American Dream Iv - Trains - After 9-11

A mournful train whistle, that most evocative sound, heralds the departure and the wheels start their round There can have been few things as satisfying as a long slow train ride, especially across those rolling spaces seen from a window, safely sat inside. We dreamed our American dreams, listened to all those train songs, in our minds made those journeys as we sat and sang along. The Midnight Special with its hope heard from the institutional hell of the state penitentiary with its prisoner filled cells. Hank sang the California Zephyr, Willie the City of New Orleans, Seeming strange exotic places where none of us had ever been. We heard all those legends. learned them one and all, The Orange Blossom Special, The Wabash Cannonball, and it seemed to us in those days railroad tracks were the veins carrying the lifeblood of America on those romantically named trains. Now the world has moved on and travel is too fast. No time now for the enjoyment of a journey that lasts; an age of innocence is gone, an enemy has extended his reach all the way to Fortress America which has been so badly breached. I’ll dream my American dream with the contentment I will find as I listen to my music and ride again those trains there in my mind