A Train In The Distance

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I've always loved the sound of a train in the distance. This morning the long whistle, and the sound of the chugging train stirred me awake.

It seems that no matter where I've lived in my life I've always been close enough to hear the train chugging down the tracks.

It brings to mind the days of the Old West when they cheered the sound of the arriving train as the supplies had arrived. They are carrying the same sort of things today but we don't wait at the station, jubilant because we can now eat. Trains kind of lost that significance.

I think of the religious overtones.

This train carries saints and sinners. This train carries losers and winners. This train carries whores and gamblers. This train. All aboard.

Whether we like it or not, that train is going to eventually pick us up.

People get ready there's a train a-coming. You don't need a ticket. You just get on board.

I hoped it wasn't that train I heard this morning. As the whistle faded I knew I'd escaped that call.

This morning I thought of the freight train of the Fuzzy weekend. That will start with a hot pepper party...I got mine done last night, I could win again...with a graduation party of my God-daughter, and then the softball tourney in Jeff's memory.

This upcoming weekend has been a freight train. Family is arriving from Baltimore. Corinne and Chuck, John and Dana, Carrie and Lynn and Jim will all be busting my chops. Mom will be happy. Johnny, Farrah and Rocco will be running, jumping, punching and laughing with us. Friends are arriving from all over Western New York. People are bringing gifts. Beer, softball, more laughs.

I'm waiting on that train.

To gather and celebrate life.

Maybe the old west analogy isn't that far off.

As I laid there with the list of tasks for the day scrolling through my mind I thought of the train heading down those tracks.

I can almost always picture the guy with the engineer's hat on, guiding the train. (There isn't a lot of steering involved, is there?). He's sitting up high, keeping an eye on things, touching off the siren. He seems to be so in charge to me.

It's an image that hasn't faded from when I was a small child.

Chug, chug, chug and then the long warning whistle at the intersections.

I've always loved the sounds of a train in the distance.

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