Torture Aboard An Amtrak Train & Our Family Cookout

Saturday morning I went to meet my son John at the Amtrak Station; his train was over five hours late.

When it pulled in the station, I witnessed an odd phenomena: No sooner had the train stopped than the doors sprang open and people began urgently pouring out of the cars as though they were running in panic.

From the way they rushed out I thought they were evacuating the train because of some terrorist bomb threat or something.

But, no.

These passengers clustered immediately outside the train doors and began to light up; poor bastards had been stuck in a No Smoking environment for over 12 hours!

Their craving for tobacco fostered a sense of urgency in getting free of those damn metal boxes so they could smoke.

I commented to a man standing there, an old retired Railroad guy, “The way those folks rushed out I thought maybe terrorists had taken over the train”.

He said, “Son, terrorists took over Amtrak years ago – and they’ve been running it ever since”!

How happy I was to see John for the first time in years. We’d arranged for a family and friends cookout in the backyard to welcome him and Ginny set up an elaborate spread featuring every goody just short of a genuine fatted calf.

For herself Patricia brought some straw — or whatever it is that vegetarians eat. As a treat for everyone she grilled frest ears of corn still in the husks. Once they're cooked over the charcoal, you peel back the husk, butter the corn, and eat it like a popsicle using the husk as the stick. I've never seen corn cooked like this before. Scrumptious!

The other night Ginny’d run across a song sheet with all the words to “Oh My Darling, Clementine” on it and Johnny and all us guys serenaded the ladies with all ten or 12 verses. The girls nearly fell out of their chairs laughing.

While I’m grateful to the Lord for all the material blessings in my life, when the faith really hits the fan, people are the only thing that really count. Nothing other than but people will last forever. I am so privileged and thankful to be a part of this wonderful group.

Four digital cameras were present at the cookout so they got lots of pictures of family, friends and garden – I plan to post some of these on cowart.info in a few days (I never have learned how to put a picture on this blog; it utterly defeats me).