Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Tin Lizard Tales (Reflections from a Train)

Author: Schuyler T. Wallace

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Schuyler T Wallace was born and raised in California. He is a retired fire chief who wishes to become a journalist when he “gets older”. Now in his seventies, Schuyler is a heavy reader and coffee drinker. Tin Lizard Tales: Reflections From A Train is his first book.

Come and take a ride in this book filled with Wallace’s reflections from the train journey taking him and his partner Carol through the United States and Canada. His observations are sometimes critical and others comical.

I had hoped this essay would focus more on the people Wallace and Carol met and the places they explored on their travels.  I was a little disappointed to discover that most of this book was actually more of a travelogue.

Wallace tended to concentrate on the places he passed through and the buildings but more from the historical point of view. Still this might be the kind of thing some readers will enjoy, so don’t let me judge.

I did find some of his observations extremely interesting and it helped me learn about some matters we know little about.  For instance, did you know the extent of the cruelty that animals suffer in meatpacking and slaughter- houses?

To read some of Wallace’s descriptions of what these living, breathing beings have to endure is disgusting and totally sickening. Today, this should not happen. I can only say that it truly made my blood boil when I read about it.

If I had a button to press and make these "bastards," as the author called them, pay for their cruelty, I would press it.

I have one question: What is the American government doing to let this happen? I only hope, as the author mentions, there is a cute yellow chick that is big enough to “claw the crap out of the shackler’s hands.”

After reading all this I can safely say I am proud to be a vegetarian and have been one all my life without ever touching a single piece of meat.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. The author does move on to more uplifting matters that will make you laugh. Wallace’s wife has a “tiny bladder”. He jokes about this and states: “She has to give tiny bladder a walk so I confiscate her window seat and a wondrous passage begins”.

I loved Wallace’s hilarious humour, it had me cracking up every time . . . not sure what Carol would say though!

Another passage that made me chuckle was when Wallace mentioned the shower curtain in their hotel room: “There’s a large shower with a bowed curtain that keeps it from hugging your naked body in a clammy embrace. I hate that when it happens. Who knows whose naked body the curtain has licked before it latches onto yours?” This man should really do stand up comedy; I have a feeling he’d be terrific at it.

There are too many subjects that the author covers in this book to possibly mention in a single review, however here are a few: the World Trade Centre.  A very sobering chapter again which should interest many. According to a certain Frank DeMartini, the WTC buildings were 95% air and to penetrate them would be like sticking a pencil through fly netting. Very ironic, if you take into account that DeMartini died in the towers on the doomed date 9/11/2001.

We are also informed, while repairs were being done, it is very likely that the remains of hundreds of people are still entombed and may never be recovered.

All in all this is an interesting travel essay that takes the reader through many places and is an eye-opener. Completely addictive, if you want to learn more about this world and scratch the surface beneath. Wallace’s wonderful observations need to be carefully read and digested to fully understand them. An intriguing and thoroughly interesting book.   

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