Reliving History

Sun 17 Oct 2010 Filed in: My Life | Photos
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A few weeks ago I came across an old photo of my brother and me, taken over 50 years ago on the train ride at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It seemed a fitting discovery as I looked forward to the Amtrak adventure that I am now on. Trains have always fascinated me. As a kid in England, I learned to travel the Underground (as we called London’s subway system) even though I was too short to reach the button that opened the doors. If nobody else was getting off, I’d simply ride on to the next station and come back on another train.

It is perhaps a surprise that a transportation system that is constrained by rails should become such a symbol of freedom. It still stirs a love of freedom in my soul - freedom from airport crowds, freedom from TSA lines, freedom from packing too many people into too small a space. In spite of an airplane’s ability to temporarily conquer gravity, I feel much less free on a plane than on a train.

I brought that 50 year old picture along with me, and this afternoon, Jon and I decided to recreate the scene. Some memories, after all, are worth
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repeating. We headed for Griffith Park. The train is still there, albeit with a different paint job. We shared the picture with the engineer and, after enjoying the same ride as fifty years ago, took our places in the back of train so Nancy could take a new picture. The only other people close to our age on the train had their grandchildren along, but we were there making history - again. It appears that in the intervening 50+ years, someone shrunk the train, but other than that, it was a freedom moment to remember.
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