Union Stations - Ground View Across a Divided Nation

Union Station in LA, I might have known is the California equivalent to other Union Stations, a museum and a monument to another glorious time. Long walk, once in the doors, and I barely make it to the restroom. Amtrak is only a small element in the whole Union Station experience. Fortunately arriving way early, I am sent from one place to another, then discover I can check a bag free. I was looking to get an inflatable pillow but get funneled to the train and decide to stay.

Amtrak, in it’s 55^th year since its creation in the Nixon Administration context of the Pentagon Papers, opening of Disneyworld, and Joy to the World by three Dog Night, hasn’t been an institution I’ve partnered with that much. I love trains, however, my Dad loved trains. So I’ve thought for years that an Amtrak tour should be promotable. I’ll go across the country and play a bunch of gigs. There will be rental cars, but hopefully just friends and no hotels. With some system I didn’t understand they assign you a seat. Although the train I’m on goes to Chicago, the fine print of the 30-day pass warns you that there are “a limited number of seats available on any given train.” I will have to change trains in Kansas City.

Scenic America doesn’t quite start here. We crawl between the back butt-sides of every factory, mill, warehouse, steel mill, power plant that needed to be by the railroad tracks. High tension, wires, gas tanks, a power plant; these are not the pencil thin cities that cling to the interstates at every exit with fast food, gas, and motels. There is no tourist haven, as there is no exit. However, huge and surprisingly beautiful graffiti artwork by outlaw spray-painters colors nearly every drab wall. On their railroad sides, the buildings have no windows so there are big opportunities for self-expression between garage doors and loading docks.

We’re going faster, endless rows of palm leaves float toward the clouds on their spindly moorings, the world becomes suburbia, with cement riverbeds totally dry in this season. Then it’s all over, painted train cars and walls ensnare us in the next chain of urban blight before we go up the mountains. I have carrots and celery that I cut up, Two cheese/lettuce and two peanut butter/jelly sandwiches along with sesame crispbread crackers that I love, nuts and three apples and maybe 10 clementines; then a little bit of candy for the sugar I will try to be responsible about. I’m going to try to avoid the dining car at least for today.

Through the first night and next day it’s nothing to report, my eye for the variations in desert is not developed. A lot of open space. I forgot my water bottle, so I go buy a bottle of apple juice and a bottle of water. Only small ones available. I usually refuse plastic bottles of water, but there are no cup holders with the seats, so a bottle is necessary. I discover one can go to the viewing car where the seats are sideways looking out giant windows, first come first seated. I have a nice interaction with a family returning from Disneyland to Albuquerque. There’s some joke to make here but I’ll let it speak for itself. I sleep fitfully through the first night - at 2:47 AM I smell burning electrical smell, the train has stopped. Nothing evident happens, at 3:47 the air-conditioning comes back on and we start moving. As to what happened, the conductor says “I don’t know.”

The Disney family had said they get up and watch the sunrise from the viewing car. I thought about it, but 5:30 came and went. I realize I have gone through the whole night without needing to pee since Union Station, at my age an unusual accomplishment. I will change clothes sometime today. I have discovered that there is no wi-fi on this train. I haven’t been able to apply myself to much so far.

On the way to the restroom, I make a remark to a man as tall as I am that we few normal-sized people need to duck to make sure not to scrape our heads. He agrees and he turns out to be a doctor who also has lots of experience with the 30 day pass. After going to make a dinner reservation he sits down and talks to me. His husband is sleeping, back another car. I figure I can tell him about my son who is studying medical stuff and working in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. I decide that I will afford the luxury of having dinner with them on this second evening. Just this once. Dinner is a delight, white tablecloths. My Dad considered it a great treat to have dinner on the train, I have fond memories of at least a couple. Food is excellent in my opinion, my new friends point out that the menu is exactly the same on every train, about 5 choices. More of this trip than I would have thought is very bumpy, difficult to type right now. Walking between cars can be a challenge, being tossed around. The second night is more of a challenge to sleep. I never managed to get the neck pillow.

Early morning in Kansas City, I’m in another Union Station amid monumental architecture. I find it a bit of luxury to walk around and then sit in the history of the massive waiting room and classic seats. I send all the emails I have written and saved. I help a blind couple, both completely blind they tell me, get across the vast hall to the ticket office. An officious clerk takes over and doesn’t thank me, seems to want to get rid of me, he’s in charge.

The train from KC to Chicago is a very different experience, it’s more like a commuter train with seats that don’t recline. I’ve ended up here the result of my not knowing that with a 30 day pass you’d better get your reservations well in advance. It does however have wi-fi and I’m glad it’s a daytime trip. Then Union Station in Chicago, yes, it’s another one. I imagine these cathedrals to mass transportation full of passengers as they used to be. Perhaps with manners as we used to have.

It’s evening as I get on the Lakeshore Limited, the train I know from my youth, Boston to Chicago. I only rode it from Boston to Rochester for Eastman School of Music. Now as the world as we knew it crumbles under the greed and corruption of criminals and oligarchs, I have surrendered myself to the care of this American symbol of equal access, Amtrak. $500 for 30 days if you don’t eat their food. I’ve chosen the expenditure of time rather than money; perilously close to a vacation. Not using all 10 legs you get. I’m carrying my messages of harmony, peace and ecological philosophy to only 7 audiences, I tried to get more.

I don’t see much of Chicago as we dive into the night. After a rather too short doze, I get off in Toledo OH, plucked from the aging Art Deco staion by my friend Steve Israel, who has gone way beyond the call of duty to pick me up at 3:30 AM. We get to his house, and life is postponed until after noon.

Here’s a song of travel. One of my oldest ones I still remember. But I hope it’s relevant.

Don’t forget my live stream this Wednesday night with the Red Door Duo. And you can see where I’ll be over the next few weeks right here.

In peace, Jim

Let All Our Hearts			Jim Scott  © 1981
It's the longer road I choose, with so many good friends left behind.
How do I tell them of the trials, and the peace I find?
I'm tossed between two beacons that are mine.
One burns fiercely, but the other shines.
	Let all our hearts open wide,
	Feeling the spirit deep inside,
	And from within shine your light,
	Bright as the day, through the darkest night.
You only go so far on youth, and faith is my second wind.
And drawing on that sweet breath, I face the world again.
	Let all our hearts open wide,
	Feeling the spirit deep inside,
	And from within shine your light,
	Bright as the day, through the darkest night.
	Soft as the moon, strong as the sun
	love and light dances within everyone,
	Let all our hearts open wide,
	Feeling the spirit deep inside,
	And from within shine your light,
	Bright as the day, through the darkest night.