White Smoke

mpact, sturdy look-- bright eyes, brush cut gray hair, Marine Corps tattoos on his upper arms. His name is Cal Burr, Junior. He turned one hundred a couple of months ago, and he remembers firing that old steam locomotive parked outside the Havre rail depot.

Listening to the man recall his own early days some eighty years past, it is fascinating to think of the way the currents of a person's time carry a life forward. Cal didn't start out with plans for Havre and railroads. When he reached age 17 in Tacoma, Washington in 1943, World War II was in full swing. He enlisted in the Marines and shipp...