So far in 2023, based on nothing but what some people say might happen in spite of years of evidence it does not, there have been 71 anti-Trans bills passed out of the 549 proposed nation-wide as compared to 2022 when 26 out of the 174 bills proposed passed.
The justification for this obsession with one segment of our population and employing hateful rhetoric to justify despicable treatment is that these people suddenly have become a threat mainly because it has been discovered that claiming they threaten children makes anyone who opposes their humanity and the Creator endowed rights that come with that look like they are, somehow, defending children.
They claim whatever they do is because they are protecting the children.
From what?
A group of people who comprise roughly 0.1% of the population?
Meanwhile few states and the federal government are doing anything practical to protect citizens, among them children at school, a place by law they have to be every day of the school year, shooter or not, from the gun violence because they are spending so much time dealing with a non-issues either from total incompetence or purposely avoiding doing what would actually save lives.
They claim they love their children, but, clearly, they do not or they would be using time to deal with it.
Their hatred of Trans people, especially the youth, out weighs their love of their own children to the degree that they do not seem as concerned about protecting their children, who are members of the 100% percent of children who are potential targets of mass and school shootings, an actual thing, than from imagined horrors that can be wrought by less than one percent of the population with, apparently, such extensive effect.
Coming to Cape Cod this weekend, Representative Jim Jordan hopes to plant the seed of his idea of what this country is about here where the country began.
Massachusetts History is too rich and our record on things like jobs, education, healthcare, science, openness to new ideas and knowledge, and acceptance of our fellow citizens, for it to take second place to where we are now.
Jim Jordan and his fellow clowns are unable and/or unwilling to do the work that makes this state what is, preferring the easier route of bringing us to a lower level closer to them.
Sorry, Jim, this is Massachusetts, catch up to us.
In the town in which I live, because of a hatchet attack at the Gay men’s bar, the Lesbian bar opened its arms to those who could just not return to that bar which eventually closed. The result was that the city now has one “Gay Bar”. The closest bar out of town is a good drive if you want to go to one in the state, or a longer drive if you want the choices offered by the adjoining state.
PRIDE is something we celebrate because we earned the right to be proud either in our collective histories, proud of those from whose work we all benefit now, proud of ourselves for navigating the attempted religio-political boundaries of our Creator endowed and Constitutional rights, enumerated or won, proud for having been one of those who brought about the changes, and proud of those with whom we worked to make the world better for our Community.
Many have paid a price for pride with their experiences from the past and what they are dealing with now. It cost homes, jobs, families, social standing, and lives through virus or killings.
The local LGBT support organization is holding a Pride festival in June, PRIDE Month, followed by an after celebration at the ONE Gay bar.
This is an opportunity, even for those who no longer frequent the bars, and some who just cannot afford going to bars, to meet up with friends and share community, to be among ourselves as a family of strangers celebrating our lives and, frankly, our survival.
However, there will be a cover charge at the one bar, not for a reasonable $5, the price of one mixed well drink, from everyone who shows up anytime between 4pm and 2am, but $10 just to get in to celebrate pride or you can go to the other bars in town and be all proud and stuff among Straight crowds celebrating PRIDE quietly in a place where it is just not done.
Like we used to have to do and people in closed minded places still do.
Celebrating PRIDE in New Bedford will cost you 10 bucks, the price of two mixed well drinks, to get in with your purchased drinks at everyday prices.
Five bucks would be bad enough since there are no alternative venues to celebrate PRIDE except at home or at small gatherings, not community wide ones, but 10?
I have and others already have paid a price to be PROUD.
In some cases, it was a huge price.
It is wrong to so blatantly charge for PRIDE and exclude those who are unable to fork over the extra money.
Much has been learned from those who kept us down.
We discourage those we find might not fit our sanitized version of the Gay Community from inclusion by stressing the “Family Friendly” nature of events, the buzz words for “do not be too openly Gay and, please, business casual clothing only”, and are now creating a hurdle for some members of the Community, obviously those we tend to turn our noses up at who we would rather not have around, the ones who need to eat in the kitchen.
If you can afford to, you can celebrate pride and we will reap the Benjamin’s.
We Gays always seem ripe for the picking even by our own.
The trope, often used in the past in the attempt to dismiss the needs of the Gay Community as only being the wants of those seeking a privileged standing, was that Gays, being single and with some sharing expenses while being roommates, had disposable income that we were freer to spend than the Heterosexuals who were married and had real responsibilities and, so, we should not whine about the our treatment while hiding our advantage and promoting our Gay Mafia Elitism while demanding better and special treatment.
There were, in the minds and actions of the comfortable majority in the country, no poor Gay people and even the unemployed had Daddies who supported them.
Why were we complaining when our kind had it so good?
This led to exploitation back when Gay bars were illegal or at best clandestine as, in order to buy drinks with friends, you had to pay the price the bar demanded, no matter how outrageous, or go nowhere else.
As harmless as some may now see this trope, in its day, it had an effect, and not a positive one.
Have we accepted this stereotype and are comfortable dismissing the less fortunate in our community?
This is nothing to be proud of.
There are a lot of poor and low income Gay people and they have a right to participate in their communities for safety and, well, community, not be barred from participation because they cannot afford admission, even if, like the people I know in other bars, they are present without drinking because Community does not require that.
I have lived in communities that had bars that had cover charges as a rule and some on certain occasion, like fund raisers, but there were those bars that did not have cover charges ever so anyone could get in.
Truth be told, upon my arrival in Oklahoma city, I was not in a good place but one of uncertainty with money playing a part in that. There was a bar without a cover charge but a daily beer bust and, initially after I figured out how to play the cups, many times I had one without paying. For that reason, when things changed, I tipped generously with each full-priced drink and spent a particular amount each visit even if it meant I dumped the remains of the last drink out in a urinal to appear to have drunk it before returning the glass to the bartender.
Under the circumstance at the time, having a place for community saved me, gave me a chance to reqroup and then go on and accomplish what I now have to pay an admission fee to be Proud of.
It could have gone the other way.
A few years later, I was told by the owner, Larry Crosby, that he had been watching me and did notice that when I had the coins I spent generously and his bet paid off as the bar became a second home and I surely made up for any debt owed with the number of drinks I bought with the accompanying tips over eighteen years.
I knew people who would come in there and, unable to buy a drink, rather than ask someone to treat them, socially flitted from person to person and group to group like the host of the party enjoying the safety and community even if their stay was a “dry” one.
The thing was that there were alternatives when choosing a bar, and if a cover-less bar held a fund raiser, there was a choice in whether or not to attend and whether or not to voluntarily make a donation, and if your cash was low, you could still socialize among your own at another location.
It is wrong to so blatantly charge for PRIDE.
it is exclusionary.
Anyone, even the homeless Gay man or woman should be able to celebrate pride. It is one month a year, but realistically for many it is just a one day event before going back into any existing closet, but now one they can only participate in if they have the price to pay.
I suppose there will be some thrill for some as, while sitting on the patio enjoying PRIDE and community, they can watch those surprised by the steep cover charge walk away knowing there goes one more member of the Great Unwashed who will not force his way into such an illustrious and PROUD gathering.
Poor and low-income Gay people should learn that they have no PRIDE to celebrate if they cannot afford the cover charge.
If commercial companies can milk the Gay Community with beer cans and other crap with rainbows thrown onto them because the assumption is the Gay attraction to rainbows is irresistible and purchase is unavoidable, why not have a Gay Community support organization do the same thing with a trapped and alternative-less audience and get some money too.
We are all rich, after all.
Cows, even cash ones, do have more than one giving teat.
Exploitation and extortion are acceptable, apparently, if we do it to ourselves.
I paid for what I am proud of, I will NOT pay to celebrate my life.
Neither should anyone else on PRIDE Day
I paid as I lived it.
As did so many others who do not have the cover charge.
I mentioned in an earlier blog how odd an experience it was when, after years of fighting for and attaining Gay Equality in Southern California, I had to give up those rights when I entered Oklahoma and pretty much had to fight again to get them.
It was to a degree a successful effort, and it was for this reason I went to the University of Central Oklahoma which has the collection of my art work from my time in Oklahoma and the legal papers and documents involved in getting “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” added to the Oklahoma City Public school’s policies regarding students.
This introduced an unforeseen awkwardness.
After my years in Oklahoma, I returned to my home state of Massachusetts which, in comparison to other states, especially Oklahoma, is paradise for a Gay man with full equality in all areas and a population that favors that.
John Adams was from here.
On the morning of the reception at the college for the opening of the retrospective, in order to spend time with those involved with the exhibit and answer questions they might have, I called an Uber for the convenience.
On the way from the hotel to the university, the driver pointed out that he had graduated years ago from it, so many years ago that his daughter is now a student, and that he, in all the intervening years had never gone back to the campus as he had his degree and didn’t need to.
He asked why I was going to his alma mater, and this is where I had to consider that I was no longer in a state that honors equality but was in one that works hard to deny it especially for every stripe on the new Pride Flag.
The legislature has taken away Trans students’ rights, is going after any Gay related books in school and public libraries, wants to make Drag Queens illegal, and, in competition with other red states to see who can be the most disgusting, is competing to come up with the next and most draconian anti-Gay law. In the reddest state in the country, all counties went for Trump in 2020, being open can be dangerous and I had last been seen getting into a car and driving off so the set up was classic if the driver was the worst possible one to have gotten.
While I remained generic and neutral, the answer could change the pleasant ride into something else involving a political or religious diatribe, or the driver pulling over to throw me out as he did not want a son of Satan in his car.
Or, nothing would have changed.
For the first time in 12 years, I had to weight the possible reaction to my response, so I kept it generic explaining that years ago I had done something important and was being honored for it, hoping my terseness would convey I wished to say nothing further. The driver, however, as an alumnus, was interested in why his university was honoring me and asked the loaded question,
“What did you do?”
It was at this point I had to make a decision.
Do I give him the honest answer, I had fought for the rights of Gay students in public schools and had been successful, or I could skate around it to avoid the negative reaction.
I had been assaulted verbally and with threats in my time in Oklahoma for my advocacy, so I was also careful not to mention my name in case it sparked someone’s memory.
I was on the trip for pleasure. The whole thing was a self-esteem and validation thing. My answer could have changed all that.
So, on my way to be acknowledged for the work I had done for equality, I found myself in a position to be defensive and answered that I had done some work years ago to fight discrimination and promote the equality of minorities.
It was reflexive and for safety.
It was true, but generically so and enough to sate his curiosity especially as, when entering the campus, the driver was surprised there was a lake near the student union which had not been there in his day, so his daughters references to it which seemed to be her veiled euphemism for a date as she often mentioned sitting by, what he thought was a non-existent lake.
I had found myself in a position to need the closet for safety when in a stranger’s car.
This was a total throwback and a reminder that while I now have it good as a Gay man, there are those who do not, and this little taste of old fears brought that home.
In Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and when I got home, I could be as Gay as Christmas if I chose to, and there was a time or two I appropriately flamed out, but in Oklahoma it had been different. I had to deal with fear and the potential negative reaction on whatever level for being myself.
Although I saw many indications during my retrospective trip that cities in which I lived showed great evidence of their having become so much better than they had been in their low in the valley years, there was one item that symbolized the completion of gentrification more than any other to me, rental scooters.
Once I found my Uber app could be applied to these conveniences, I had an alternative to walking beyond bus and local transit routes. I could then go to more places quicker.
I used to roller-blade well into my fifties and only stopped because I eventually ended up living where there were no decent surfaces for it and the few I knew of were more of a drive to get to them than exercise implies.
In San Antonio, Texas, there was a choice between standard scooters and those that had seats. I chose the ones with seats and saw a great deal of the city.
At first, scooters laying all over the place seemed to be a failed idea until it was explained they are all traceable by GPs and are gathered regularly for recharging and placement in designated areas after being recharged. In some cities the dead or dying battery is replaced without needing to move the scooter. There are subcontracts for that. In Long Beach, California, you could not end your ride and stop the cost per minute rising unless you went to the closest gathering area which keeps the scooters from littering the landscape. Like the rites of spring, sighting a scooter standing alone with no human near it attracted other scooter renters toward it like birds hoping to mate, and the collection grows.
I do caution to be aware of one’s surroundings as not being used to the presence of rental scooters lined up in waiting, there is the possibility of encountering them as I did when rounding a corner and looking at the signs above windows and doors looking for familiar ones, I walked into a neat line of about a half a dozen scooters knocking them and myself over like dominoes as is often seen in comedies with motorcycles lined up at a bar and a hapless person bumping them. This in front of an open fronted bistro with people sitting both inside at the window tables and outside on the sidewalk ones, who were very helpful in getting me extricated from my handiwork. With the little pride I had left I explained why I had not been paying attention as if that absolves all and restores dignity.
It was a legitimate reason.
This fiasco of an introduction to perfect strangers was followed by a conversation with someone who had been in town when I was and still ran her store. I chose not to cross the street and pass the bistro on the other side, instead, I made the brave choice to walk by all those who had seen the earlier ballet and boldly announced as I did so that I was walking pass them to show that I could, indeed, do it successfully.
Aside from the convenience of their being everywhere, nothing beats a fast scooter ride on the Pacific Coast Highway from Redondo to Cherry in Long Beach, California, on a spring night at 11:00 pm.
I did not notice people using many scooters in San Francisco, but besides there being plenty of modes of transportation to choose from, the fact that many use rails that could make riding scooters a little treacherous and the wear and tear from the number of very high hills would make the proposition costly.
Or, I never noticed.
To me, as long as a person is able to roller-blade or use a scooter without falling over, they should.
On my last day in Long Beach I rode around a bit taking pictures and videos of my old stomping grounds and to do so, I rented a scooter. I usually wore and still wear a loud colored shirt over a t-shirt when I roller-blade, or used to, and ride scooters so I can be very visible to traffic, on-coming or from behind, and, although cell phone videos seem to have me setting land speed records, I do not go all that fast, except that night on the PCH.
I was so clothed as I was whizzing down a familiar street near my former apartment, my hair flowing in the breeze behind me as my hat had blown off at an intersection too busy from which to retrieve it when a pickup truck pulled up next to me matching my speed as the window on the passenger side lowered. The driver, a young, twenty-something woman with a big friendly smile yelled to me,
“I have been behind you since Seventh, I hope I am as spry and adventurous when I am as old as you.”
And with a friendly wave, assuming I was complimented, she sped off.
In a way I was because what I thought was no big deal apparently was to other people, and in my innocence I was somehow unaware of my accomplishment when I thought I was doing well not falling off anymore as I had done a few days before when, forgetting I was on a stand up scooter and not one with a seat, I attempted to rest at a red light. I was alone on a side street at the time so my dignity, outside of the internalized, was not harmed.
If they had had them in Oakland the night the Amtrak station closed for eight hours, I would have had more to do than look for a place to curl up to sleep, convincing myself this was fun.
The first phase of bringing these to my present city, New Bedford, would be repaving the streets with the potholes families have moved into as they lose their homes to gentrification.
They would be most convenient for tourists who could see more of the history of the city, minus, of course, what is in the Historic District National Park as the Belgian blocked streets, cobble stones in generic terms, which can make riding there quite the jolting and wheel grabbing trip.
And the present and future remaining residents would benefit too.
On such a trip as the train trip I took, there are certain realities that actually exist in the world of others but not in your plans. Spontaneity and ad libbing the trip has to take into account that while you have the time to take such a trip with the possibility of adapting your plans as needed because you have the time and wherewithal to do that.people you hope to meet along the way an d things you want to see have their own realities like jobs, family, an established schedule of events, and, although they might want to spend time with you, can only do so according to the real world.
For the 18 years I lived in Oklahoma City, the First Americans Museum was a work in progress. It relied on some funds outside of the tribes which, unfortunately, always seemed to make their way to helping rebuild Bricktown into an entertainment Mecca with shops, restaurants, bars, and a ballpark whose purpose was to make the city a destination place while ensuring the usual behind the scenes city leadership made money off the deal, something that could be slowed if money were to go to the First Americans Museum. While Bricktown and subsequent city improvements went along smoothly, there was always a problem with ensuring the needed funds got to the museum.
Years after I had left, the museum was finished and it was a must see on my things to do list.
The Uber from my hotel was a silver Chevy pick up and the driver was pure Oklahoman, looks. Accent. And truck. He dropped me off at the entrance to the museum complex as I requested so I could get the dramatic affect of walking toward the mail building as the complex grew around me with welcoming arms. I approached the front door ready with a cheerful “ayo” only to find it is closed on Tuesdays, the day I had put aside for the visit based on Mondays being the usual day for museums to close and get some large things moved around.
A Curator came out to get something from her car and I told her the tale and then we talked a little museumese.
A major physical feature of the museum is the Mound behind it, so I decided, if nothing else, I would walk around the mound. The weather was hot and dry, and the Mound was huge, but I began my walk. Halfway around it, I found a cement tunnel that led through the mound to the courtyard behind the building, and after seeing where it had led returned to my walk not wishing to enter the space if it, like the museum, was a closed space . A construction fence for a project adjacent to the museum property had me crawling up on a bit of the mound to get around it, but eventually I had circumnavigated the whole thing only to find that if I had gone to the right of the entrance and not the left I would have been able to walk up the always open public ramp to walk along the top, the shorter way to have circled the mound.
The next day, that would have been impossible as the walkway was closed to the public due to the excessively high winds that presaged a tornado later that evening.
Determined, I had gone back the following day when the museum was open, told the person at the desk of my having waited so long to see the museum only to find it closed as part of the small talk when getting a ticket. On my way out, she very cheerily expressed the hoped I would come back in the future not having to wait as long for the second visit and reminding me that regardless how many years from now I come back, the museum is closed on Tuesdays.
Another important stop was in Long Beach California. I had been very involved in the Gay Community there being a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus there, a political and Gay Rights activist, and the cartoonist for the local Gay newspaper. It was simple common sense to go to the LGBT Community Center there to get updates on the community since my time there, perhaps learn what happened with certain important people at that time, and, more importantly, any information about and ny contacts with members of the chorus and the chorus itself.
My motel was on the same street that crossed the one the Center was on, and being my first morning and having no place I had to be, I decided to walk and see the changes in an area very familiar to me. There were many. At one house I spoke with a man who was standing on his front steps as I passed who had been a child in that house when he was very young making him one of the children I had seen regularly in the neighborhood when I lived there.
The walk was a little longer than I had imagined, or it only seemed to be after thirty years, but in time and after a cup of coffee, I found my way to the Center on one of the days it is closed making a second trip necessary the following day. The visit did not go as I had hoped since the three people I encountered, the two at the reception desk and their supervisor whom I had called earlier to announce my arrival to ensure the place would be open when I got there, had no idea that for at least 10 years Long Beach had a well known chorus which, because it had proved itself, was the first to sing certain Disney tunes before any other entity by direct arrangement. It was as if it had never existed.
This was offset, somewhat, by a conversation at Hot Stuff, a gift shop leaning toward Gay adults while meeting the wants of the general public that opened at the same time I had arrived in town and whose owner, the person with whom I conversed filled me in on the last days of Mae Chen of House of Chen and changes in the area peppered with references to people we had both known.
Later in San Francisco, after figuring out the various routes of the various modes of transportation, I often continued to walk to places observing things as I went, knowing which mode of transportation, BART, street car, trolley, electric bus, to take home for the sake of my feet. In looking for one place on my phone one morning, I accidentally came across one of those red location indicators on cell phone GPS maps marking the location of the Museum of Cartoon Art and headed for it, leaving the original destination til later. Even though the walk was mostly down hill in San Francisco with the return trip by trolley, it did not soften the blow of finding upon my arrival that I had chosen the one weekday the museum was closed. Obviously, as this was close to me, I returned the following day, by trolley this time, and went though the museum founded by a gentlemen with a large Edward Gorey collection of originals and who sponsors a display case each season at the Gorey House Museum on Cape Cod. Although he was not there, I had a nice exchange of Gorey info with the young man at the front desk.
That afternoon I took a BART train over to Richmond, across the bay, to visit the first school I had ever taught at fifty years ago having never seen it again in those years.
Apparently during the night when my phone was supposed to be charging, the plug had come loose, so by the time I reached the BART station the GPS I would be relying on died.
The BART station was a transportation hub with no buses, a closed information office, and no route maps posted. I saw a sign pointing toward the Civic Center, but that walk turned out to be much longer than it should have been. I had no idea where the school was in relation to the station other than a misty impression it was North of the Civic Center, and so I began walking assuming the various bus stop signs meant the buses that never passed me eventually would. I had only one thing to do in Richmond and all afternoon to do it, so a walk with the promise of a bus may have been an unplanned inconvenience, but it was not impossible.
The stadium lights in the distance indicated an athletic field I hoped was connected to a school from which I could get directions if needed and an Uber ride since I had a destination. I came upon an elementary school where I had a nice conversation with th office staff about my time in Richmond and found the lights I saw belonged to the school I sought.
I walked around to the entrance of the high school with mixed emotions considering all the personal changes that had taken place in the past 50 years and came upon a locked security gate at the entrance with matching gates blocking any pedestrian access. Entrance was only by phone and mine was dead.
There I stood after fifty years looking through a security fence at the school I had come to see but could not approach.
When a parent pulled up to the gate and pulled out his phone, I ran over, explained myself and my phone situation, and asked if he were calling to gain access, could he mention I was here, which he apparently did as a security guard came out of the school as the gate began to open arriving in time to bar my entrance while allowing the parent to drive on and requesting ID. Along with my ID, I also presented him with enough information, dropping a few names as I did so, some of whom he had as teachers as he was himself an alumnus along with being the football coach and the head of school security now and answering his trick question carefully by correcting him on the name of one of the administrators that was at the school when we both were there in order to give my credentials some substance for acceptance and to establish my bond to the place from my experience there.
The guard was what one would expect of an alumnus, football coach with whatever experience in his background made him head of security, a man who sticks to the requirements of his job without question and regardless of circumstances, and, so, regardless of any empathy for my being there and the meaning of it, he was not to allow anyone on campus who was not related in someway directly to the school as, apparently, as I found from the guard after having walked through parts I should have known better than to have, the gang situation is so bad in the city that schools like this one are on perpetual lock down with all outside activities taking place in those areas shielded from easy access or view from the street.
The closest I got to the building was on the far edge of the circular drive in front of the building I once had access to as a teacher there but could not get close to now.
And, so it was that the main object of the “pilgrimage” was barred to me.
I suppose I could have called the school for a visit the next day after charging my phone, but I was taking things as the trip presented them and it seemed hellbent on presenting things that were closed.
At least I got to stand on the grounds.
What magic the moment might have had as I entered the school and talked with people there now, and perhaps finding I did know a priest or brother stationed there from somewhere else, or getting to walk the grounds especially to see the cemetery that was there on the property while I was there but I, for the life of me, do not remember but which now holds the remains of some with whom I taught was lost.
I walked back to the elementary school around the corner and reentered with little difficulty beyond stating my business and showing an ID like the first time, only getting as far as the front office beyond which there was no access to the rest of the school, and got directions to the bus that would get me to the BART station.
It being the last place I had specifically intended to visit on my trip and yet another one closed when I got to it, I closed that chapter of the book, took BART to my hostel to get a jacket as San Francisco gets chilly this time of year when the sun goes does, grabbed a trolley to the Castro, and joined Tom for a drink at Twin Peaks.
If your trips must be meticulously planned with each step carefully planned out with little room for adaptation, this is not for you,
If you are free enough with plans to roll with the punches so long as you will eventually get home, it is.
In theory, with a USRail Pass, you have thirty days to cover ten rail segments which you can book the night before you intend to go to your next destination whether it was pre-planned or a spontaneous choice. In reality there is reality and the best laid plans of mice or men do, indeed, often “gang aglee”, so spontaneity and the acceptance of modifying plans are essential.
On the upside, you get to spend enough time with total strangers who, by the time you get where you are going, are strangers no more.
The observation cars on the trains to and from Chicago were great melting pots as, with the train passing scenery that called for comment, passengers would make those comments and conversation would begin.
Passing through the San Bernadino Mountains on the way to Los Angeles, the passenger next to me identified the mountain range in response to a question from someone sitting on his other side, pointing out he knew the mountains well as his daughter had worked at a summer camp on one of them. I was familiar with a camp up there, and in mentioning that just to be friendly, we found that since I know some of the people who run the camp his daughter had worked at the past few summers, we found she and I most likely knew the same people although we had never met.
Groups of Amish got on and off the train at certain points along the way, the cut of their clothing being similar but with one group wearing cobalt blue shirts and dresses, black jackets and black bonnets and capes, and another lighter blue shirts and dresses with white bonnets and casual shawls. Passengers came to realize that those in darker clothes were going to or returning from funerals while those in lighter colors were going to and from other happier events like weddings and Christenings. Even the sketchiest passenger took the cues and acted and spoke appropriately with each group.
Two older ladies drove the conductor crazy as they would go from seat to seat to find better views which made counting passengers and arranging empty seats for those boarding at the next stop difficult. They would always return to their assigned seats as stations were approached, but it was still a little annoying. They were a flash-presence from Chicago to L.A. and were often in the observation car when I was there along with another woman who quietly crocheted little colorful animals as she looked quietly at the scenery.
Polite acknowledgments and greetings gave way to longer conversations.
Four days after arriving in Los Angeles, I was back at Union Station waiting for my train to San Francisco when the two seat-flitters came walking through the great hall and entered into the seating area for ticketed passengers, followed not long after by the lady who crochets. Four people who only knew each other from a train trip sat filling each other in on how our stay had gone and found the crochet lady had been making animals for her young nieces and nephews who would be at her father’s funeral. She never mentioned the reason for her trip was to attend her father’s funeral because people on the train seemed happy and she did not want to disrupt that with her sad news.
As each train’s departure was posted on the big screen, the small group of no-longer strangers filtered off to our respective trains.
The romantic nature of the events at Union Station only came about because of the unmentioned side of train travel-the waiting.
Delays.
Along the beginning route of the trip from Boston To Oklahoma city, The trains ran rather regular and on time until we crossed the Mississippi where Amtrak trains must yield right of way to the freight trains whose owners also own the tracks and with some sections of track going from multiple tracks to a single tracks in certain terrains have to wait for clear tracks ahead had to yield.There is a lot of time spent on side tracks as there has to be a safety time as a train approaches and after it has passed with the train itself taking up to ten minutes to actually pass, or there is some construction or storm damage ahead.
Before I left Oklahoma City, the color of the sky changed somewhat, there was rain then hail, followed by a tornado touching down just East of the city. Later that night on the way to Newton, Kansas, the sky was a light show as the storms that accompany tornadoes seemed to be following us. By the time we arrived at the train station in Kansas the wind was howling and if you stood in the wind you were breathing dust. A one hour delay became a multiple hour delay with potential tornadoes and actual tornadoes touching down made passing through the Great Planes impossible.
No sense complaining provided you accept that you will get where you are going just not, perhaps, when you wanted to get there. In scheduling trains and motels, I made sure that there was plenty of time between my arrival in one station and my arrival at a hotel or the connecting train. This worked out well in most cases except when I and others, arriving hours before the scheduled departure, found ourselves ushered out of an Amtrak Station in Oakland until it re-opened in the morning. It took some time, but it became obvious that the suspicious people lurking in the shadows after the last business closed for the night were not not denizens of the night to be feared, but future fellow passengers looking for something to do or a safe place to sleep during the 12 hours we were to wait for the station to reopen. Various places to curl up with luggage were established within eye and earshot of each other, the shared protection acknowledged by nods in the morning as people quietly entered the re-opened station.
I could have gotten a last minute hotel room, or had remained in the hostel for a few hours’ sleep before taking a BART ride and an Uber to the station to get the train, but I was reluctant to spend the price of a room in a hotel to sleep for a few hours, and there was something so fittingly cyclic with me spending my last night in California sleeping on what 50 years ago was a yet to be rebuilt commercial waterfront, close to Jack London’s cabin like a homeless man.
Yep.
Opting for the hotel room is there for those who want it.
We had arrived in Los Angeles 6.5 hours late, but that was preferable to a train trip to Oz the number of which we were to hear would have been plentiful, and we arrived a time or two late at other destinations, so including enough wiggle room time-wise is important in reducing panic and stress.
There will always be enough room in coach to get a window more often than not and the equal chance not to have to share your space with another passenger for too long allowing you to stretch out to sleep better. You are traveling coach.
I had only three dates and times that were cast in stone, my departure and arrival dates and my having to be at the University of Central Oklahoma at a specific time on a specific day. Otherwise, keeping the rest open and utilizing the internet, I could stroll up to the place I was staying whenever I arrived and be at the train station with time, sometimes too much, to spare.
Bring a book or check your bag and explore where you are if there is a layover.
Throughout the 30 day, I only used 21, and ten segments, I used them all, I got to see quite a bit of the country and in the mountain ranges we passed through and saw the nature that cars blindly whiz by on highways or people fly over in planes. And, yes, you do get to see some of the seamier sides of the towns through which you pass, but that in itself is educational as you see some things only heard about on cable news or seen in stock footage on news segments. You also get to see an America you usually do not see and have no interest in.
The miles and miles of a dead and depressing Gary, Indiana, as you approach Chicago shoots holes in Opie Taylor singing about the place in The Music Man. He clearly had never passed through it on a train.
The experience does bring meaning to the saying about the journey being more important than the destination as keeping on schedule depends on too many factors beyond the control of Amtrak and the journey might force more of itself into your planned schedule, but there is a trade off.
You are on a train with others who cannot do anything about the situation other than complain to other passengers on a train full of people with the same complaint and, so, do not want to hear people complaining in a controlled environment from which, although you can walk a number of train cars, you can’t escape, you talk about other things and, unlike the backs of the heads in front of you on a plane, these people have faces you pass on the way to and from the restroom, the snack car, the door at a smoking break station, or to and from, if not for a while within, the observation car whether at tables or the chairs facing out in that section of the car.
You might be three days on trains with the same people. It is only human to talk.
So, although I highly recommend the RailPass to anyone who has the thirty days or any part thereof and can use the ten segments for long or short trips, it is something to try knowing full well you will need to roll with the punches, adjust on the spot if necessary, and go with the flow knowing there is nothing you can really do but adapt. I had to big time. I got to see what happens and what you might need to change, and just making sure you have enough segments to get home.
Of course, if you need the hotel with all the fixins, you might want to pass. I was just happy to cover the distance between Winslow, Arizona, and Needles, California, inside the train not under it this trip.
