Editor’s Note: DeMille was relieved this morning. Splash had submitted one of his “Winds of Change” pieces for publication in which he claimed to find a link between the astonishing landscape of today, how it came about, and where the extraordinary transformation of good ‘ole America is likely to go in the coming new year: 2022. But the Chairman said, “Hold that thought. In the meantime, Marlow has a contribution that echoes something fundamental about our past, our people, and how we lived. And above all, Merry Christmas!

– Vic

South Carolina Overnight Train Scene (northbound)

W and I took an overnight train last week to the Big Apple to attend this year’s Army-Navy football game and hang with several shipmates, an Army pogue, and their spouses who are all like family for a prolonged, analogue Christmas season week under the neon lights on Broadway.

W awaits the arriving northbound Silver Meteor train 98

This was the Salts’ 31st straight Army-Navy game during the past 32 years. “Eh . . .” you say? Well, someone had to carry the one. In any event, 2020’s Zoom’d game attendance worked out well for us.

After nearly two years of CovidLand quarantining mostly in the friendly confines of the Coastal Empire, the scenes along the Atlantic coast’s train tracks were awesome.

We wanted to remember what we saw and felt onboard the Silver Meteor.

Pre-Amtrak 1930s Silver Meteor advertisement

So, we can say without any reservations:

Take An Amtrak Picture

Awake on an Amtrak train
Way past midnight on an Amtrak train
Back yards are bare
Windows glow with Christmas flare
Awake on an Amtrak train
Way past midnight on an Amtrak train
Back yards are bare
Windows glow with Christmas flare
Season’s hope feels so newborn
And we feel like we’re newborns
Awake on an Amtrak train
Awake on an Amtrak train
It feels so real

Christmas flare window scene & feeling newborn

(Mr Conductor)
Could you take our picture?
‘Cause we wanna remember
Could you take our picture?
‘Cause we wanna remember
Could you take our picture?
‘Cause we fear we won’t remember
Could you take our picture?
‘Cause we wanna remember, yeah

We don’t believe in
We don’t believe in DC’s broadcasted sanctity
They don’t give a damn about our privacy
We don’t believe in
We don’t believe in DC’s sanctity, but in its hypocrisy &
Its selfie’d insanity
Can’t everyone agree that we all should be left alone?
Can’t everyone agree that we all should be left alone?
And this train ride makes us feel so newborn
And we feel like we’re newborns
Kicking and laughing

Could you take our picture?
‘Cause we wanna remember
Thanks for taking our picture
Now we gonna remember
‘Cause we got your picture

Hey kids, what’re you gonna think when you find your folks’ old photos?
Hey kids, what’re you gonna think when you find your folks’ old photos?

Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause you won’t remember
Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause you won’t remember
Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause you won’t remember
Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause we wanna see and remember
Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause we wanna see and remember
Could you take and send us your picture?
‘Cause we wanna see and remember, yeah

The coastal countryside during these north and south bound journeys we saw unfold in front us was equal parts of New World primeval, if not archaic, before Western man arrived, early agricultural settlements of the pre-Revolutionary through the Civil War eras, the fading remnants of America’s rise during the initial Industrial Revolution, the American industrial juggernaut that won two World Wars and the Cold War. This sundae was topped off with a final capper — in which we now live with its glittering insta-digital, internet-of-things communication and financial wizardry that likely will underpin other new roboticized and highly localized industrial and agricultural revolutions of small-area self-sufficiency from their neighboring areas that will entail the acceptance of the new worlds of CovidLand, post privacy and shared personal data insecurity.

A computer robo-controlled petro-chem plant in NJ

Selected heart-warming scenes of these journeys and NYC are forthcoming as Christmas week treats, but first — a blast from the past we discovered hidden off to the side at the Savannah Amtrak station. No jive — it works.

Amtrak Station Way Back Machine (exterior and interior)

Merry Christmas!

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www.vicsocotra.com