I spent so much money at the garden center yesterday, the employees stood in a group, applauded and then released balloons. My backseat and my trunk were filled. Now, those new herbs and flowers, lined up on the walk, wait patiently in their pots. They wait to be planted into the deck window boxes and the two gardens, but it won’t be today, another dank, cloudy and damp day. Earlier, when I went to get the papers, we had misty rain. The weatherman predicts the rain will be gone on Tuesday and leave in its wake a sunny day in the 70’s. I guess that’s Mother Nature’s gift for this stretch of over a week of rain. I keep looking out my window here by the desk at the forlorn and empty deck.

I miss trains. One ran through my town when I was a kid. I used to watch it and listen for the whistle. Near where my grandparents’ lived was one train master’s house. He’d come out and lower the wooden gate to stop the cars. That house still exists, but it is just a regular old house with a strange configuration. The other house was torn down to make way for a lumber yard. The square brick train station has been many things including a gift shop. I don’t what it is now. The tracks have disappeared for the most part. They have been gone so long many people probably don’t even know they existed.

A train ride is like nothing else. The clack of the wheels is background music. The windows give views of the backs of houses, and I’d peeked through those windows as the train went by them. I took night trains when I backpacked through Europe. They were my hotels. I remember as we’d near the station, the view would change, and I’d see factories and lines of track after track. The stations were always busy. I’d get my bearings, find a tourist kiosk and a cheap hotel room, change money and use my map to find my way around.

I took trains in Ghana. In the first class compartments with their huge leather chairs and sliding doors, I always felt like a character out of an Agatha Christie book. I’d travel from Accra to Kumasi, but from what I’ve read, most of those trains are gone too. That’s too bad.

I think we need to bring back trains. I’ll take a berth and fall asleep to the music of the wheels.