Autumn leaves were gently falling from Burlington's tree-lined Riverside Avenue as my book laden 13-year-old sedan dutifully hauled ten cartons of Vermont's first street railway chronicle from printer to post office. I purposefully chose the former trolley route, slowing long enough to gleefully raise a copy toasting my freshly created 205-pager as we passed the former trolley barn and bus garage that stars in this fantastic rail tale. 

There is always a story behind the story. Here's mine. The worldwide pandemic changed every aspect of my professional and personal life practically overnight. What does an event videographer and history presenter do when all his upcoming events cancelled? Then there was the loss of my day job as a downtown Burlington office administrator that vanished when clients and co-workers hibernated into Zoomland. Even the radio station, where I'd dutifully covered primetime fill-ins for vacationing regular hosts, went into lockdown. My wife's position, in the health field, only grew in significance during these turbulent times. It felt as if we were living in the Twilight Zone as my father quietly passed away at home, the same week Washington, DC was stormed by an event sure to impact our divided nation for generations.

A new routine developed where I drove Marilee to work, followed by several hours with my newly widowed mom, then a return home to process a growing demand for books and videos from housebound folks. For an all too brief time, there were occasional bursts of activity on everything from Tell-Tale Productions forty DVDs and downloads, books published by my father or I, and even the professional wrestling tell-all STRANGLEHOLD paperback I'd co-authored with former ESPN and AWA personality Larry Nelson some twenty years ago. My daily existence varied little for close to a year:, drop off the missus, visit and comfort mom, photograph modern buses passing landmarks from Burlington's trolley era of 1885-1929. Once sales invoices and packing was completed, I rewarded myself with lunch, before our faithful feline, Percy, joined me upstairs as I assembled the local traction company story and built a colorful Powerpoint presentation for a time when people could safely gather to view, ask questions, have snacks, and purchase. My chauffeur's cap then returned, so Marilee could say "Home, James!" when I picked her up following the regular trek to Colchester's post office. If someone had told me, two years ago, that I'd be writing a colorful, detailed, entertaining, heavily illustrated anecdote driven chronicle on an electric railroad-- I never would have believed them!

Thanks for taking a few minutes of your time to digest my Twilight Zone story. Lord knows we all have them. Please consider supporting local products such as ours. These were researched, created, printed and duplicated right here. All the sales dollars stays local. While your sales dollars will never send Marilee and I into space for a few minutes like the big website guys-- your direct purchases through us or from authorized dealers would help fund the next book or video project. It could possibly even assist with dreaded car payments when the 13-year-old rust bucket finally plays dead and says "enough, already!"

I'm saving the usual juicy gossip for our next edition, sometime around Thanksgiving. We enjoy having you our Tell-Tale "family," now a full eighteen years strong. Please tell your friends about us. There is no substitute for good old-fashioned Word of Mouth referrals.     
  
With safe wishes to you and yours,
James R. "Jim," Marilee C. and Percy Lincoln Jones