“The train is a small world moving through a larger world.”
Posted August 16, 2025 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: couchette, derailed, Finland, Ghana, mouse, trains
Today is a lovely day. It is pleasantly warm. The sun is bright and glistens through the leaves on the backyard oak trees. The house has a bit of night chill, and my den is still dark. The dogs are napping.
The other night I was sitting with Jack. I had given him treats, filled all his bowls and cleaned his litter. I was reading, and he was getting pats. That was when I noticed the mouse. It came from under the bed across from Jack and me and went right to the snack bowl. The mouse looked as healthy as any I’ve seen. Cats snacks can do that. Jack noticed, jumped down and checked under the bed. He didn’t catch the mouse. I need another have a heart trap.
I grew up as part of the wandering generation. The world seemed so safe back then. I could go anywhere without fear. I’d leave in the morning and, if I brought my lunch, I’d be gone all day. I had no route, no idea where I’d go. I just went. My mother didn’t worry. I’d ride and keep an eye out for adventures and for treasures like the golf balls I’d find across the street from the golf course. I’d sometimes have my lunch on a bench under the trees by the town hall.
I had favorite places. I am a lover of trains, and it started back then. I loved sitting and watching the trains at the station the next town over. I imagined the trips I’d take. I’d ride across country on a sleeper train. I’d eat in the dining car. I’d sit and watch the world from the observation car.
I have had some wonderful train rides. My dreams came true. In Ghana, I’d go first class from Accra to Kumasi. I’d sit in a compartment with big easy chairs and a door which slid open. Usually I was by myself. I’d always sit and look out the window. I never wanted to miss anything. I was on a sleeper train in Ghana which derailed. That woke me up and I had to get off the train. No one was hurt, and, for me, it was an adventure, a tale to be retold. I slept in a couchette in Finland. It had six bunks, but there were only three of us, my friend and I and a Finnish woman. She and I spoke by using the Finnish-English dictionary and pointing at words. I woke up at a train station in the Arctic Circle.
I still want to go across country in a sleeper train. It is at the top of my dream list. It always been there.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke
Posted August 14, 2025 by katryCategories: Uncategorized
The Hut Sut Song: Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights
Posted August 14, 2025 by katryCategories: Video
“Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.”
Posted August 14, 2025 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: burger-chef, burgers, Ghana, hot dogs, humidity, writing
The morning is overcast and humid. Nothing is moving in the thick air. Even noises are dulled. It is already 80°. The weather reports for today disagree. Some say spotty rain while others say no rain. I’m pinning my hopes on spotty rain as it has been so long since it last rained.
My mood matches the weather. I have no energy. I think I’ll spend the day reading. Turning pages is about all I can manage.
When I was a kid, my favorite hamburgers were made by Burger Chef. There used to be one in my town. I don’t know what it was about them or how they differed from Carroll’s, which also sold burgers, 15 cent burgers, in my town around the same time. I just know I liked them better. I don’t know when but both of them disappeared and were replaced by McDonald’s and Burger King. My mother loved the burgers at Friendly’s. They were served on toasted bread, not rolls. I am a burger fan, well a cheeseburger fan. Burgers are my favorite out to eat foods. Fill the rest of the plate with fries, and I am a happy woman.
In my town in Ghana, there was a butcher and a meat factory though calling it a factory is a stretch. The butcher was in a building in the market. I bought beef there, mostly tenderloin as that was how it was cut. The meat was tough because it was from old cows. I always ate it in some sort of a gravy so it could spend some time over the fire. I didn’t compliant though as my fresh beef, well sort of fresh, was only sold in the area where I lived, not in most of the rest of the country. At the factory we, my friends and I, could buy hot dogs. We’d pack up the small charcoal burner and the hot dogs then have an adventure. We’d ride our motos into the bush and then stop for a picnic. Once we stopped by a village watering hole. I’m sure the small boys carrying buckets and fetching water wondered what the heck these three white people and a toddler were doing sitting on a blanket by their watering hole and eating. I think that was our oddest picnic spot.
Years ago I was an English teacher. Even now I take umbrage at poor grammar in scripted TV programs. The correct case for the object of a preposition seems to be out of reach. I is used instead of me. I suspect people think it sounds more sophisticated as in give it to John and I.
We were interviewing a woman for a secretarial program. She prefaced one answer by saying we had hit the nose right on the head. I just heard a man say you could knock him over with a brick. Yes, you can!
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