Trains - Through the Eyes of a Baby Boomer
It was a train
that took my mother west
away from her family farm
to seek adventure. She found work in San Diego,
joined the Navy and met my dad.
It was the 1950’s.
Planes were not yet a big deal
and many traveled long distances
by train.
It was a train
that carried my mom away
from a husband impossible to live with.
The year was 1960. For traveling far,
the train was the poor man’s choice.
Trains and buses were plentiful
when my mom brought her 4 young girls
back to her parents’ farm
to then start over.
It was a train
that my father purchased two tickets for
so that my sister and I could visit with him
out west where he lived near Seattle.
The year was 1969.
On a black and white TV, with my dad,
we watched astronauts walking on the moon.
It was a time of social unrest, and technology would soon
be soaring past the moon!
It was a train
that brought my sister and I home
from the lovely visit with our dad.
I recall having to walk past a troop of flirty boy scouts
that occupied one of the train’s cars
each time my sister and I made our way to the dining car.
We watched mountains turn into cornfields
as the train carried us back toward the Mississippi.
A most memorable experience it was.
It was a train
that brought me only a few other times after that
to visit my dad out west or my mother in Iowa
as I traveled with a spouse and two sometimes-wailing kids.
Like a train, my life kept moving.
After 1984, I’d use the train no more.
Trains had become nostalgic ways to travel -
used more by people with the luxury of time,
people who enjoyed eating meals as
scenery sped past them outside their windows.
It’s the plane
that modern rushed humanity today are using.
Buses are low-class and cars are for road trips.
Trains, though still running, are not much heard of.
It’s not so easy to find
a very accommodating route by train.
My life has flown by like a plane,
but if it should ever slow down,
I think I’d like to take again – a train!
Oct. 27, 2021
For the Railroads, A Historical Glance Back Poetry Contest
Sponsor: BJ Legros Kelley
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