Yikes, It's My 66th Birthday!

In the words of the Old Cigar Philsopher (my grandfather), it's a case of "too-soon old, too-late smart.

Sixty-six years ago I was born, in this building:



If it looks like an old train station, that's because it was one. When the city of Longview (WA) was built in 1923, it was undertaken with a number of unsuccessful plans that never came to fruition.

One was that the town would be a railroad hub. But the tracks they originally laid down went only to the train station and stopped, so trains would have to reverse themselves and backtrack for several miles back to hit the main north-south trunk line. Then a river flood washed out the tracks, they were never relaid, and the train station was sold and turned into a hospital.

And there, on the evening of April 21, 1945, I came into the world. It hasn't been the same since...

The old station/hospital itself is longer standing. Sometime in the1980s it was torn town and a new hospital built on the spot.