Document text
FORMA
Circumstances of Interview
Washington
J. J. Stauter
Seattle, Washington
_-'December 20, 1938
"Local Railroad Character"
1. Wished to remain anonymous
2. December 19, 1938
3. Seattle waterfront
4. None
5. None
6. None
Folklore
FORM B
Personal History of Informant
Waahington
J. J. Stauter
Seattle, Washington
December 20, 1938
"Local Railroad Character"
Anonymous Legendary character
1.
2.
3.
etc. (Not available)
American Folk Stuff
A local railroad character, now legendary:
Stauter
Dec. 20, 1938
"Did you see old Mr. Lord, that was an N.P. freight checker for so
many years? I guess that was before your time. Old Lord was the perfect
checker. He was a tall man, over nix feet, slim but with broad shoulders.
He got his first job as a freight checker with the N.P. somewhere back in the
early eighties, and he just sort of settled down that first day to make it
his life work. He seemed to figure that the best way to enjoy life was to be
the best checker on the roads nothing more and nothing less. The others
could go after promotitns for ill they were worth. They could beef about the
thousands of regulations that they had to follow. They could slip away *bile a car
was being loaded for a cup of cofiee or a glass of beer. They could blow about
the jobs they once held, or was going to get pretty soon. They could buy auto-
mobiles on the instillment plan. But not Lord.
"Lord was just a checker. Company regulations never bothered him in the
least; as a matter of fact, he had thousands of private regulations of his
own that he followed along with the printed ones. It would take the company
fifty years to even think up all the rules he set for himself, let alone get
them approved by the proper authorities and posted up. That was one way to
get perfect peace of mind in spite of the Company to beat them at their
own game.
"He never got married, or even, as far as anybody knows, stepped out with
a woman. That mould take attention off his work get him to thinking about
other things besides tallying freight into cars.-- and he was a checker. He
lived in a plain little three room house which be had bought with his first
year's savings. They say that one of his three rooms was completely filled
with copies of his tally sheets he kept every one since the first day he
worked..
Awerican Folk Stuff 2
"His clothes were plain and neat and seemed to date back to the year
he started work, like everything else about him; and yet they never looked
old or threadbare. He always wore a flowing black tie done in a perfect
bow, with the ends hanging down about a foot, like girls used to war with
a "middy blouse." His face never wrinkled, even when he was over seventy;
I guess it was because he had nothing to worry about.
often it came retirement age, he faced it without any emotion; didn't
seem to be either sorry or glad, nor to have any plans as to what to do with his
new leisure. Like so many other railroad men, he only lasted a few months
after his retirement. The regulations said he couldn't be a checker any
more, and —well, he couldn't be anything else, so that was that."