|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
January 6, 2007Don’t Just Sit There!Do something!I USED TO WORKin west Berkeley not far from the railroad tracks. Now and then when I’d hear that whistle blow I’d say wistfully to my coworker Stefan, “One of these days…I’m going to get on that train…and you are never going to see me again.” THIS TRAIN IS THAT TRAIN.The California Zephyr, Train No. 6, departing Emeryville, California on Monday, December 18, 2006, 9:15 a.m., due to arrive Chicago, Illinois, Wednesday, December 20, 3:05 p.m. (yeah right). San Francisco always seems most beautiful when I am leaving it—but will I want to come home to you, San Francisco? Will your golden sun shine for me? One month will tell. The City is waking up. A dog in a red jacket waits patiently while dad has his morning cup on a low wall at the waterfront. It’s a crisp, cold, clear day as our thruway bus crosses the Bay to the eastern side of things. The first ticket has been torn. The least interesting ticket of the 9 in my inside jacket pocket, but one without which I’d miss my whole trip: the bus from the Ferry Terminal to Emeryville Amtrak station, thence to Chicago. WE’RE THERE, AT STATION NO. 1Festive. Christmas tree, poinsettia, the bustle of people going every which way. As I wait for the train daydreaming about my penchant for travel, which save for my sister, is not shared by my family, I notice a poster reading “Don’t just sit there.” It has been my greatest fear that I will turn into a tired, old housebound woman, who has ceased to enjoy the present or envision a future and is content to sit in her rocker watching old noir. But I will never allow that to happen. The world is too interesting to ever forsake it. And we’re off! “NO TIME TO GO IN THE STATION!”admonishes PJ, my sleeper car attendant, as we pull into “Sac,” “not ‘til Denver—tomorrow.” That means mom will not be receiving a birthday call from her daughter who does not like to just sit there. Sorry, mom, I’m grounded, as it were. The C and H sugar factory, between Emeryville and Martinez, has an east coast kind of brick and glass grittiness about it, plume of pollution and all, which looks odd out here on the western water. But I need to rest my brain. I need to let my eyes do the looking, not think for a while. Because truly, I don’t know, am I more excited or exhausted? One thing I do know, my life is now mine. I am no longer giving it away to other people. I will live differently now. My priorities are clear. They are not things, places, mortgages, security. There is no security. We’re following I-80 up to Nevada and by midnight will be in Utah. We’re ten minutes and counting on the first (switch-related) “unscheduled stop” of the trip. Time to pause and watch the last brown crinkled leaves fly off the trees by the tracks. Tired, yes, but happy. The little hands have stopped grabbing at my stomach. Other people’s problems and tasks are no longer mine. I am free, free, free!! to live my own life—a freedom not to be taken for granted. Work is the great challenge of life—how to haul your carcass through this life without crushing your soul in the process, or imposing on others to do it for you. FUCK THE REST“…Even though we are all fairly adaptable, elastic and multi-dimensional,” says Marsha Sinetar, “we are not born to struggle through life. We are meant to work in ways that suit us, drawing on our natural talents and abilities as a way to express ourselves and contribute to others. This work, when we find it and do it—even if only as a hobby at first—is a key to our true happiness and self-expression.” I take on faith Sinetar’s premise: Do what you love and the money will follow. I believe that. That’s why I can afford to take leaps of faith. Parents, guidance counselors, relatives and well-meaning friends should all shut up about what life and society expect of a young person. A person’s direction in life should come from within, not from your father and grandfather who went to law school and so will you. “Fuck beauty contests!” says an alienated youth in “Little Miss Sunshine.” “Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. You know, school, then college, then work? Fuck that. … Do what you love, and fuck the rest.” We’re climbing, subtly climbing up the Sierra foothills, and have gained about 80 miles above sea level since we left Sacramento. DISMAL! DISMAL! DISMAL!An ocean of beige housing units—they’re not houses, but housing units—outside Roseville, makes me sick at heart. But so what, I’m on a train and we pass it on by. The beige is behind me. And now I am seeing and feeling the rise in elevation. We pass a bunch of mandarin orange groves on our way to Colfax, and there it is, that squeaking, creaking, scrunching sound of a train pulling itself uphill. And it’s Tunnel No. 1. As a dyed-in-the-wool city dweller I have to give myself this every now and then—a cross-country tour of other ways to live. Soft landscapes. Rabbits darting out from clumps of trees. Tunnel No. 2, Tunnel No. 3, now at 1,234 feet above sea level. Sheep stationed on a hillside. A cattle guard. Fledgling evergreens sprouting amongst rocks. Clumps of moss hanging in dry trees. TEN THOUSAND CHINESElent their hands to building this particular rail line. They were paid $35.00 a month for a 6-day week (Tunnel No. 4) of back-breaking work, making it possible for me to glide though Tunnel No. 5 in my cozy roomette. It’s nearing lunch time and—Nos. 6 , 7 and 8 close on each other’s heels—OK, I’ll stop counting tunnels at No. 9. No. 10. No. 11 was a long one—dug and blasted by human hands. But we’ve reached Colfax, and lunch, at 2,424 feet. By the time I am frowning over my three-cheese quiche and iceberg lettuce salad, we’re at 5,500 feet and when I return to my car we enter Tunnel No. 41, “The Big Hole,” and the summit of our climb. We are instructed not to pass between cars while in the tunnel because of the engine smoke that collects within. The sunlight’s already sliding in under the train—I see the wheels reflected in the snow—and not yet 4:00 p.m. Not much later it is left only on the tippy tops of the mountains, on a few golden crags and spikes scraping the sky. The window is cold, the creek beside me icy, and a plane with its contrails forms a comet speeding upwards. WELCOME TO NEVADA, PARDNERWe’re 12 miles out of Reno. The trees are leaving and the desert advancing. The mountains have become that sort that look to me like ridges and channels formed by fingers drawn through sand—on a huge scale. I’ve always thought of them as “those finger mountains.” We’ve dropped 3,000 ft. since The Big Hole. There’s another compound of beige housing units built on a ridge overlooking the highway, with a motel named Tombstone Territory not far off. Despite the cleanliness and low prices advertised, I can wait to check into that one. We pass below the Sands and the El Dorado and ease into the station, which has been reconfigured so that I can’t see the The Biggest Little City in the World sign the train used to pass by. I always thought having the California Zephyr passing through the heart of downtown Reno was Reno’s best feature. I spent the night here once on the way to meet Bill for Burning Man, got bored touring the casinos and watched “Phone Booth” in my hotel room. MARK MORFORD’S LIVING DEATH BINGO PARLORis in Reno, where those who haven’t quite yet died, enjoy some Bingo while waiting to do so. That to me is Reno’s claim to fame. We’re running only a half-hour late, pretty respectable—but don’t leave the boarding area to make that quick phone call to ma or we’ll be waving bye bye to you. NEW YEAR, NEW TRUCK?Had I been left behind in Reno, I could have had the $2.22 breakfast at the Rail City Casino. And if I go there on New Year’s Eve, I might win a truck. The sad part is, there really is someone hoping to win that truck. There’s a Christmas tree on top of the Nugget and we move past the pink monolith absorbing the last of the light against a twilight sky, and head into the surrounding wasteland. What an ugly town. There’s a sick pinkish haze in the sky, like sunset trapped in a nuclear cloud. DAY 2, STILL TRAIN 1Tuesday, December 19, 2006 9:45 a.m. Mountain Standard Time “BUT I DON’T WANT TO SLEEP!”I kept pouting to myself with each toss and turn as I fought closing my eyes last night. But with three hours sleep the night before and the shot of Crown Royal 76-year-old Marie provided for my coke at dinner, I was pretty wiped out. Somehow it didn’t surprise me when the chatty grandmother of five pulled that little ol’ whiskey bottle out of her purse. But I am wide awake at 6:00 a.m. when we pull in three hours late to Salt Lake City. I’m glad we are late because I get to see Provo at blue dawn looking like Christmas Village. I love its utter flatness contrasted with the amazing Wasatch you can walk right up to rising behind it. Too soon to choose favorites, but this might be my favorite stop on the trip. It’s no doubt bitter cold out there, and I pull the blanket up to my chin. I’M SORRY, BUT I HAVE TO SLEEP,I keep admonishing myself as I give in to a good, healthy nap between Provo and Helper, so named because “helper” locomotives used to assist trains going up the steep grade to Soldier Summit. There is a nasty wind blowing out there in the rugged western American wilderness, in the midst of which two horses nuzzle, their snow-flecked manes waving. What a beautiful sight! I can’t tell if it’s snowing or if the wind is whipping snow off the ground, but it’s completely horizontal to this window, seeming to follow the stripes of the telephone wires. I spot ten deer prancing across the plain. What a life! What on earth is there for them to eat out there on the frozen ground? (“They belong out there,” someone explains to me.) The earth still rules out here, even if these rails were placed upon it. This is my idea of wild. As far as my eye can see, nothing but snow-covered buttes and plateaus, scrub brush sticking out here and there like tufts of pubic hair. “JUST TRAVELLIN’, EH?”says my lunch companion, John, appreciatively, when I tell him I am going to Philadelphia by way of New Orleans, just for the hell of it, nodding his head as if to say, right on, sister. John is a man in love with his wife of six years, Jean. They’re in their 50’s or early 60’s, both have children from previous marriages, and clearly dote on each other. They work on a commercial cruise ship—he is the captain—and both have raccoon eyes where their sunglasses have protected their faces. I’d spotted them before and thought they must have come from somewhere exotic, but they’re just outside all the time. He owns a yacht and wears a sports shirt embroidered with its name, Maya. They’re getting ready to sail the Caribbean. They’re nice folks. “HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS FACE?”John asks as he scrunches Jean’s cheeks in to make a kissy-face of her lips. You’d have to love her to love it, I guess. Both their faces look like leatherette cases. Her cleavage looks like parched earth. Jean is deep into her detailed description of the process and progress of her migraine headaches, when suddenly, I have one myself. I feel like yelling Shut up! Shut! Up! and fleeing to my sleeper car, but I want the strawberry cheesecake that is slow in coming. I am torn between making a run for it and having my cake and eating it too. Really, they are fine, fun folks. They just bored me to death, which is usually not the case. I love hearing people’s stories over a moving meal. But I am still decompressing from my job, and the need to not be asked or told anything snuck up on me. AH TO BE ALONEI eyeball the hulking shapes of the Rockies at night from the blackness of my compartment, wrapping the curtain around my head to reduce glare on the window from the hallway. We will pass in darkness through the 6.2-mile-long Moffat Tunnel through the Continental Divide, taking five minutes to get through. The tunnel is 9,239 feet above sea level at its apex and is the 6th longest tunnel in the world. 750,000 cubic yards of rock (that’s 3,000,000,000 pounds—three billion) were removed using 2.5 million pounds of dynamite. There were 700 miles of drill holes using 800,000 pounds of drill steel and the sharpening of 1,500 drills a day. 11,000,000 board feet of timber were used to support the shifting earth; today the tunnel is concrete-lined. The project used 28,000,000 kwh electric power and took five years to complete, blasting at an average of 21 feet per day. The final cost was $18,000,000, which in 1928 was 180,000,000 pretty pennies. Many, if not most, of us pass through the Moffat without a thought as to how it got there. I sleep through most of Nebraska and ignore most of Iowa until we cross the Big River, and am now a couple hours or so from Chicago and the second train of the trip. Yesterday was the best kind of day—one on which you wake up on a train knowing you will spend the night on that same train. You are inviolate. Nothing can touch you. WE ARE ONLY JUST LEAVING NAPERVILLE,90 minutes from Chicago, but I have already packed so I can just get up and leave. I was hoping to pay my customary train layover visit to the Chicago Art Institute, but we’re three hours late and that’s too late. Maybe on the way back. The hallway is bustling with busy-ness as the attendants pack up. People are gathering their effects. I always mourn the end of a train trip, even with seven more ahead of me, the next on that train Arlo Guthrie made famous. We’re in commuter traffic now, the sure sign that we’re closing in on the destination stop. IT MAKES ME SHUDDER,the sight of people at 5:45 Central Time returning from their jobs. It is my aim never to have one again. My future is mine to create, and I envision it just as I am now living, feet up on an Amtrak cushion, alternating between my laptop and my journal, checking out the Christmas decorations on the main drag of Westmont, on the outskirts of Chi-town. Isn’t that Christ in that manger on that lawn? What the hell is a manger, anyway? I don’t know that but I do know this: quitting my job was the best thing I’ve ever done. I am ripe, I am fertile, I am ready to pop. Watch out, world! UNION STATION, CHICAGOI at least have not missed my connection. I take a stationary seat in the First Class Lounge, and review my column-in-progress. “I noticed you on the train,” says a lady whom I also saw there. “Are you reading or writing?” “Both. I’m reading my writing.” I have my laptop on board but typing is absolutely the wrong rhythm for a train and I transcribe and embellish the handwritten notes in my journal into this column. There’s no need to rush through anything, including this sentence. DAY 3, TRAIN 2NO. 59, THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANSDeparting Chicago, Wednesday, December 20, 2006, 8:00 p.m. Arriving New Orleans, Thursday, December 21, 3:40 p.m.South, south, south and south ‘til I can’t go south no mo’, that’s where I’m headed like an arrow shot from Chicago to New Orleans. Jo Oliver and I have to take care of each other here on the ghost car on this run. We’re “overflow” passengers Amtrak is accommodating by giving us sleepers in the employees’ car. It’s kind of spooky with just the two of us, like some kind of Twilight Zone train that’s driving itself. Christmas has got to be the worst time to travel by train; it’s a full house wherever you go, so I am grateful for this berth, but I was unable to secure a sleeper on the Crescent from New Orleans to Philadelphia, so I am relegated to coach for that leg of the trip. Oh, the indignity of it all, back to being a single head of the cattle herd. CHRISTMAS IN NEW ORLEANSsounds delightful, no? Worried about the cost of the trip, I was originally going to fly to Philadelphia and train back to SF, but I decided I needed the decompression in both directions, first from my job and then from my family. Plus there’s my policy of doing what I want to do when I am able to do it. Now is when I want to travel, and now is when I have the time and money to do it. So in addition to taking the train on the eastbound leg, I threw in this side trip to New Orleans while “in the neighborhood” so I could take a couple of trains I’ve never been on, this one and the Crescent. Maybe I’ll regret it when the money starts to thin out, but I doubt it. Memories are worth more than money. In the movie “House of Games,” a mysterious figure named Mike convinces a woman to enter the hotel room of a stranger who’s out for the night, to make love with him. What if he comes back? she asks. “Then we’ll deal with that thing then.” Right on. We pass through Illinois in darkness, but I keep myself awake to witness the 3:14 a.m. stop in Fulton, where we slice through the southwesternmost corner of Kentucky, so I can tell Tom Steigerwald who is from Lexington, that I made my appearance in his home state. I’ll also hug the northeastern border of the state on the Cardinal on the way back to Chicago. The stop seems to consist of a single unmarked white platform, if indeed it’s Fulton. OK, now I can sleep, and I do so through Tennessee and wake up in Mississippi, which I wish I’d slept through. This is not the scenic route, not this stretch of it, for sure, but there is never nothing to look at from a train window. The very nothing is something. From the red rocks of Colorado to the Christmas lights of Centralia, Illinois, this is my country—land that I love. DAY 4, STILL TRAIN 2Thursday, December 21, 2006 Let’s see, it’s been Monday: California; Tuesday: Nebraska; Wednesday: Chicago; Thursday: Mississippi. Outside a Yazoo City liquor store is a parking lot with seven posted signs: No Loitering, No Open Containers. On a stoop nearby, are three men loitering, with open containers. Some sort of metal tower has been erected in a field. Why? So you can climb up there and survey all the rusted-out car parts strewn about in the weeds? Now, now, be nice. This is Delta country and I’m seeing one vertical stripe of this state. Jesus Christ, what am I doing in Mississippi, of all unlikely places I might find myself? Staring out at the station sign in Jackson, where my new friend Jo got off, I am overcome by grief for my dear departed Jackson. If I were an actor who needed to cry, I would only need think of Jack. But he was such a spirited cat, it is unfair to focus on his final days. J O Y TO THE WORLDSomeone has installed on their lawn three big letters reading J O Y . Now what word or concept would I use to represent myself, if people regularly displayed such things at their houses? Right now, I’m going to say G O . Go!, like Jack Kerouac repeatedly yelled at Alan Ginsberg’s historic first reading of Howl at Gallery 6. Don’t just sit there. Go somewhere! Trains leaving daily. Brookhaven, Mississippi announces itself with a sign over the main drag: BROOKHAVEN A HOMESEEKER’S PARADISE That’s it! Is this what I came here to find? Why maneuver and finagle any desperate way one can to claim a single room with hot plate in San Francisco, when Brookhaven, Mississippi is waiting with open arms to take all refugees in. In McComb, Mississippi I am happy to wave back at a father in overalls and his half-pint son waving at the train. In Hammond, Louisiana, a man in a Santa hat holds his red-jumpsuited daughter to his face to kiss her cheek. ONE WET CITYThe approach to New Orleans feels ominous, a case of water, water everywhere. Plus it’s raining, really raining. And oh my God, there they are: two ruined houses, followed quickly by a newly erected prefab house, followed by an existing house still standing but covered in green mold. Standing water, beaten-down vegetation, fallen over trees. Seeing it on TV made me sick at heart; seeing it with my eyes makes me sick to my stomach. An abandoned saw horse. Piles of soggy wood. A backhoe, don’t know how it got here. And in the midst of the muddy green pond scum—an elegant brilliantly white egret. I was at Burning Man shortly after Katrina hit; many there hadn’t heard of the devastation. The news of a disastrous hurricane and flood seemed surreal in that setting. An impromptu collection box for donations was set up at the gates. And one of the most moving things I have ever seen was a New Orleans funeral band making its way across the desert. This time the funeral was for New Orleans. Miles of swamp, then suddenly a car lot. You’ve got to be tenacious to be hanging on here. The general impression is one of sogginess, rottenness. There are puddles, pools, everywhere. Some lawns look saturated. And I am hardly seeing the worst of it, coming in from the back door. The word I’m looking for is haunted. WE ARRIVE.My cab driver, who is disgusted with the Mayor, the Governor, the President, FEMA and anyone else he can think of, thanks me for coming to New Orleans. Business sucks and he’s planning to get out of town. Things are washed up here, pardon the expression. As he drops me off at my hotel on Lee Circle, I notice the headlines on the newsstand about the inadequate drainage that must be the cause of all that puddling around town. Apparently when it rains in New Orleans, it pours. In my room I quickly strip myself of my winter weather gear, which I wore rather than packing—long wool coat, wool jacket, scarf, knee-high boots. It is a balmy but sticky day. I open the hotel windows and take a cooling, relaxing bath. I have been using the oddball first-class shower, which is pleasant enough, but how often are you moving through space while showering? Quite a balancing act. ARE YOU WITH ME?I soak in the tub and listen to Steely Dan’s “Doctor Wu,” which song I was obsessed with while obsessed with reading Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour—a book I devoured in 7- and 8-hour stretches. The song reminds me powerfully of the New Orleans mystique, even though I don’t know who Dr. Wu is, or Katy, or why Katy lied or about what or what she has to do with Dr. Wu. According to my I-Tunes menu I have listened to it 93 times in the past few months. I am sick of computers recording every move you make. I think Bush is behind it. I get dressed, finish up my 1st dispatch from the road, All I Needed Was a Train Ride, post it, and distribute it. JAZZ? WHAT’S JAZZ?I’ve been here only once, also on a train layover, and enjoyed having beignet at Cafe du Monde and hearing the live jazz on the street corner. So I’m ready to take in some jazz, and I tell the hotel bartender I’m just here for the night, and can he recommend any good jazz clubs. At the word “jazz” he looks as stricken as if someone put a gun to his back. He is not up to the challenge. He asks someone else. “I don’t listen to jazz,” says Someone Else, “but I’ll ask So-and-So.” Am I in the right city? So-and-So in his Cajun accent names some spots and I decide to go to Snug Harbor, which the cab driver had also mentioned. I pay my $12 cover and get myself a whiskey sour. After a bit, the music is about to start, and I discover to my chagrin that on that particular night of the year, is the traditional a cappella Christmas carol concert somebody’s family puts on. Jesus Lord. Look, I tell the hostess, I live in San Francisco, I’m here for just tonight on a train layover, people told me to come here for good jazz, and this is not what I had in mind. Well, tomorrow is Ellis Marsalis. Bully for him, I won’t be here. Anyway, she refunds my money and after asking for more opinions in the crowd, I head out to explore, but it is pouring again, and my umbrella’s safely in my luggage, so I dash into a gay/lesbian bookstore that happens to be open at 10:00 p.m. The owner chats with me about the decline in business and the generally depressed economy. The Amtrak approach to the city, he says, has never been particularly pretty, regardless of flooding. I buy a Christmas present, How to Be a Bitch with Style and again ask about clubs. I’m about 6 blocks from the French Quarter and he is the second one to advise me not to walk around there by myself at this hour—normally I won’t be told where I can and can’t walk—but it is again pouring so I grab a cab that is passing and we drive around the Quarter. It has retained all its charm, but this evening, perhaps because it’s a Thursday before Christmas, seems pretty dead. I don’t know why I thought things would be hoppin’ but it happens they’re not. I’m suddenly exhausted and feeling the whiskey. My train the next day leaves early so I just go back to the hotel. I kick myself for not scheduling another day here and vow to come back. A brief interlude, and my overall impression is that of a sad, used up city. If George Bush were on my elevator I would strangle him on the spot. It’s nice to know your country stands foursquare behind you in the direst of circumstances, and that your countrymen will soon forget whose fault it was it didn’t. Otherwise why is Bush still in office? Why are the levees not rebuilt? And why is New Orleans still a wreck? DAY 5, TRAIN 3NO. 20, THE CRESCENTDeparting New Orleans, Friday, December 22, 2006, 7:20 a.m. Arriving Philadelphia, Saturday, December 23, 2006, 12:25 p.m. “Pardon the alcohol on my breath,” says Larry, my new seat-mate, at 7:30 a.m. Why, God, why? “I guess I’ll have to.” See, this is why I no longer ride coach. I arrive at the train, the attendant hands me a seat number and he has put me in an aisle seat next to the only other person on the car. Is there any reason why I can’t pick whatever seat is available? I prefer to sit on the right side, and there is no way I am sitting in an aisle seat for 29 hours when blah blah blah, and I am instantly the bitch with no style. He grudgingly lets me move, and the black woman I’d been placed next to takes it personally, and thinks I’m an intolerant racist who will not stand for sitting next to her. I hear her talking about it on the phone to someone, and I am quick to correct her. It’s got nothing to do with you, I just want to sit at a window so I can have something to lean on or I won’t be able to sleep. Please, please, please don’t take it the wrong way, that is not what I meant. I apologize for starting off on the wrong foot and we introduce ourselves. I complain about Amtrak’s idiotic seating policies. You see I am the patron, I am the customer, I am the one who is keeping Amtrak in business. They need me. Their job is to see to it that I enjoy the trip I paid for and wish to come back. Et cetera. So now the attendant has seated a gabby drunk next to me, although much of the car is still empty. Yes, I’m back in coach, back in cattle-herding country. Larry—pardon the alcohol on his breath—“got [him]self in some trouble” and hasn’t been able to go home for Christmas for years. That’s nice, thank you for sharing. The guy will not shut up. He’s obviously someone in recovery who needs to unburden himself, but I am not his AA counselor. As we cross Lake Pontchartrain, Larry says if he is not mistaken, that this, the toll causeway, is the longest bridge span in the country. What I want to know is, I say, if there’s water all around us, what the hell are we riding on? “FAITH,”he says, “Nothing but faith.” Could be a corny title for an inspirational book, Riding on Faith. I hope I’m not the one to write it. He’s not a bad guy, really, but he thinks he owns me. He can see I am reading, he can see I am writing, and with total disregard continues to flap his yap. Finally I tell him, look, you’re obviously very talkative, but I am not. I just want to read my book, OK? He concedes for a moment, then starts offering to bring me a coke, a coffee, a newspaper, will I do him the honor of having dinner with him. “We’ll see how it goes,” I say, and he takes off to look for the bar car. At 8:00 a.m. Then, by the grace of God, something starts mysteriously dripping from the luggage rack onto my footrest, and I am moved a row up. Phew! Not much later Edward Jackson, a carpeting contractor, takes the seat next to me and we will gab for pert near the whole trip. He is mostly the supervisor, not the installer, but he always insists on doing the seams, because he takes pride in what he does and no one else can do it to suit him. As for me, I tell him to watch the New York Times Bestseller list for my name and threaten to mention him in my column. Here’s something I never thought I’d hear someone say: “This is Tuscaloosa, Alabama, everybody!” I remember waking up on the Sunset Limited between Jacksonville, FL and Los Angeles, and being astonished by the alien southern beauty of Alabama. That was clearly some other part of the state. One sees a lot on a cross-country train ride, but it is only one select strip of the whole mass of the continent. Still, it’s better than just sitting in the ol’ rocker at home. Did I see what I just saw? A guy on his back porch in a loose shirt and no pants? Clearly showing himself off to the train? See, such things are why my mother does like to just sit in the rocker. She does not want to be “exposed” to such things. To me they are just part of the crazy quilt. TIME TO GET OUT THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!Just like all of us, every little town in America has its stash of festive holiday markers in boxes in storage, and come Thanksgiving the Chamber of Commerce gets out the crystal snowflakes, the lamppost garlands, the red-bowed wreaths and tree branch lights, and the main drag is gaily festooned with home-style seasonal cheer. They’re charming, these little snapshots of community life. Hey—huge cigarette outlet coming up on Exit 12. Get your huge cigarettes here! I don’t even know what state I’m in right now, though we left Atlanta around—oh it’s Gastonia, North Carolina at 3:30 a.m. FINALLY,after one of the worst nights of no sleep and torturous twisting ever, I wake up deep in the beauty of Virginia’s mountains and valleys, nearly completely blanketed with fog. The next thing I know I’m at 30th St. Station, and home. DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA, PAJanuary 1st, 2007At 2:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 11:46 p.m. Pacific, I call my flat where I suspect h is having a humongous free-for-all, but the voice mail picks up so I just scream HAPPY NEW YEAR! into the phone and doubt anyone hears it. Here’s hoping h raised a glass of my own Stoli to me, and that his hangover is as humongous as the party. DATELINE: BROOKLYN, NEW YORKJanuary 2, 2007 Yes, it’s 2007, a new year. Now don’t just sit there. GO!
The California Zephyr entering Moffat Tunnel, http://colorado.railfan.net ------------------------------------------------------------ From state to state
Trains leaving daily! copyright Alexandra Jones 2007 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
