First Job—Palestine, Illinois
Here are some images taken in a small Illinois town near the Wabash River. I had recently graduated high school and figured I’d work a year before going to college. (Something they’d call a “gap year” nowadays.) My job was third-trick operator with the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, which was later chopped up with most of it being folded into the Canadian National Railway.
This series has a depressed air about it, and I suppose that’s accurate—I was lonely and would often head back to my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, on my weekends to visit friends and stay over at my parents’ house. I usually drove my second-hand car, but hitched a ride on a freight there and back at least once.
While most of these images show the small town itself, I can explain a few of them. The second image shows the yard office, former freight station, in which I worked. The fourth is a self-portrait in the shabby, furnished apartment in which I lived, right downtown in a 19th century building, part of the business district. And the final shot is the desk at which I worked within the yard office—the date on the calendar is December 12th 1978.
Seven images by Richard Koenig; taken in the winter of 1978/79.
