philadelphia Mint was created from the need to establish a national identity and the needs of commerce in the United States. This led the Founding Fathers of the United States to make an establishment of a continental national mint a main priority after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

The Coinage Act of 1792 was entered into law on April 2. It proclaimed the creation of the United States Mint. Philadelphia at that time was the nation's capital; therefore the first mint facility was built there. The Mint Act also instituted a decimal system based on a dollar unit; specified weights, metallic composition and fineness; and required each United States coin feature "an impression emblematic of liberty".