who laid the rail
adv. phr.— «He was and is a gamester from who laid-the-rail. A fiercer competitive spirit never burned than the one which fires Grimes.» —“Burleigh Grimes Has Tough Job Ahead Managing the Dodgers” by Henry McLemore in New York Dunkirk Evening Observer (New York) Nov. 6, 1936. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Carl in Sebastopol, California, was reminded of his childhood on New York’s Lower East Side while ready Harry Golden’s book For 2 Cents Plain (Amazon), the title referring to how customers ordered a plain glass of seltzer. For a little...
The edge of the Grand Canyon. A remote mountaintop. A medieval cathedral. Some places are so mystical you feel like you’re close to another dimension of space and time. There’s a term for such locales: thin places. And: did you ever go...