Old Nerd Makes Toddler's Day

Old Nerd Makes Toddler's Day
Broadway Pizza has a train theme. Model trains circle tracks hanging from the ceiling. When my wife and kids come meet me for lunch that's where we go because Coop is a huge baby train nerd. He will totally behave because he can watch the trains while we eat. 

Today we go in and a guy is there fixing one of the trains. These are big "O" scale trains (I think). Coop is nattering on about them. "Papa, big diesel. Couple up to cars." etc etc. The old guy fixing the diesel hears this and comes over and talks to us. He puts this big (probably $300+) Union Pacific model right in front of a two year old and lets him touch and play with it. He tells us how he installs the trains in all the Broadway Pizzas, how he loved trains when he was Coops age, where we could take Coop to see real trains, and was tickled that Coop knew all the terminology he did (thanks, Thomas the Tank Engine).

This train guy was an old-school Gygaxian nerd. Sixtyish, glasses, pot belly, kind of unkempt, and a little over excited about his interests. We didn't think to get a pic of Coop with the big model, but here he is pointing at the diesel after train-guy fixed it and had it running again.

Thanks, Doug the train-nerd. You made Coop's day.