TRAINS

I have been thinking of writing about trains for awhile now.   Today I am also concerned that the GOP now has control of the House of Representatives but don't feel qualified to write about that.   I don't think anyone wants to hear me bellyache about Sara Palin and all her followers so will stick to trains.

I think there used to be a song about a train running through the middle of the house, didn't there?   Seems like I remember a little of it.   Well, we don't have a train running through our dorm here but we do have a train that runs through the town and I LOVE listening to it, especially at night.

When Mark was born I couldn't wait to buy him a train.   Santa brought him an engine one year when he was still pretty small.   It whistled, and smoke came out the smoke stack.   IT scared the kid to death.   He ran from it and cried.   Santa made a mistake that year.

Eventually he got a train, nothing big or fancy but it satisfied his mom and she had as much fun with it as he did if not more.

Our little hometown used to have a train that came from Peoria and one time my sister, Mary, came for Easter with her two oldest children, Jerry and Brenda.   I remember going to the station to get them and she was all dressed up with a suit and hat on.

My mother and I took a train to New York one Thanksgiving to see her brother.   That was a neat experience for me as I had traveled very little.   Everyone was in a holiday mood and I remember them all wishing every one a Merry Christmas.

But...back to the little town of Baldwin, Louisiana and their train.   In the night when I can't sleep I hear the wheels on the track long before the whistle.   I'll lay there and it starts out very faint but gets louder and louder till I hear the whistle.   I never realized they have a special whistle.   Not sure if it stays the same for every little town or if each town has their own.   When they go through Baldwin they blow two long whistles, one short, and another long.   Wait maybe 10 to 15 seconds and do the same thing again.   Sometimes you get a guy that LOVES the sound of that whistle and he just blows them over and over again without any rest in between.

Last night I did not hear one single train.   I woke up a few times but there either wasn't a train or I slept through it.   I've decided it wouldn't be so bad to live a mile or so from a train track.