Tea and Sugar Train

This train travels the longest stretch of railroad track on earth without a turn — 299 miles.  There’s a bank car, theater car, grocery store car, a car filled with doctor’s offices, one that has a chapel.  Sixty train cars.  A mile long.  Most do not have a passage way between them, so people who work in one seldom see those who work in another. The “Tea and Sugar” meanders more than a thousand miles across South Australia, stopping whenever someone waves it down.  Its arrival in remote places is the social event of the week.  All the families linger for hours buying impulsively, trying to extend the moment when there is laughter and community.  

• One family Saves Another 
  Come on.  Take a walk with me.  I want you to meet Jim and Marty Dwyer and their five boys.  The Dwyers always wanted a baby girl but figured it wasn’t going to happen after those five boys.  So they agreed to raise someone else’s.  But she wasn’t a baby.  And she brought her brother. … Read more: One family Saves Another 
• Wanted: Alligator Wrestler   
  Used to be only Seminoles wrestled alligators. The tribe lived in the Florida swamps. Gators were their major source of food and profit. But today, the 26 hundred members make big money running gambling casinos, enough for kids to afford college and dreams beyond the swamp. None of them wants to learn this dangerous, ancient skill. Chief James Billy tried to keep the tradition alive. It cost him. Big time.
• Country Mardi Gras
  Country Mardi Gras Mardi Gras comes with fancy masked balls and big parades. Thousands spent on costumes and parties. But for a Cajun in Mamou, the celebration costs only $7.50. For that, you get a beer, hard boiled eggs, sausage and the answer to the age old question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?
• Lost City of Cecil B. Demille
  Lost City of Cecil B. Demille Oscar night. Time for little known Hollywood history. Amateur archeologists have uncovered a lost Egyptian city. Not on the Nile. Beneath the sands of coastal California. It was buried by that Pharaoh of films, Hollywood Director Cecil B. DeMille.
• Singalong Sound of Music
  The Sound of Music movie was re-released with a twist. The audience showed up in costumes and was encouraged to sing along. I did. Want to see?