Coming Home

I’ve been on the road traveling pretty much constantly since mid-2014 and I am just now able to breathe.  Hence, the hiatus in posting on this blog.  One weekend recently, I was with my family at our weekend place; my brother-in-law traveled separately from the rest of us, taking the train.  In the little town where we are, the train stops not too far from the house, and there is always a busy if small gathering of people waiting to meet the travelers who are arriving.  The station is one of those where you can park right next to the tracks and the platform, so you can even sit in the car and see the train coming in and the passengers alight.  Sometimes the train is late, as it was that evening, but there is always a tableau.  Some families with balloons for college kids returning home.  A few kids waiting for their dad or mom.  And just people in transit, moving through the old-fashioned station with its covered portico and flickering lights.A little Norman Rockwell, I’ll admit but there is indeed something moving about it.  Many singers and musicians have written about trains and what they mean to us as a sense of place and travel in time – think of Merle Haggard and Train Whistle Blues (“Every time I see that lonesome railroad train, It makes we wish I was going home again”) or Peter, Paul and Mary and 500 Miles (“If you miss the train I’m on you will know that I am gone”).  Or one of my favorites, from Marc Cohn, Ghost Train:Some trains they leave in the morningSome leave in the afternoonSome trains they leave hereRight on timeAnd some they just leave too soonA few years back, the UK Telegraph even had an article about great train-related songs – you can find it at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/journeysbyrail/6406122/Music-on-the-train-Great-rail-related-songs.htmlIn a world where plane travel is the fastest way to go, and where the automobile is still viewed as the easiest freedom on the road, there is something special about the train, even when it’s just passing through the station in your town, on the way to another place.- Laura Flippin