Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

THE TIME TRAVELER'S TRAIN


 


 

Even today, when there are no steam whistles to bring about that “Blues in the Night” feeling, trains are a romantic way to travel. We shun airplanes when possible, and take long vacations in our RV, but manage an occasional train ride.

Recently I took Amtrak’s Blue Water line from Chicago to Kalamazoo, both for an enjoyable and inexpensive ride and for reliving much of my life. The journey began at Chicago’s famous Union Station,
where I changed trains a few times in 1959 as I returned from grad school at the University of Wisconsin to my home in southwest Michigan. I recall gazing out the train window at snowy landscapes—Wisconsin always seemed wintry then—dotted with only a few leafless trees.

Last week the train moved slowly through Chicago‘s south side toward Indiana. For about 20 years I lived in various parts of Chicago and its suburbs, first as a young bride, then as a divorcée, and finally as a happily remarried woman. During those years I found  my vocation as a science editor, and edited many textbooks for Rand McNally. Chicago was and is a magnificent city. Only the unrelenting ice and snow drove us to move to San Francisco in 1980.

We rolled through Indiana quickly, with Lake Michigan near but unseen to the north. As soon as we crossed the border into Michigan, I felt at home. Cottonwoods and maples were still August-green, but would begin to turn gold and scarlet in a few weeks. My grandparents had a farm near Bridgman, and these same railroad tracks ran through it.  As a child in the forties I often visited Grandma and Grandpa, where I balanced precariously on the rails and put crossed pins on them to be fused into miniature scissors by passing trains. At night I could hear the trains passing though. That was still the era of steam trains with the lonely sounding whistles that promised adventure far away in miles and years.

The train of today continued on through the many small towns of Berrien and Van Buren counties. I was born in Watervliet, a little paper-mill town that has nearly vanished (the mill closed years ago, and the Pere Marquette trains no longer go there). Though I still treasure my friends from childhood and high school, I was glad to leave the oppressive life there. In the fifties my English teacher, Roy Davis, made the mistake of introducing me to Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, which helped me recognize the worst side of midwestern rural life. Roy is fonder of small-town life than I am, and still lives in the next town, Hartford, in a lovely century-old home. (On this nostalgic trip I had the chance to visit him and his wife, Marion.)

The train was delayed,  as most trains tend to be, but finally reached Kalamazoo. As it entered town I looked up past the huge campus of Western Michigan University and saw the dome of Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College. Four of the happiest years of my life were spent at “K” College, where I was exposed to the wide world of literature, the sciences, music, and art. Three of my college roommates loved the city so much that they have gone on living there for more than 50 years, and a cousin who taught at Western has remained there also. Going back to see them and walk around the campus is a treat that I indulge in every few years. Old roommate Diane Worden met me at the station, and we drove off to a Middle Eastern dinner. (Kalamazoo is more cosmopolitan than it was in the fifties, when pizza seemed esoteric.)

I have spent longer in airplanes waiting for takeoff than the train ride lasted, but in that short trip I had relived much of my life. After a happy week I rejoined my partner, who had driven the RV from California, and we began driving toward Maine. Though this would be a wonderful vacation, I was grateful to have spent some time alone aboard that train to yesterday.