You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and this is Bookworm.

I'm here today with Linda Neiman,

the author of Boomer Railroad Memoirs

from the University of California Press.

It's a book that I took enormous delight in.

It's freewheeling and beautifully written.

It's about someone who's given up on many things and has

joined the railroad as a boomer, and we'll begin by asking, what is a boomer?

Well, a boomer is a brakeman, which is the person who does the physical work on the railroad,

who probably doesn't have much seniority and has to travel around to follow the work.

We're sort of highly paid migrant workers.

And we go wherever the work is, and railroad work is seasonal.

So there might be a lot of work in Watsonville in the spring and fall with the perishable stuff,

and we'll work then.

Then we'll be laid off

there and so if you want to work you'll go where the next boom is it's so great to read a book in

which um we hear that you were following the sugar beats around and i just oh following the sugar

beats that's what i want to do why should anyone anyone do anything else? What else did you follow around?

...