Hey there folks, hope that anyone who might be reading this is doing well… I feel like we are. Well we just left Los Angeles where we stayed with our dear friends Garyn and Raina (soon to be the Jones’..look out everyone), and celebrated Ben’s birthday with friends, whiskey, beer, and old school dancing. It was a blast…. I saw a woman get hit by a car which, apparently, is not a big deal in that city, luckily she was ok… I think I was more worked up about it than she was.
Right now we’re heading north from LA to the Bay Area on the Coastal Starlight ( I’m getting used to this train thing and even got a thanks from on of the Amtrak employees for helping with the service at one of the stops…it’s been real fun getting to know how these things work). This has been by far one of the more thought provoking rides on the trip (west Texas also), to my left is the mighty, blue Pacific ocean where surfers and porpoises are riding the waves and to my right are the mountains, orchards, farms , the highway, and houses. Both sides are unlike anything I get to see on a day to day basis but, the right side has been very interesting. I just finished retracing The Grapes of Wrath and I’m looking at these areas with the workers eating lunch and thinking “different times, similar situations”. The view has also got me thinking about a conversation I had with another dear friend we stayed with at the beginning of the trip; the illustrious Mr. Don Cook. We’re talkin’ train songs.
Honestly, this part is not very well researched on my part but here are my ideas it all. Trains have played a large part of American growth from the build up of industry to the expansion west, they added speed, the all important speed, to the travel of people and goods. Immigrants built them, Jesse James and the like robbed them, the nameless and homeless hopped them and rode them away, trains came to replace that sweet chariot. There are an amazing amount of songs in the American musical language that use trains as some sort of object or subject. They were and maybe still are magical. A recent personal favorite of mine is the song “Freight Train” by Elizabeth Cotten. It’s a depression era song with a lullaby like melody and a story that might allude to death, or going to a better place, or another way to look at it going home.
I’d like for people who read this to send some of their favorite train songs to us, even if they’re well known and to think about those songs even if there is no destination ( at least so I can ponder ‘em). In the mean time I’m going to write more about this topic…it’s a worthy one. I want to keep my mind on it because I feel when we hit the Bay I’ll get in a more “Beat” sort of mindset.
Thanks a bunch everyone,
Bobby
