In the Bleak Midwinter

I love the train. I prefer riding them in Europe. 4 hours is the ride from Northampton to Penn Station. The girls are sitting and talking across the train car from me, catching up. I am listening to a story--not voluntarily--being told by Abby about a roommate had irresponsible sex and asked Abby to drive her to get Plan B. Abby doesn't understand train etiquette. She is clearly excited to see Leiney, which just melts my heart. The last time the three of us rode a train together must have been Europe.

I remember presidential candidate Paul "Clinton is a pander bear" Tsongas talking about the hollowing out of Massachusetts and the East Coast back in 1992. No one has done anything about it--and to be clear the boneyards of industry are filled with bldgs which are made of brick, most likely from clay dug and fired in Renton, once the location of the largest brick manufacturing in the US. 

A brief aside--we are on a train that just dropped people off in Springfield. Now the train has to change direction and go

North--but this train only goes East to West. So, the train is slowly backing up at no more than 1-2 miles an hour. I kid you not. They made an announcement that this is standard. So, here we are.

The towns here in Western Massachusetts are emptied out and have been emptying out for better than 40 years. Thanks to immigration, though, places like South Hadley are being

repopulated by people from Central and South America. There are no good jobs--no manufacturing jobs that is. The shock that deindustrialization has wrought is evident in these giant tombstones, standing empty and lifeless where they once teemed with life and opportunity. 

We've been on the 🚂 train for more than an hour, and the empty factories still dominate the landscape. Ita one thing to read about how work was moved offshore, another to see the remnants of a lost time.

As we sit for reasons unknown, the Vince Guaraldi trio is playing in my ears, "Christmas Time is Here." The brushes on the drums are the only sound that remotely indicate a moving train.  Sigh.

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I have awakened to the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra singing Let It Snow as we pull into New Haven station at glacial speed. What a contrast. The train is loading up with people. It hadnt been empty earlier, but it is packed now. I suddenly have a companion. I am enjoying the Christmas music, Nat King Cole's rendition of All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth is charming me, currently.

Focus on the positive, Geoff--they are switching engines here in New Haven. Yes, engines. I am

consoling myself by knowing we will be having my favorite pizza in the whole world in a few hours. The kids are not adventurous--but no problemo. The pizza joint--a cathedralesque sized and appointed former synagogue in Times Square serves an amazing Margherita. 

I have been journaling a lot today because we

are traveling and sitting on a train provides opportunity. I tried other things. Crossword puzzles, snapping photos, texting the girls--who across the aisle are so enraptured with one another that they can't be bothered with the old man--so I thought, hmm, let's look at the news. Stupid me.