The Vermonter
I brought too much crap, again. You would think that I would be getting the hang of this traveling thing by now, but apparently not. The Vermonter is pulling out of the stop at BWI airport by the time I got my stuff strewn around me in some order.
Business class is one of the small luxuries on the train. There are eight rows of seats behind the snack bar, arrayed on and two seats across, respectively, and a fairly wide aisle.
In front of the snack bar are some booths with tables, and forward of that the Vermonter is all Coach Class, We are late, by about a half hour, but it is OK. It is not like the airplane. The Counterman is a vast man with a shaven head. He is not tall, and his girth makes him appear like a cannonball.
I thought a parachute bag with a strap would be fine, Then I realized that the computer ought to come, and of course it was locked to my desk with the bicycle-style lock the Company urges us to use so that sensitive data does not walk off in the night.
Baltimore.
The graffiti is crimson here, and the field of the dead comes nearly to the tracks south of town.
Wilmington.
The water is lovely, reflecting gun-metal in the low morning light.
Philly, Newark, New York. Big places and people in coats.on the platforms. North, there are marches and the delicate lace of the dead summer left behind, and cat-tails in noble brown, broad swaths of them on the water. Color a week past prime on the trees, but still good.
New-Haven-Hartford-some-junction on the tracks.
Springfield.
It is certain that America once traveled by rail, and it is still a marvelous way to get around, if one of the trains that remain happen to be going to where you happen to want to be. The Vermonter left me on the platform, headed for St. Albans at the distant end.
This is a medium town in a medium place. Two taxis compete for business on the street below. One driver is an aggressive woman whose face is screwed up in anger over who will take the fares.
The car rental company comes to get me and I don’t have to get involved. They invented basketball here, and volleyball not far away. My motel shares the parking lot of the Hall of Fame, which is a gigantic silver-colored orb with lights that illuminate at night .
I have some pleasant business to accomplish here, and then the Vermonter will come and take me back to Washington. With deliberation, and a change from diesel to electric power down in Connecticut.
I am not going to complain about the challenge of getting a car far from an airport. Back in the day, I imagine they had to find a livery station and rent a horse. Plus ca change, and all that.
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Close Window