Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Train 682

Ever want a glimpse of behind the scenes of a piece of a country? Take a train ride through its back yards, and see all that normally is hidden from sight.
On July 30, I caught sight of Portland with babies running free in diapers, discarded, rusting snowplows, hospital windows along the water, artwork gracing storage tanks, Rigby Yard close-up, and Old Orchard Beach, with drying motley-colored beach towels, overflowing dumpsters, an ocean beckoning, piles of twisted metal, early morning breakfast seekers, and Saco, with stacks and stacks of recyclable bottles, mills remade into condos along the river, tracks of waiting graffiti-laced tank cars, large women sunbathing, ghost signs hanging on bricks, and Wells, with pleading lonesome train whistles, wet fields of early morning grass, a lot filled with discarded cardboard boxes, overweight men in plastic chairs, and Dover, with deflated plastic swimming pools, a hustling town coming to life, delivery trucks waiting to unload, a deserted park playground, and Durham, with UNH, a woman with a homemade sign: "Hi Katie and Mimi", a sleeping college town in summer, piles of junk cars rusting in sunlight, smoking workers on back decks of restaurants, and Exeter, with impatient cars at crossings, kids waving from back porches, empty parking lots, abandoned buses, a car up on jacks, lines of laundry waving in desperation, and Haverhill, with sweating men laying track, boarded factory windows, shops longing for business, an old mill rendered to pile of rubble, a smoking woman waving to a train, and Woburn, with cement bridges going every which way, a shelter lost among the bushes, long lines of train cars on waiting tracks, trucks at loading docks, backyard treehouses, another train whooshing by, and Boston with North Station, a myriad of tracks, stacks of commuter trains, running footsteps, waving arms, yelling, faces coming alive, here.

*And that was just going down.

15 comments:

  1. Brilliant observations, Birdman.

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  2. Funny thing, tho, in the 2 hours and 20 minutes it took to get there, I thought I might take a nap. That was my plan. Or read my book.
    But the stuff Birdman describes above, as mundane as it was, kept me mesmerized the entire time.

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  3. It really is the simplest things in life that are so amazing.

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  4. What a great account of the trip. I can almost picture everything you've described.

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  5. the longest run-on sentence i've ever seen in blogland...

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  6. Goodness me, you really did take it all in.. Train rides are the best..so much better than flying, nowhere to fall..hopefully!
    P.s. have a shandy for me Birdman, told you they were tres refreshing in the heat of summer.. a touch of Oz in Portland..nice :)

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  7. I completely agree with you and this is true for almost any place, large or small. Somewhere you will always find something new and interesting.

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  8. I read your entire description of all the things you saw. I'm tired and will now need to take a nap. Bye!

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  9. That was fun! I felt like I came along for the ride, without getting a stiff neck from staring out the window.

    Did you wave back?

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  10. Yup, that is pretty much what one would see on a Portland to Boston train ride. Not much different from what one would see on any other train ride.

    Did you go to Fenway Park? (I like the Peavy trade . . . you gotta give something to get something.)

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  11. Wow, what a catalogue of sights! Did you remember all that or did you take notes?

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  12. Laughing at Lowell's comment. Nice train shot.

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  13. this post has me smiling. beautifully rendered list, birdman. i'd like to train with you.

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  14. A panorama of life in the USA.

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