One of the enduring memories of my biennial childhood visits to Milwaukee was seeing Old Smoky, a locomotive that once called the city home.
Somewhere amid the carousels of Kodachrome slides in my basement there are surely some snapshots capturing at least one of those meetings with the de-commissioned Milwaukee Road steam engine.
But sometime before I moved to Milwaukee in the early '80s, Smoky moved on, and now resides at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Ill.
Is Old Smoky coming back?
If the folks at Steam Marketing Group have their way it is.
The group will have a presence in the Milwaukee Road Historical Society booth at the upcoming Trainfest, Nov. 10-11, at State Fair Park, to help drum up support for its plan to build a Milwaukee Road History Museum in a replica of the railroad's 1920s-era Milwaukee roundhouse, and to bring Old Smoky back to Brew City for the museum, tentatively called Old Smoky Junction.
"Old Smoky delighted so many people in the many decades that he was in service, to the time that he was on display," wrote Nancy Ring, Milwaukee's self-described "Queen of Steam," in a note about the project. "Milwaukee had a very special train indeed.
"I never got the chance to see Old Smoky on display. I have only had the pleasure of meeting him in his present state."
That state, said Ring, can be described as in need of "an extreme makeover. He needs TLC from some very dedicated folks to bring him back to life."
The group is seeking memorabilia, artifacts, photographs and memories for its museum and is especially looking for Charles Schmidt who was 5 years old when he won the contest in 1957 to name Old Smoky.
They're also raising funds to make it all a reality.
To contact the group, email Nancy Ring, or stop in at Trainfest to talk them.
I sure hope Smoky finds the right track back to Milwaukee. In the meantime, I have to get busy looking at slides.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
