Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

Riding a train when you don't have to is perfect. I guess that might make it like chocolate cake. Eating cake is fine if you get to choose when. Cake for breakfast doesn't always suit my fancy and taking a train with a tight connection doesn't feel so good either.

Being a pretty serious people watcher, I find trains to be Nirvana. The conditions are just perfect for attracting and containing unusual characters. The close proximity, the common inconveniences and the collegial climate engendered when in a common peril allow people watching at its finest.

Where else could you get the perfect conditions to watch a tightly wound CEO melt down right before you as you comfortably sip the drink of your choice while basking in a comfortable swiveling overstuffed chair?

Let's call her Buffy so as to disguise her real name. Snarl would be too similar and someone might recognize her if I used that name.

Buffy and her husband owned a substantial company and she and her son were running the company while the husband, who founded the company, was easing himself into retirement. Husband, Hank we will call him, was a very large, fit gentleman with a twinkle in his eye. Buffy and Hank were on their way to stay in one of their houses, this one in Palm Springs. Normally they took the plane, but Buffy talked Hank into trying the train. "It would be more relaxing and you can move about if you like."

Hank was getting up there in age, with agility not one of his strong suits, and moving about on the train was a given. You didn't even need to stand up to "move about." So Hank was frustrated. Every time he stood up to move from A to B, he risked the possibility of tipping over into someone's T (tea). Not good; he was a proud man. Getting in and out of his bed at night was a project and he liked a stable bed at night, not one that pitched and lurched.

One morning, while dining with Buffy and Hank, the train came to a rather abrupt halt and the lights went out. Naturally, we were a bit curious and also concerned about the progress of our eggs. Did this mean a cold breakfast? Did this mean the end of our train trip and the balance might be carried out via Greyhound?

Nope, the last car just came uncoupled again. It was to be left on a siding and as soon as the passengers can be moved to other cars, the train will progress.

Buffy, who had a nervous tick of consulting her watch between breathing, was pretty much in a state of red alert, full on warble, way beyond reason, broken safety valve melt-down.

Her great idea of "Let's try the train honey, you'll like it" was in the ditch. She had wasted more time than all of her staff could have combined in their best effort on Friday afternoon before Christmas. Hank, normally chipper and positive, was exhausted from lack of sleep, not happy with the nourishment he was being supplied, embarrassed with his inability to cope with the lurching pitching train and now this.

It was funny to watch, in kind of a sick way. We commoners who don't think we could handle being CEO of a global corporate monster witnessed a lady go fizzle right before our eyes. How does she react when she gets a billion dollar contract canceled? Or when Exxon raises the price of diesel another 25 percent?

The train personnel reacted with much more aplomb when one of the passengers called 9-1-1 (unbeknownst to the train staff). A poor young fellow could no longer handle his uncle, who was suffering severe paranoia during the night, and he was frightened what the uncle might do. His uncle was speaking in his native Polish tongue, frantic because he was positive that he knew the engineer from the war and that he was going to run us off a trestle and kill us all. When the train pulled into Houston, here were two ambulances. Lots of time lost there while they looked for whoever called 9-1-1 and then spent time deciding what to do about the uncle.

Then, when the train was finally released to return to its schedule, one of the EMTs very nearly got left on the train. If he weren't youthful and athletic, he never would have survived his jump from the moving train as it pulled out of the station, the engineer and conductor anxious to make up the lost hour.

You like people watching? Take a train. It's a hotbed of activity and you won't even be obvious as you watch the world of characters pass before your eyes.



Jim Follis is a retired school administrator, has published two books, and currently writes three newspaper columns. Eating, drinking, and making merry are his professed hobbies. Traveling, trekking and observing people follow not far behind.