Bob: Edith Roth (thanks Edith) sent me a picture and letter mailed to her by Dad shortly after he took the train to visit his daughter Carol in Denver:
On the Train With Boris and Igor
9/1/11
Dear Edith,
In retaliation for your many delightful photos of daughter and grandson, I’m enclosing a photo of me and my two lifelong Russian buddies during our four hour delay on the train. They are the Brother Igor (on the right) and Boris (in the middle–he’s a genius). The guy on the left has the silly smile largely because the fifth of 27 year aged bourbon that Boris had opened was almost empty by the time the photo was taken.
Bob again: I found another description of this moment in the text of a letter Dad sent Carol after the trip:
Since my lousy cell phone wouldn’t work she let me use hers to notify Dana (my driver) that we were two hours late when she got off at Sacramento. A few minutes later we got the news that the track was having some “minor repairs” and we would lose another hour. We had barely recovered from that when the conductor, who sounded like Leslie Nielsen in “Airplane”, announced that a fire was involving the track ahead and five trains were lined up waiting before us. An hour later he announced that he had no further news. An hour later he again announced that he had no news.
I was agitated over the fact that Dana must be wandering the Oakland train station gritting her teeth. My agitation was tempered by my new close friends, Boris (age 25) and his brother Igor (age 21.) Both came originally from Belarus, and Boris was an absolute genius who managed a computer language concern while doing post graduate work in Maryland on world geopolitics. Igor generally deferred to his older brother (just like in the Hallmark family.) They couldn’t help me in communicating with Dana, but Igor produced an unopened bottle of Cabernet and Boris produced a new bottle of 25 year old Scotch. By the time the train started up again the Cabernet was empty and the Scotch was one third full. As soon as I can figure out how to do it, I’ll send you a photo of the three of us with our arms around each other. (Boris took it with my camera after setting it for self photography.)