Story Two of a Small Town If the gravel road was the nervous system of Walnut Bend, the railroad tracks were its spine—long, rusted, and indifferent. The tracks ran parallel to the road, just a stone's throw behind Earl’s general store. They didn't stop for us, of course. There was no station, no platform, and certainly no reason for a conductor to pull the brake. To the folks in the engine, Walnut Bend was just a four-second blur of a leaning silo and a single gas pump. But to me, those trains were the only way we kept time. In a place where the sun felt like it stood still for hours, the trains were our mechanical heartbeat. They came three times a day, plus the one that ran in the dead of night. The first was the 10:00 AM. It was usually a freight haul, heavy with coal or timber, moving slow enough that you could feel the vibration in the soles of your boots before you could see the smoke on the horizon. If you were standing in Earl’s buying a soda, the cans on the shelf wou...
Until March 20th, when Spring officially arrives, winter reigns, and walking around DC these days means wrestling with the season's obstinacy. Dribs and drabs of piebald snowpack laze on random street corners. Patches of sopping grass slow me down as I pick my way through sidewalk gardens. Mud - late winter's final insult. And I caught another cold. Or was it the six cats in the house we toured last Sunday? Whether virus or dander, my nose is running again. Another seasonal offense, and it makes me mad. As does waking to another grey day. We’ve had an intrusive string of them: foggy skies from constant rain, our two rivers, and the warmer spring air sneaking in. For me, tea is one defense against the dregs of winter, so I make another cup and sit down to reflect. Winter is not the only thing that’s getting me down. Back when we concocted the idea of a temporary move, we’d been feeling stuck in our old house and were overdue for a change. Friends were entering tiered ad...
