Cousin Rastislav Wronski

Cousin Rastislav Wronski (‘RR’), for obvious reasons, went by the moniker ‘Railroad’ during his all too brief association with the Fab Four. Alas, if not for a change to Daylight Savings Time and a broken alarm clock, an historic groundbreaking session would have been laid down, and it would be the Fab ‘Five’ that we all would come to know and love so well. Rastislav slept through Sergeant Pepper. Making a play for the wife of one of the group also didn’t help; just to say that it was an Oh, No!

When he was working with the boys, Railroad was brought in for specialty effects. He was a virtuoso on the early Moog Synthesizer; you know, the one with the spinning speaker in a refrigerator size cabinet. On cowbell, few were his equal. And, of course, all the other stuff: bells, chimes, whistles, cymbals, triangle, uga horn, not to mention all those exotic type drums that the ‘regular’ drummer was too busy to put his hands on. It was never called for, but he could bring a rockin’ accordion, any of the wind instruments. If it played with a bow, he was your guy.

While he couldn’t sing worth a damn, vocally he could produce any sound—animal vegetable, or mineral. A full range, from grass growing to The Big Bang. Need we say more.

But, there is more. With Rastislav, there always is*. He had quite the career. As Time Magazine coined it, ‘ubiquitronic’. Too many to mention; just a few. Emerald prospecting in Brazil. Cashew farming in Tuscany. Wind miller in The Netherlands. Perfumer in Paris. Life guard in a mikvah (impeccable integrity, that one). It would come as no surprise to the family Wronski to learn that he was even a deck hand on a submarine.

That’s Railroad. Chugging through life.

*Cousin Rastislav is enjoying his retirement these days at a rustic cabin on some isolated island in New Hampshire. He has taken up big scale sculpture, carving out larger than life sized bears out of old fallen trees. We hear that one is on order for the Rose Garden; you know where.

Is there any stopping that freight train?

 

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