“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” ― L.P. Hartley, British Novelist

Hello and welcome. You may have landed on this page by accident, however, we try to be hospitable, therefore, perhaps you could hang around long enough to hear me out. It's Wednesday, March 7, 2016, and I am enjoying a slight cool down here at the ole blogger ranch. The forecast says we might be sporting some temps near 40 in the next few days. Now that should give us all something to look forward to. The other day someone on the Facebook page devoted to remembering the 'Good Old Days' in the little town where I grew up posted a photo of the old railroad station. Many of the comments were from people who lived there in the 1970's or later. I left that little town in 1968. Someone said as a child they liked to watch the fellow hang up the mailbag that was then snatched by the speeding train. In the early 1960's, I was one of those who would go and hang that bag. My stepfather at that time owned a service station and he had the contract to take care of this process. The train rarely stopped in that little town. The train not only grabbed the outgoing mailbag but an incoming mailbag was thrown out the door. It was a heavy-duty canvas bag and it would go end over end. My job was to run it down and take it to the post office. That depot also brought back many memories from the times in the mid to late 1950's that I got a ticket and boarded the passenger train to ride the rails. My dad, who passed away in 1954, worked for that rail line, Kansas City Southern, KCS. Upon his death, we were given a rail pass. I used it more than anyone else in the family. You might say, that depot, those trains, the people on the trains who remembered my dad, well, it was all a part of me trying to grasp some little recollection of the man who gave me his name, and, even though I've been told that after his death it was no longer appropriate for me to sign my name as a Junior, but, I always have and still do to this very day. I guess in some ways I'm still grasping.

KCS Dining Car. I enjoyed many meals in a car like that.

Maybe that's also why I like to listen to the train going down the track. Yep. I can sit here at my desk and listen to the clickety-clack of a train moving on down the line, in a rainstorm. There's something soothing about that. Perhaps it reminds me of that overnight ride in the sleeper car where our train crossed Lake Pontchartrain. That would have been in the summer of 1953, just a few months before dad had a bout of pneumonia that led to his heart attack that took him to glory in January of 1954. I have a block of a lot of those memories prior to his death, but, I do remember that train ride. The sights, the sounds, even the smells. My brother Donald and I slept in an upper birth. Everything was so different on that train. The sheets were starched and the porters did everything for us. Maybe I dreamed it, but, I have fixed in my mind that long train ride across that body of water and how it produced sleep like I had never experienced before. Maybe that's why I sit here during lunch and doze off as those train sounds rock me to sleep. You what? You've never listened to the sounds a train makes going down the track? Maybe you should try it. There are dozens of recordings on YouTube. My wife would tell you that if the best sleep I've ever had dates back to 1953, she would say I'm doing a pretty good imitation of it, nearly every single night. She would be right about that and often I fall asleep remembering those train sounds. I know. Surely there's some professional help for delusional people like myself. I get that. No thank you. I kind of like the way it's broken and I think I'll keep it.

That stuff might tend to be somewhat boring to many, however, as I often say, and I'm even told by others, it's your blog so go with whatever it is you feel like sharing. I typically do my best to do that very thing. I know there are reality checks that help keep us focused on the here and now. I have a friend that decided he and his wife would go by train out to Arizona to visit relatives. They bought a package deal from Amtrak. That trip was a disaster. They had several breakdowns, delays, and often found themselves sitting in one place for hours at a time. They even thought about leaving the train at one of the stops and renting a car or buying an airline ticket to get to their destination. I'm not sure, but, when he was in the talking stages about his train venture, I may have shared with him some of my fond memories of riding the rails. I hope I didn't influence his decision. I doubt seriously that he sleeps well at night as he thinks about his train ride out west. That, I fear, is how it works. One person's great time ends up being the other fellow's lamentable experience. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention this one. The porter would bring the Cokes stuck down in a bucket of ice. He would pour it into a frosted glass. It was those small bottles of Coke. Many times they gave me whatever I wanted at no cost. The conductors had known my dad. They thought he was an amazing man. They told me stories about him. Maybe they were just trying to make me feel better. Maybe not. Whatever their reasons, I'm thankful for them doing what they did. And, for the train sounds as well. May God bless us all is my prayer. Amen. ....More later.