Technology

The thoughts of about technology get us excited. There is a lot of it in recent years. Technology that thrilled me in the past is a live steam locomotive pulling a working train. I can imagine being six, seven or eight years old ( about 80 years ago) standing next to a live steam locomotive at the Goodhue train station. The engine had fire in its firebox steam shouting our, water dripping and the smoke out of the chimney, an amazing huge complex machinery. This experience was not like seeing a locomotive in a museum. This was reality an essential part of the life of the community. The railroad from Red Wing to Rochester was the closest railroad to the Mississippi River in that part of the Western United States. The railroad ran along the western edge of our farm. It was visible from our farmhouse. I can picture the train heading south with its plume of black smoke. I cannot recall a picture of it in my memory of it going north.