Reis Valley and Mudville

Reis Valley and Mudville

Reis Valley and Mudville was the name of the train my dad built alongside the Torrance house where I grew up. It was a wooden box--big enough to seat two children--that you pushed with a broomstick. The wheels were four pulleys on two axles running on tracks made of galvanized conduit over wooden ties. A tire at either end of the 50 or so foot railway absorbed the impact of the car. There was one trestle. There was a banked curve, and it was pretty exciting when you pushed too hard and the train ran off the tracks at the curve and shot across the front lawn. Or when you hit the tire too hard and the kids flew out over the tire (no seatbelts). I don't remember any serious injuries.

Reis Valley and Mudville is also the name of the book I'm starting to write about my dad's life. He died May 27, 2008 after he was run over by a car.

After the funeral, I took home a pile of old letters and postcards--most of them written daily by my dad to his mother from 1945 to 1947 while he was in the Army. Reading through the letters, I realized that my dad lived such an interesting life during such an interesting time. He grew up in L.A. and rode the Red Cars. He was drafted after the end of WWII. While in the Army, he spent most of his time at Ft. Lewis, Washington, but he was at a few other places including a Navy cruise down to San Clemente Island. He returned to L.A., continued his education and work in electrical engineering, specifically winding and repairing electric motors. He was a genius, and applied for a patent on an invention. He spent some time in a mental hospital after a nervous breakdown, then moved to Torrance and continued studying and working in electricity (working for 26 years at M&W Electric). He met and married my mom and started a family, was very active in Nativity Catholic Church and the Third Order of St. Francis, went hiking and camping, was interested in science and astronomy, raised two kids, got laid off and worked another 20 years for the City of Torrance, riding his bike to work every day up until he was 84 years old. He wrote many letters to the MTA advocating the rebuilding of rail lines along the abandoned Red Car right-of-ways, he rode the new light rail lines whenever he could, and he could talk about the old PE Red cars endlessly.

It will be impossible for me to comprehensively describe such a varied and interesting life, but I feel compelled to try.