A Living Magazine - Day 99 - Takes on a Train

I woke at about 6:00 am PST and realized everyone else was operating an hour later, so I adjusted my times accordingly. I pulled open the curtain and saw this...

We stopped in Whitefish, Montana for a stretch break. It was really cold, maybe the high 30's. It was a sparse and frontier kind of place. Seeing the land, it was easy to remember that we were at the very top of the country, relatively close to, and skirting, the Canadian border...

My car was 34077. Nice train, overall. Clean restrooms.

More spacious than any of the others I've been on.

In what seemed like too short a rest period, came the "All aboard!!" And, people!, you DO want to be stepping on that train within about 10 seconds of hearing that or you will be stuck. Being stuck in Northern Montana would probably have cost me weeks. 

Next stop was Shelby, Montana. The day was warming up. It was still that dry Western air. When we were slowing just before the Shelby station, the conductor parroted my sentiments in the last paragraph...

"Hey folks! We will be arriving in Shelby in about 10 minutes. If this is your stop, please gather your things together at this time and head to the lower doors. For the rest of you this will be a short stop if you want to stretch your legs. Please stay on the platform. You don't want to be left behind here. Shelby is not a nice place." Everyone cracked up. I was surprised he would say that to people who were about to detrain in Shelby--maybe residents. But it sounded like good advice...

This is a shot of the observation car. See the glass roof?

Shelby = 90% dead grass and 10% pickup truck.

The Amtrak Empire Builder.

Buildings off to the right represent the downtown.

After buying and then drinking the two cans of Mucho Mango juice the night before, I had two dollars left. One was in my wallet and one was on my card. An announcement came over the intercom that we could order pre-made chilled chicken dinners "for only $12.50" for lunch. They had just arrived at the next stop and needed a number to know how many to reserve. This was like salt in the wound. If I were a "normal" person, that would have sounded like a great deal. But I was a vagabond, a bum, a...well, we've been over this before. I expected second class treatment by everyone who saw me and I fully allowed them to form their own particular stereotype. 

But, I really felt a kind of blood sugar weakness. I was determined to buy something at the next stop. I knew it would have to be a vending machine snack. Now all I had to do was locate the machine with the cheapest, largest, stuff. I was going to go for quantity over quality--duh!

Then, after about five hours, we reached Havre...

I was on a mission. We only had about 10 minutes. I marched into the station and found the machines. Scanning everything, I saw that most items were $1.25. But, at the bottom was an unlabeled row of chocolate rice crispy-type cookies for $1.00 each.

I carefully fed George Washington, faceup, and in the correct direction, into the eager dollar slot of the machine. Ah, ha! No rejection! I pressed E-4 and saw the cork screw dispenser begin to rotate. Then, just as the cookie began to tip toward the shelf below, you guessed it, it got stuck!

I was furious! I hit the plastic front of the machine, tried to tip it, tried to reach up through the door; all watched by the stone-like, unsmiling Amtrak ticket agent behind her desk. I had become: Angry Vending Machine Man!

I looked at her and she looked away. I walked over and asked how I can get my very last dollar bill in the world back. She said, robotically, call the number on the front of the machine and they will refund your money. The little drip of sweat was forming and I heard the train start-up its engine, release and test the brakes. She looked away again. I went back over to the machine intending to get medieval on its cookie-holding ass! I punched it and slapped it, tipped it and tapped it. Told it I hated its mechanical guts, swore at it, tried to make up again and then kicked... No cookie!

Coincidentally, the train's cafe attendant was looking for snack and saw that I was on the verge of a meltdown over a cookie. She went outside, not daring to try the same machine I had used. And, in a minute, a very large female security guard, about eight inches taller and about a foot wider than myself, walked in and over to me. She said the train cafe lady told her I was having a problem with my cookie. I nodded. She apologized for the issue. Then she grabbed the machine with both hands and put her full weight against the front of that sucker, tipping it back about six inches and then let it come crashing down to its little metal feet, slamming against the concrete floor.

The cookie fell.

I think I must have been speechless for a moment, because she turned and just stood there smiling. I gushed, "Thanks so much for the help. I spent all my money on this ticket and that cookie's all I've got for the next two days. Now I'm going to enjoy it!"

She replied with, "Really? That's all you have? OK, follow me..." I dutifully complied. The attendants were standing by the train doors. We went to the back of the station, to a storeroom. There, she pulled out six little bags with three snacks in each bag: almonds, goldfish guppies and raspberry jelly sugar cookies. I pulled up the bottom of my shirt and used it as a snack sack to carry the booty back onto the train, thanking the guard and then the cafe lady on my way by.

When I was back in my seat, I sat and ate a bunch of almonds, saving my cookie for later, in favor of something healthier. I had nothing to drink, but amtrak does give thimble sized paper cups and highly chlorinated "drinking" water in little water stations of each car. So, periodically, I would head to the wellspring and do a dozen tiny shots of water until I was satiated.

I felt good. It was nice to be treated like a person and not a piece of luggage. Some way into the next leg, I heard the door at the back of the car open. I was in the car just in front of the observation/cafe car. The conductor himself walked slowly down the aisle (which conductors do regularly), looking carefully at each seat until he reached mine, and then looked down at me with the strangest expression--like he knew something about me. Hidden contraband crossed my mind... But that didn't seem to be the origin of half-smile. I felt a bit embarrassed, sitting in a pile of empty almond snack wrappers.

He said, "Hi there! I heard you got your cookie stuck." I laughed and probably turned slightly red. I hadn't noticed that he was holding something. He hand it to me. It was the chilled chicken dinner. I said, "No, no, you don't have to do that. I'll be all set."

He laughed, and said, "No man lives by cookies alone."

I was overcome with thankfulness. He knew it. And, that was that. He continued forward to the engine. I was SET. I enjoyed that meal slowly, over the whole rest of the day and night. I'm not sure that I will ever be able to complain about Amtrak again, because of this over-the-top kindness. It made a huge impression on me...

Oven fried chicken, lettuce, dinner roll, fruit and blueberry cobbler.

Dust devils play in the white talcum soft sand.

Cowboys.

One hay field baled, and one to go...

I couldn't get online, because the train had no Wi-fi. But I did have things I'd wanted to do offline. I've been composing and writing music in my head for the last eleven months. I thought this might be a good chance to begin turning it into actual music. Also, a lunar eclipse was due to occur this night and I wanted to take pictures of it if possible...

The distorted sunset.

I had no idea on earth where we were by sunset. The conductor was being like a sports announcer with the lunar eclipse, so following that wasn't very difficult. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get any good shots of it through the scratchy windows. Also, the camera uses an infrared focusing beam which kept reflecting back off the surface of the windows, and disallowing a sharp image of the moon.

I went from seat to empty seat trying for a good shot, but clouds began to obscure the moon by about 8:00 pm and I gave up. Oh well. I'd taken many shots of solar and lunar eclipses before. My fiction-loving mind was still convinced that all of this timing was auspicious. It would have made a good novel. Maybe it still will?

Finally, after eight hours with no breaks, we pulled into a station in Williston, North Dakota. This time the vending machines had debit card readers. I was able to purchase a 24 oz. coconut water for $1.00, which I nursed for the rest of the trip. I sat for a good ten minutes, drinking the sweet nectar and planning out the first of the musical pieces I'd work on when I reboarded...

When it was time to heed the "All aboard!!", I was ready for a gentle evening of audio engineering; stitching together samples and other work I'd already produced, to make some very new sounds.

This may be the only time I ever say this, so if you're interested in me as a musician at all (and you might be the first): I plan on taking a different route with my music now and into the future. When I finally do release whatever this work becomes, it will be under another name. But, that's all I'm gonna tell you about that. As far as the world will know at that point, I will simply be a failed and retired, has-been recording artist. Yet... some other guy using a strange "band" name is going to begin emerging. It should be fun...

I was quite inspired. I'd just burned a copy of my favorite band, Tame Impala's, new album "Currents", and the quality of the sound production and songwriting (by a young New Zealand genius named, Kevin Parker), was allowing me to go back and express the experimental ideas I used to record when I was his age. I guess I could brag and say I was ahead of my time back in the late 1980's and 1990's making a very similar kind of music.

But it didn't win me any fans back then, and I think people were just confused about it when they listened. There was nothing to compare it to in those days. Kevin Parker has loosed my chain - made it okay to be experimenting - and I'm going to try my luck again--anonymously.

I worked until 3:00 am and then yawned and curled up across my seats, to sleep. I broke off a piece of my chocolate rice crispy cookie as a little bedtime snack...and I smiled.