Steve told me he was one of the last real railway men. As we were talking, my daughter kept tugging at my sleeve. She wanted to tell me a secret, she pointed out that Steve was missing a leg. I told her that it wasn’t a secret.
Steve told her he lost his leg to a train in the rail yards, where he worked for most his life. It wasn’t the injury that ended his time in the yards though. His job just doesn’t exist anymore. I asked if everything was automated now, but he shrugged. The jobs, he said, just went poof.
Steve says you can tell a male squirrel to a female squirrel because of its tail. The males have scraggly rat-tails, and the females have big, bushy beautiful tails. He said he should know, he’s been watching them from this spot in Loring Park for long enough. Judging from the pile of plastic Steel Reserve bottles discarded in the corner of the tennis courts, I believe he was telling the truth.
It is unclear how Steve got the nickname, ‘The Yeti.’ But he happily rolled up a sleeve to show us, the faded tattoo of a figure he says is a yeti, on his forearm.