About
All Feedback (678)
- 6797stevenp (822)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseGood buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended.
- lisbesthobby (22021)- Feedback left by buyer.Past yearVerified purchaseGood buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended.
- 5929martin (1565)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseA++++ Nice buyer , good communication
- mrsr74 (186)- Feedback left by buyer.Past yearVerified purchase⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Excellent communicator and buyer! Prompt payment! Thank you !!!⭐️⭐️⭐️
- trainz (640106)- Feedback left by buyer.Past yearVerified purchaseA Pleasure to do Business with! Super Fast Payment! Many Thanks From Trainz!!!
- 2282kb (2237)- Feedback left by buyer.Past yearVerified purchaseGreat buyer to work with! Great communication! Thanks for the purchase!
Reviews (3)
08 September 2010
CD, Paul Robeson, Freedom Train, Folk Era Records
This album was a great and pleasant find. My research on the 1947 Freedom Train was missing a vital component, specifically, the civil rights connection. I was doing some background research on an unrelated topic: the spiritual, "My Lord, What a Morning" which I was to sing at church. Along the way I found references to Marion Anderson. The name of the spiritual is also the title of her autobiography and it was her version that I was using. Paul Robeson came into play because both performers battled against segregation. That led me to Rutgers University and Paul Robeson's stellar academic, athletic and performance careers. Then I remembered the album from ebay and swung full circle into a real revelation. Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert is a window into a time when the United States didn't live up to its creeds and one man's fight to make things right. Mr. Robeson's passion flows vibrantly throughout each track. He was under an unjust house arrest by the FBI and forbidden to travel abroad. He wished to visit the Welsh Miners he had met many years earlier with whom he shared a common bond. One can only faintly imagine the joy felt by him and his audience as songs and verse were exchanged via the transatlantic phone line. The Freedom Train is a poem written by Langston Hughes and recited by Paul Robeson. In September 1947, a train sponsored by a private foundation and President Harry Truman began a tour to exhibit documents of freedom all across the country. The foundation made no guarantee that the train would avoid segregated cities and towns. The poem and Mr. Robeson's performance of it were both key to changing the minds of the backers. The train skipped scheduled stops at Birmingham, AL, and Memphis, TN, where the races were to be segregated into separate lines. Not all segregated cities and towns were avoided. In many places local authorities didn't segregate the races until they were about to board the train. Savannah and Brunswick, GA, were locations where alternating groups of blacks and whites were allowed aboard; 25 at a time. Even with that apparent injustice, since people viewing an exhibit walk through at their own pace, there was a different look to the crowd at the exit. One person in Savanna observed "They went in separate but came out all mixed together". The tour ended in January 1949 and was viewed by over 3.5 million people, some of which waited over six hours in line to get onboard. A poet and a performer: one brave in pen, one broad in voice, two which became one to help free many. Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert record the combined victories of pen, voice, heart and faith over racial injustice and man's inhumanity to man. There's more but I won't spoil what Mr. Robeson revealed in his closing comments.
09 November 2015
Joyeux Noel: Merry Christmas in many languages
One does not need a history degree to understand this compelling true tale of the futility of war. Writer/Director Christian Carion stayed true to the context and facts of the incredible story of soldiers laying down their arms and forming friendships on a battlefield while a war rages on. While not every detail is exact or the order in time correct, the telling of the story is such that the impact was very real to this viewer.
The movie opens with children reciting the propaganda of the day given to them by their governments and their teachers. It is chilling to think that these children, already being conditioned, would be the soldiers in the next war. Propaganda, however, can only infect those to whom the same language is understood.
Some things transcend nations. Music is one of them and is used to wonderful effect in Joyeux Noel. Another thing can be religion. I say "can be" because, while a Latin Mass, understood by all nationalities present, is depicted being celebrated in No Man's Land, another "sermon", told later to the soldiers replacing the ones who fraternized, reverses "peace on earth, good will toward men" to kill them because I say so.
I had the privilege of presenting the story of the WW1 Christmas Truce near to and on its 100th Anniversary in December 2014. Once as part of a Christmas Concert. Here were children who were involved in singing "Silent Night", a song known by nearly everyone in 2014 as in 1914. Twice to an elderly audience who sang hymns and recited verse with me. They were on verse and on note without printed words, music or accompaniment.
The lesson (in my opinion): Never underestimate the human spirit. While a war is on, there are some who embody the scripture, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." Luke 2:14 NAB
Joyeux Noel is a compelling cinematic experience. View it with English subtitles. Merry Christmas.
19 December 2015
Make Your Polar Express come Alive!
Nothing means steam engine more than fire and smoke. Now that fire has to have a source. The LED Fire Glow Circuit is the answer. My Polar Express was always an animated train but it was lacking some of the prototype qualities. It just didn't have that industrial glow that meant there was a beast roaring within. The LED Fire Glow Circuit makes the beast come alive. Installation is very straightforward. Don't rush it. Drilling the whole gave me some concern but I took my time and it worked out perfectly. Along with the brass bell I purchased from the same source, the Fire Glow Circuit will find a place on other locomotives in my roundhouse! -Richard aka LLL