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First published, with black and white photos, in our August 2006 membership newsmagazine The Ignitor. All photos courtesy of Scott Higgins, pictured below with his wife Carol.

A Day In Paradise by Scott Higgins

There's Nothing Like A Full Team.
Our Steam Team had an excellent turn out both show weekends in June. Boy did we have a ball. Thankfully we had more engineers than engines. You probably know already that once a steam traction engine is fired up it has to be supervised by one of our licensed engineers for the entire day until the engine is put to bed that night. A full crew meant we had some time for much needed breaks. I really like having a full crew and we have a great group of guys and gals.

A Hot Afternoon in June.
Yes, the heat was hot. We did our best to stay cool. Of course standing on the back of a 330 degree boiler in the June sun isn't the best way to stay cool. To operate safely we have to keep our team well hydrated. We went through a record amount of drinking water this year. We went through several re-supplies of ice too. Never did that before. I could swear the ice melted as we watched. Summer Heat + Steam Boiler = Parched Engineer. I don't like that equation much.

A Cool Idea
The first weekend we did our usual show stuff, you know, hauling wood, firing the boilers, hauling wood, tweaking engines, hauling wood, parading the engines around, hauling wood, and working our Baker fan. Did I mention we hauled wood? Anyway, by show's end Sunday we were beat. We were tired, sweaty, greasy and all used up. We all sat around assessing our common misery and recapping the events of the first weekend. Well hot as it was I kept trying to ignore everyone and conjure up an image of Hawaii, cool breezes, soft sand, silly tropical drinks with umbrellas, and island girls in grass skirts (shhh, don't tell the wife). Hmmm. Just as my private beach party was getting into to full swing Jake Williams interrupts my delusional vision by uttering something incomprehensible about tiki torches. Geez Jake!. Where'd that island girl go? Tiki torches? Huh, I completely forgot about those.

BING! An idea pops into my head (ouch that hurt).
Why don't we bring Hawaii to the Steam Barn? I forged ahead with this absurdity by suggesting to the team that we forego the conventional work shirts next weekend and don Hawaiian shirts, yeah, and flowery leis, and get some palm trees, Hawaiian music, tiki torches, girls in grass skirts... I think this was about the time I realized everyone was staring at me like I was some kind of mutant. Some people think I might be a little crazy, the team however never had any doubts. I guess my enthusiasm musta' overwhelmed their fine tuned sensibilities because we decided to plan a luau for the next weekend! Whoohoo! Yeah buddy!

Luau! Luau! Luau!
We prepared carefully for the second weekend of show. We needed luau supplies and we needed them right quick. At the party store I found this real nice plastic backdrop depicting a Hawaiian beach scene. Perfect for in and around our barn. We found some genuine flowery leis made from real imported plastic. With the addition of decorative paper plates, brightly tinted napkins, an ugly tiki mask, and a dashboard mountable hula girl complete with wiggle, we were nearly ready to go. My wife wouldn't let me get a real island girl complete with grass skirt, but she did let me buy a full size island girl paper pin-up doll. Wasn't quite the same thing, but marriage is all about compromise. Compromise, that's where the wife says, "Do this." and you agree to it in the interest of self preservation. Well anyway, our team dug up the all important tiki torches at the local Tiki-Torches-R-Us store. Everyone managed to find Hawaiian shirts too.

The Decorations Went Up
The second show weekend came around quickly. Early Saturday morning we heaped together all the Hawaiian stuff we brought. A few skeptics in the group were still eyeing me like I was a lunatic. Dean Alling got them straightened out!

Above left: Steam Team Boss Dean Alling. Above right: Greg Petersen.

If he was man enough to wear flowers then we all could. Least ways he wouldn't be caught dead being the only one. You'd think I was asking these manly steam guys wear pink tights or something. So anyway we got the decorations up, staples, tape, chewing gum, whatever it took. We even put up the Hawaiian beach backdrop along the side of the barn and pinned up our cute paper island girl for good measure. It made a fine backdrop for posing for pictures. Even a couple of the traction engines got the Hawaiian treatment. The dashboard hula girl found a comfortable place on my engine's water tank. Ya see traction engines don't have dashboards.

Above left to right: Robert Richardsons girlfriend Kasey Anderson, Robert Richardson Scott Higgins, Carol Higgins, Cynthia Petersen, Dean Alling.

We Had Fun, Really
You have to understand we didn't tell anyone outside of the Steam Team what we had in mind. Generally speaking the proper thing to do when firing up and operating the steam traction engines for show time is to dress up in bib overalls, work shirt, etc. We wanna look reminiscent of those old time steam engineers by golly. Boy did we stir the pot. Folks asked us a bunch of questions that went something like this, "Don't take this wrong or anything, but what's with the Hawaiian shirt and what is that, a lei?" I told one fella that we were celebrating Hawaiian Pride Day. I dunno, for all I know it coulda' been. He seemed to approve of my answer and went away with a satisfied grin. Once the general populace got over their initial confuscation they thought the Hawaiian theme idea was a pretty good one. I know it got a lot of attention during parade and I never had to pose for so many pictures. It was a sure thing that our Hawaiian theme was a big success because by the end of the show on Sunday everybody on the property figured we were all a little crazy. Gee, I didn't feel so alone anymore. Okay, mission accomplished. Now what do we do for October's show? Hmmm.

Above Luau Team, left to right: Jake Williams
Alex Comerchero (kneeling)
Dean Alling behind Alex
John Alling, Scott Higgins, Greg Petersen Travis Durst, Nick Rose