Sunday, July 25, 2010
railroad dream
I have railroad dreams from time to time. They're always in Jersey. Some are a bit sinister, involving abandoned rail yards or scary station platforms,which one does see & encounter in NJ Transit real life, or delays. But they never become nightmares. Last night I was in the cab of a diesel engine. It had something to do with Pearl Arts Store, one of the two engineers - both women - was an assistant manager when I worked there, a fair, sane, intelligent person. We were in a hurry to get somewhere, delivering art supplies for all I knew, racing down tracks mostly through woods. For some stretches there were no tracks, just railroad bed, but she was steering the train across those stretches. It was scary & exhilarating like an amusement ride rather than an impending catastrophe. The most amusing part was we passed a complete retail store, like a Walgreen, on a rail car parked on a side track, & all lit up like it was open for business & just needed to be moved somewhere & installed, which is how those those kinds of stores are designed. You see a property cleared for construction in Jersey, & two weeks later you drive past & there's a brand new 7-11.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Labels: dreams