Dream Train

On the night train to Madison from Chicago, Heather Lee hopped on just to get away from the small town and school. It was not expensive at all and a welcome escape.
There was State Street, a Bohemian pre-college kid’s paradise. There were dangly earrings, Persian rugs, dashikis, astrological posters, and at that point in time, record albums for the high price of $3.50. This was still a lot for a teenager to fork out. The cool thing was to park herself in a “listening room” to preview it and to hear the best of folk.
Closer to the railroad track, she could pick up thinks like chocolate covered ants and sneezing powder, with which to purposely inflict her sinuses. She did not realize that at some later date, that would be the last sensation she’d want.
The train brought other things throughout her waning high school experience.
There would be a first guitar, ordered from Montgomery Ward for $16.00, still a lot for a teenager working part time and hoping to go to college. The strings were steel and would cause finger calluses like the later and better Spanish guitar would not. But this instrument was precious, because it was the first.
Then, the train brought a canvas on which to do oil paintings. “I’ve got my board!” she screamed with delight, confusing her male friend as to what that meant.
Later, during college years, the train would bring her college friends returning home from Europe, who'd journeyed about on a motorcycle. One friend had accumulated over 25 pounds, because of sporadic eating between starvation times and provision times.
Later, instead of making trips from her small town to Madison, she took the route from Chicago to her hometown.
There, she was trying for theater experience. Both the theater experience and the train ride seemed longer, rougher than expected for a small town/country girl. Even the small college experience she'd agreed to was located in a similar setting under the same church and ethnic umbrella.
She could understand what one of her college friends, who’d traveled Europe, meant by “culture shock”.
This time, her hometown was a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of city life. It was not a place to escape from, but a haven to return to.
The dream had to be revised. Happiness was not someplace else.
So now, the train stops in Chicago. The hometown depot is now a Chamber of Commerce, especially active during the annual festival. She has to take the ferry to bus, or train to bus connection, depending on whether she has to take the short or long route.
It’s harder to get to the place she’d tried to leave, but that place would always be in her heart.