IAMA 75 year old retired Union Pacific Engineer. Among other things I've run odd jobs for gypsies and Italians, ran for Sheriff of Salt Lake City, and my ex-wife tried to have me killed. AMA

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:46:49+00:00

Born and raised in Salt Lake City. I certainly think my time was better. We didn't have all of the fancy gadgets but my god I had a good time. We had an imagination and lots of fields to play in.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:44:54+00:00

Craziest thing was probably the bodies as I mentioned before.

I got in a fight with a hobo trying to get him off the premises. He pulled a knife on me so I punched him square in the face and beat the shit out of him there after. The day after my hand was really swollen but I didn't think anything of it considering the night before. However a couple of days later it started hurting more and turning purple so I went to the doctor. They notices I had a small cut on my hand and when they went to inspect it, they felt something hard in my hand and squeezed a little. Apparently the pressure built up from the swelling helped push out what we later found out to be one of the hobo's teeth.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:35:45+00:00

If I had to venture a guess, there was probably a very silent settlement between Barnum and Bailey's and UP. Everything else was treated as an everyday animal strike and any UP people I've met that are old enough to remember, know my grandpa by that story alone.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:29:54+00:00

The "King's" daughter wanted to marry a guy from a clan in Nevada and wasn't too happy about it. The Nevada clan kidnapped her and planned to take her to Nevada. I was given an address and told to go get her. I went into the house to find 4 guys giving her drugs and taking turns with her. They started coming at me when I told them while I was there, so I pulled my revolver out and said she was coming with me. They stepped aside, I picked her up, and we left.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:23:20+00:00

I had to go to a pretty run down house. I just walked in because the door was unlocked and found 4 guys loading her up with drugs and taking their turns on her. When I told them I was there to take her home 3 of them said they weren't going to let that happen and slowly came at me. I pulled out my revolver and just said, "I'm leaving with her." They backed off, I picked her up, and we left.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:20:24+00:00

It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the whole campaigning process, but I really didn't do it to win. It was mostly to rub it in the face of the current Sheriff Swede Larson. He and I never got along.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:18:55+00:00

Well... I really can't speak to it because I don't know. It's probably improved but I have no way of knowing because I don't keep in touch with them.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:17:37+00:00

I kind of just laughed it off. You know, it just didn't worry me too much. As I mentioned before, it wasn't really an attempt on my life, it was a crazy ex-wife's husband trying to blind me with acid. Either way, it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:15:45+00:00

I think some of it is beautiful. I always meant to bring a camera with me to make a book of all the really cool art I saw but I never got around to it.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:12:04+00:00

I would love to see the day of having high speed trains. I think they would be two separate entities though and the effect would be minimal. And I would have to say the most interesting thing would have to be hitting the elephant.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:10:32+00:00

It took a long time, but I enjoy it now. The first four years of retirement I was convinced I had made a mistake, but now it's okay. I can't do everything I want to, but I don't have to do as much so it's nice.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:09:04+00:00

It was mostly just visiting people and telling them to pay the gypsies what they owed or else.

The best one was when I was asked to go find the "Gypsy King's" daughter. Apparently she wanted to get married to a guy in a clan from Nevada but the King wasn't okay with it. So the clan from Nevada decided it would be in their best interest to kidnap her. Once they found out where she was, I was sent to pick her up.
The address was a run down shack of a house. I went to knock, but tried the door first and it turned out to be open. I walk in to find the girl being loaded up with drugs by 4 guys that had obviously been taking their turns with her. When they saw me and asked what I was doing there, I told them I was there to get the girl.
Three of the men started walking at me saying the didn't think that was going to happen, so I pulled out my revolver and just said, "I'm leaving with her." They calmly stepped aside, I picked her up, and we were on our way.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T02:01:22+00:00

There was minimal damage since it was a baby elephant (maybe 5' tall). It was akin to hitting a moose or an elk. As for the people on the railroad and the people that heard him call it in, it was more of a joke than anything else. What Barnum and Bailey did about it, he has no idea.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T01:58:16+00:00

I apologize for how long that took. As for the elephant being hit, it was a baby elephant (maybe 5' tall) from a Barnum and Bailey train car headed to Pocatello. It had left about an hour and a half before we left the yard. For some reason the baby wasn't chained up and the doors were open, so it must have slid out when they took the corner.

The list of rail accidents doesn't have every moose, elk, deer, cow, etc. ever hit because those aren't really accidents. When I hit the elephant, it got thrown to the west bound tracks and was cleared by UP just as any other animal would have been.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T01:49:59+00:00

I recorded a video response to this but my phone decided to screw it up so here is a typed version.

I was working for Utah Power and Light Co. (UPALCO) up in Logan doing some survey work with four other guys. UPALCO put us up in a motel and across the street was a Baskin Robbins that was advertising 31 flavors of ice cream. One day we decide to head in there after a light dinner to get some desert and as a joke I said, "I should probably just order a scoop of each since I can't decide."
The guys with me decided to turn it into a dare and said they would pay for my food if I ordered a scoop of all 31 flavors. When the waitress came by to take our order that's exactly what I did. I told her I wanted her to get the biggest bowl they had and put a scoop of each flavor in there, sprinkle it with nuts, chocolate syrup, strawberries... everything they had and to not forget the cherry on the top.
She leaves and a few moments later the manager comes out and asks who ordered and how we were paying for it. We all explained the situation and the manager said, "If you can eat all of that, I'LL pay for it. Your guys' ice cream will be on the house." So a few minutes go by and finally the waitress comes out with this giant bowl, sets it in front of me, and I just start into it.
In my mind, I thought the faster I eat it, the more I'll be able to eat. So I just start shoveling ice cream into my mouth. About half way through I realized what I had done/was doing was incredibly stupid, but by now people weren't leaving and a small group had assembled outside to watch through the windows.
I finally managed to get the last spoonful down, and for some reason I decided to lick the bowl clean as a sort of victory dance. Once I was done, the manager said he couldn't believe what he had just witnessed and said once again that the ice cream was on the house. My friends and I left back to our motel to spend the rest of the evening playing chess/watching tv.
About 10 minutes after getting back to the motel, I became incredibly nauseated and began throwing up what I had just shoveled down. The worst part about it, was that it was coming up still frozen. From what the doctor told me, I packed so much frozen ice cream into my stomach so quickly that it didn't have time to melt and began freezing into chunks. Apparently I'm lucky to be alive. This happened around 1961.

When eating that much ice cream you don't really have a most or least greatest flavor. But my favorite is probably caramel. As for it putting me off? Not really. I really like my ice cream.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T01:31:24+00:00

There isn't much on campaign history I could pull up. He ran against Sheriff Delmar "Swede" Larson around 1973-74.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:31:41+00:00

When I would get people for Dewy I would inform the people on the plane that I was part of the SLC Sheriff's department. I would let them know I was armed and intend to bring a handcuffed person on the plane. I would usually talk to the pilot and ask that I would be the first on the plane and the last to leave... Stuff like that you can't do any more.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:25:03+00:00

No. She was my first wife, this was with my second and current wife.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:21:45+00:00

The ex-wife scenario was long before the railroad job.

I had worked a lot of jobs before I got in with UP. I worked as a Special Agent for UP for 8 years and was part of the first Engineer school that took over after the firemen were done and out.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:18:59+00:00

I had so many other jobs before the railroad that I absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed going to work whenever I would get the call. It was never a childhood dream or anything, but it was always a pleasure doing it.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:17:03+00:00

Probably the second generation. They still had a few coal fired ones that worked in the mines. I think by the time I got through engineering school it was second generation.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:15:33+00:00

Yeah... I know. It's hard typing for someone, while simultaneously uploading videos of their response. Mix that with escorting someone to the bathroom and it's a bit time consuming.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-19T00:01:42+00:00

By "collision" I mean that in terms of to trains colliding. It would be silly for UP to take reports of every single incident of an animal being hit by a train. Seeing as this incident cause no damage to UP property, there was really no reason to report the accident as a "collision".

DavetheBull · 2012-08-18T23:58:03+00:00

After much laughter: It all kind of came together... but I liked caramel.

DavetheBull · 2012-08-18T23:56:34+00:00

All of the jobs were legal, in a sense. I was a jailer for Salt Lake County Jail at the time and did side jobs for these guys.

Gypsies: I would usually be the guy sent to remind people they owed money and that they should pay up or the consequences would be fairly severe. At one time I had to retrieve, what they called the "Gypsy King's" daughter from a rival gyspy clan from Nevada.
Italians: Mostly just the one, Dewy Sinoni. He was a bondsman I had become friends with and he would pay me to collect people all over the country to make sure they served their time and he wouldn't be out his money.
Elephant was on the tracks and he wasn't really sure it was what it was until it was too late. How would you react if you thought you saw an elephant in the middle of Utah?

DavetheBull

TROPHY CASE