JOHN BOB CLAGWELL, HOME TOWN HERO

Paw lit up his pipe and tilted his rocker back against the porch wall. "Son", he asked, do you know who Mr. John Bob Clagwell is?"

"Yes sir, Paw, I sure do know him.  He's the big boss down at the NR&P Railroad shops."  I had seen Mr. Clagwell lots of times. He is a great big fellow and all the men who work down at the shops seem to really like him.  Thing that I knew most about him was that every Halloween he and his wife Bessy Mae would give out 'Sugar Daddy' suckers, the kind that last all day.

"That's right.  He is the boss now, but he wasn't always the boss.  In fact, he was just about the furthest thing from a boss that you can imagine."

"What do you mean, Paw?"  I couldn't imagine Mr. Clagwell not being an important man.

"Well, before I answer your question, let me ask another one of my own.  Do you know why all experimental locomotives have the letter 'X' before the number?

"I don't know, but, I guess it's because 'experimental' kind of sounds like an 'X'.

"Most people think that.  But the truth is quite different and Mr. John Bob Clagwell has something to do with that worldwide practice."

I could see right off that Paw was in the mood to tell a story and nothing could suit me better.  As long as he was spinning a yarn, my Mother would leave us both alone instead of finding something 'useful' for us to do.

"All this started a long time ago. Mr. John Bob Clagwell and I were boys together in grade school here in Sun City. In those days all the other kids called John Bob 'Mousy'. I didn't, of course, because he was my friend and friends don't do things to hurt each other's feelings. Anyway, he grew up as 'Mousy' and his first job after he graduated from high school was down at the NR&P shops.  At that time the boss there was an awful fellow named Gaspar Tucker. Tucker was a bully from the word go. He immediately decided that John Bob deserved the name 'Mousy' and he picked on poor old John Bob continuously. It was 'Mousy' do this and 'Mousy' do that and no rest at all for poor John Bob. There was no reason for Tucker to act that way except that Gaspar Tucker was just a terrible person. Well anyway, John Bob worked there in the shop for several years and things didn't  improve one bit. Every day brought a new reason for John Bob to detest Gaspar Tucker."

"Tucker ran that shop with an iron hand. No employee could cross him and keep his job.

"Every man who worked there avoided him as much as possible, but when he spoke they jumped. Now, keep in mind that all this was back in the days when diesel locomotives were first being tried on the railroads in the United States. The folks here in Sun City didn't want to be left behind the times so the community politicians and Pooh-Bah's started to nag Gaspar into having a diesel locomotive on the NR&P. This was crazy, of course, because half the people in the State of Hope made their living digging coal and diesel locomotives don't burn coal.  But, you know how people are; they want the latest thing no matter what. So Gaspar Tucker finally had all he could take of that talk and he gave in and told his shop crew to build a 'Dang-blasted diesel locomotive'.  It took the boys at the shops about 6 months to turn one out. They finally got one that would run - it wouldn't pull anything, but it would run. Gaspar himself planned the big ceremony for the unveiling of this wonderful new toy. The Governor was invited to make a speech and all the local politicians and bankers and coal company bigwigs were invited to the christening ceremony.  Bertha Lysander Tucker, Gaspar's wife, bought a whole new, and very expensive, outfit for the occasion. You never saw her, but Bertha Lysander Tucker was a woman of wondrous size. She was twice the girth of Gaspar and he was considerably more than pleasantly plump. When Bertha Lysander Tucker shopped for a new outfit she always bought out the store. She shopped down at the State Capitol in a French dress store called 'Les Pachyderms'. Bertha Lysander Tucker's purchases started with unmentionables and worked all the way out to a magnificent new genuine weasel fur jacket and a great big pointy hat trimmed with purple ostrich feathers. She took the entire ensemble home and spread everything out on the bed ready to show to Gaspar when he came home from work.

"It had been an awful day for Gaspar Clagwell. One decision after another had demanded his immediate attention. The newspapers all wanted exclusive interviews, the local politicians were squabbling over who would sit next to the Governor at the dinner and who would sit on the reviewing platform to see the new locomotive unveiled. One problem piled onto another when into Gaspar's office walked John Bob Clagwell.

"All right, what the devil do you want, Mousy?" Gaspar roared.

John Bob gulped and turned pale. 'I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Tucker, but the boys in the paint shop need to know what color you want us to paint that new diesel engine.  We also need to know what letters and numbers you want us to put on it.'  John Bob prayed that he wasn't about to be fired.

"This was one set of questions that Gaspar Tucker was fully prepared to answer.  The day before he had labored for hours over a drawing of the new locomotive. He had written on the drawing in great detail the exact design and colors he wanted it to be painted. It would be a beautiful blue and silver creation. He had devised a clever engine number that would remind all of the day, date and year the grand new locomotive was introduced. He had placed the design in his bureau drawer in his bedroom. Unfortunately, with all the rush of business, he had forgotten to bring the drawing to work with him.

"Mousy, as usual I've figured every bit of that out for you. And as usual, I've had to do the whole thing myself. If you had the slightest bit of gumption I wouldn't need to do all this. But you don't. You are just as worthless as all the rest of your family. There isn't a Clagwell yet who's got sense enough to shine my shoes. So, Mousy, all you have to do is to go over to my house, get one of my kids to show you to the bedroom and you'll find it all in there and all written out for you. It's there in those drawers in the bedroom. You can't miss it. You know what drawers are, don't you?  Well, don't just stand there like a typical Clagwell idiot. Get going and look in the drawers in my bedroom and you'll find the answer to all your questions. Now pay attention, I want that locomotive to be exactly those colors and I want it lettered and numbered just exactly like it says in the drawers. Go and look in the drawers, Mousy.  Now get your brainless carcass out of here; I've got real man's work to do.

"Well sir, up to this very minute John Bob Clagwell had always done what he was told to do.  But this time Gaspar Tucker had gone too far. John Bob could tolerate nasty things said about him, but to insult his family was too much. 'Not sense enough to shine his shoes, he says', well we will see about that', muttered John Bob as he walked to Gaspar Tucker's house. The oldest Tucker boy, Grover, showed John Bob to the bedroom. And there, in the bedroom in a flash of inspiration, John Bob saw how he would have his revenge.  There were lots of drawers in the bedroom, but there was one very special set of drawers - the ones on the bed!  The drawers that were a part of the newly purchased pile of clothes that Bertha Lysander Tucker had laid out on the bed for her dinner with the Governor.

"John Bob and the boys at the paint shop worked all night long getting the locomotive ready for the big unveiling.  They locked the paint shop doors so that no one could sneak in and see what the new paint scheme looked like.  But the word leaked and, before long, half the town had snuck down to peep through the window and to go home laughing."

"The next day will live forever in the annals of railroad history. You should have seen it. A bandstand had been set up across from the Case Street Yard tower and the Sun City Silver Cornet band played John Phillip Sousa marches loud enough to be heard in the next town. A grandstand was on the other side of the tracks.  Before the ceremony Gaspar and Bertha called a press conference in which Gaspar bragged to the reporters that it was he, and he alone who designed the locomotive and its paint scheme. 'I'm the one who should get all the credit no matter what them politicians say', he said.

"On the podium sat the Governor and his wife, our twin State Legislators - Earl and Merle Foggle, the Assessor, the Sheriff, the President of the County Court and the only full time J.P. in Sun City. And there, right next to the Governor, sat Gaspar Tucker and his wife Bertha Lysander Tucker. It was a wondrous sight. In front of the grandstand, on the tracks, stood the new diesel locomotive all covered with a white tarpaulin so no one could see how it looked until it was unveiled."

"Well, everybody and his brother made a speech. The Preacher invoked the Lord's blessing on the new locomotive, the politicians all hinted that they (and the Governor, of course) were personally responsible for this wonderful new invention.  The Governor spoke for thirty minutes just to make sure that everyone knew that he personally was responsible not only for the locomotive but also for all the other social and industrial development that had occurred in the State of Hope in the last three years. Finally the time came to unveil the locomotive. Gaspar Tucker helped his wife Bertha Lysander Tucker to her feet and handed her the pull rope that would cause the canvas tarpaulin to drop. She made a little curtsey to the Governor (which almost made the grandstand collapse) then she gave the rope a mighty yank.

"The canvas fell to the ground. For a long moment there was total silence and then a huge burst of laughter swept the audience. That is, it swept all the audience except the Governor, the politicians and most particularly Gaspar Tucker and his wife Bertha Lysander Tucker. Poor Bertha fainted dead away. Gaspar turned beet red and began to splutter in the direction of the Governor. The Governor grabbed his top hat, shoved Gaspar aside, fought his way through the hee-hawing crowd and got in his limousine and hi-tailed it back to the State Capitol. The politicians melted into the crowd. The band folded up their music and joined in the laughter."

"What were they laughing at, Paw?  I don't get it."

"The locomotive, Son.  The locomotive was painted just like Gaspar Tucker had instructed John Bob.  It was painted just like it said in 'the drawers in the bedroom'. The locomotive was painted bright pink with little yellow and white flowers all over it. And the locomotive was lettered just like the drawers said - XXX-Large, Genuine Flowered Pink Imitation Silk Flannelette.

"So, now you know. They tell me that to commemorate that fateful day all new untried locomotives are lettered with an 'X'.   Apparently, the other railroads haven't felt the need for the pink paint and the little yellow and white flowers."

"Well, the rest is history. Gaspar and Bertha snuck out of town in total disgrace. The last I heard Gaspar was a bail bondsman someplace in Central America. John Bob Clagwell was the hero of the town and was immediately made shop foreman. He and his girl friend Bessy Mae got engaged and, by the way, nobody ever called him 'Mousy' again. The pink locomotive was scrapped without a single trial run and, uh-oh, here comes your mama with some sort of 'useful' job for us to do."