trains | trains
Apr.16.2013
Getting ready for bed just now, I heard a train whistle out my window. It’s been a little warmer, more like spring, and I’ve started leaving the windows open just a crack at night to get some air. This train was not all that way off in the distance, probably ten blocks or so from my...
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Jan.28.2013
I thought I’d catch up on my book on my way into Manhattan this morning. I got a seat on the train and started to read my book. It’s a wonderful story about an Indian researcher working in a Muslim community where everyone questions his faith. The train was a local and I’d have...
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Sep.26.2012
September 26
SCREAMING LETHARGY
The screaming lethargy of being alive after many years of wanting something else, the exhaustion of pulsing, breathing, waves and waves of thinking. Yet as tired as I am, I am. Here without a doubt, I stand. No...
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Dec.13.2011
Whenever I am on a bus I do take note of how many people are reading books. I have even made tallies of how many people have books and how many people are engaged with electronic devices. Yes - the electronic devices always win, but I am including music. So far, I am still heartened by the number...
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Sep.02.2011
This train smells like a hospital. It could be from the sterilizing spray, but it might be a collective smell from all of these people. The man sitting five seats up is peculiar. His sweat is dripping from his forehead down to the nape of his neck. I can see his chest through his sweat-stained t-...
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Apr.12.2011
I miss The Hump. Let me explain.
I grew up in Lincoln, Neb., a town not unlike Chico. Lincoln had a rural/city atmosphere like Chico and a thriving university. My two brothers and I were among thousands of free-range baby boomer kids who roamed the newly minted postwar neighborhoods.
We were...
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Apr.05.2011
For years, in the middle of the night, I have heard the shrill groan of train whistles and caught my breath.
I don’t believe in ghosts. Yet, I am haunted.
When I was no more than ten-years-old, my brother told me a chilling tale about train whistles that I have not forgotten.
It was probably a...
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Feb.02.2011
I have a fascination for trains, both in watching them and riding on them. As I child, our next door neighbour was the conductor on a train (freight) and I was once able to travel in the caboose. Now there are no longer a cabosse at the end of the train , gone for years and replaced with a black...
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Jan.26.2011
I wrote a blog yesterday about the overnight train to Montreal, with a few assorted train stories. So perhaps the tracks were laid for me to have a dream about trains. Not too far from my waking hour, so that is why I still remember it clearly.
In fact, it had a portion of a recurring dream (I...
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Jan.25.2011
The night train goes between Halifax and Montreal, and Montreal and Halifax. You can't get there from here in daylight . . . by train. The train chug chug chugs out of Halifax early afternoon, and out of Montreal early evening. The two pass somewhere in Quebec. Arrival in Montreal is early...
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