I’m breathing slowly, sitting in my chair, waiting for a train to pass on the Virtual Rail Fan YouTube Channel. The Amtrak train, #97 Southbound Silver Meteor, passes through town, on the way to Miami.
I can imagine a couple, newlyweds, on The Orange Blossom Special, headed to Miami Beach, for a stay in an Art Deco hotel and a properly improper honeymoon. Is it their first time? We won’t say.
What we do know is that both are eager. They’ve spent their lives wondering, reading the marriage manuals. Now, packing condoms, pessary and spermicide, these naive innocents will began their adventure in adulthood
The return trip will include college on the GI Bill, mortgage from the VA, that shiny new DeSoto, and an inexhaustible supply of diapers from the Stork Diaper Service.
He hopes his job at the advertising agency, handling the cigarette account will be lucrative. She hopes she won’t be too bored with keeping the house, playing canasta, and listening to how her neighbour Betty lets her hubby Sam, take her back there. At least she won’t get pregnant. Again.
All these little dramas end when the letter from The Government arrives, telling him he’s been called back, to report to Camp LeJeune for God knows what.
So it’s off on an another train, alone this time, as the Twentieth Century unfolds before him.