Greetings Most Edible Friends
It is I, the long-lost Broadway Lion here in nice, soft, warm, and most petable fur.
Yes, I am still a monk and still live at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, North Dakota.
It has been a most eventful year, although that was not the reason why I disappeared for so long. Mostly I simply could not log in having forgotten passwords and usernames and the fact that I could not coax the forum into letting me sign in. Well, I saw the notice in Trains and in Model Railroader. So, I gave it a try, and well, here I am, sort of.
The action began on June 11, 2024 While I was trying to vote in the primary. I parked the car by the pharmacy since I had some business to do there, but first I wanted to cross the street in order to vote. Well, my neuropathy and my ability to walk was catching up with me, and I kept walking, stumbling and running faster and faster until I could not stop. I put out my left arm to catch the stanchion in front of city hall, which broke my left arm, and spun me around to smash face to face with the stone wall first like some cartoon creature. And this broke my right wrist. And so, I lay there on my back and could not move. Well, it was election day, and people would have to come to city hall in order to vote. Had that not been so perhaps nobody would have found me, since who would have had any other occasion to walk on that side of the street. (It is a small town, you know.) So, in not too long an old lady came by ans in a thin voice asked, âdo you need help?â I stammered in the affirmative, and she continued on her way in order to cast her ballot.
Anyway, for the past fifty years or so, the ambulance service has been co-located with city hall. First, we rented space in their garage and used their meeting room for our meetings and training sessions. Later we decided to build our own building on the main drag called North Avenue because it was on the south side of town. At the same time City Hall decided that it was time for them to have new digs too, so we went together half and half on this beautiful building. So, when all of these giggling girls came out to see what had happened. Our EMT was there among them and produced a scoop stretcher while she paged out the duty driver. We could not find enough volunteers to fill out schedule, so we hired a full-time EMT to work Monday to Friday for us.
So, off I went to the hospital, and it turned out that I had two broken arms. The Abbot will not let me come to Brooklyn anymore. He says, âIf you canât cross the street in Richardton, what are you going to do in the city?â He may have a point, but I still want to come to the city.
My ambulation continued to go downhill after this and so the put me in the Richardton Nursing Home for about five months until I was all healed up. I was home in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but after that I had some chest issues and then spent another week in the hospital.
Now I am in a Nursing Home in Dickinson, ND. Not so many monks visit me out here. It is 50 miles Round Trip and at $0.70 per mile, that works out as $35.00 car fare. Fed allows 70c a mile, to that is what we charge ourselves to use the cars.
As for my beautiful trains, the Abbot has told me that I must get rid of them. What the heck, I can hardly climb three flights the way I used to. If anybody wants to buy them, let me know and we can arrange for you to come out here to look at them. Shipping them would cost several hundred dollars. I have ten subway trains at six cars each. They are four feet long, drawbars, not couplers, all wired together to make 48-wheel power pickup. Ainât no switch throat going to stop these things, so I donât even power the switches. There are other regional and long-distance trains, and more than 50 tortoise switch machines. Unfortunately, while I was in the Richardton Nursing Home I lost my Broadwaylion.com website. The lease with my provider expired, and so I lost my website, but I still own the URL, and so I will put some pictures on it, but I will not be rebuilding the site the way it was.
So best wishes to you all and Iâll keep in touch.
Thanks for checking in and letting us know your situation. You have been missed!
