Dining in the Daylight

CHAPTER ONE

Dear Vivian,

You should have seen me. There I was, standing on platform seven, dressed to the nines. I had on my black slacks with my white button down and over it I had on my white waist jacket and black bow tie that lit up the black leather buttons on my coat. I felt like a million dollars on the way down to my shining black oxfords. I took extra care last night in the hotel to spit ‘em up. I swear to you, if I could of found a way to add some tails and top hat, I could have taken you out on the town in style. I could have gave Count Bassie a run for his money.

But then Vivy, I saw her and she was the most beautiful thing I ever did lay eyes on. The way she was moving towards me made me stand up straighter than I ever did in my whole life. It was like the perfect day, the day that I was born for. The sun was shining and the air was clear and I was completely lost in her Vivy, absolutely lost. I was so gone I never even paid those eyes staring down at me no never mind, I just stared at her coming my way. She came around the corner so sleek and smooth. The sun seemed to beam right off of her like she was the source of it all. I followed her lines all the way down, her motion calling to me. Then she got closer, she was coming right towards me and I swear my heart skipped a beat triple time when she passed. I watched her go by and then turned to catch her profile, her red, yellow and black stripes damn near hypnotized me, then she stopped and right there in front of me was the door to her heart, opening wide for me to step inside. There she was Vivy, I had made it. I was about to become part of her and she a part of me. The Morning Daylight had come to me and made me feel alive again all cleaned up and ready to start again. I ain’t felt that way in awhile. Well, it’s off to work, I sure don’t want to keep those good folks waiting. Wish me Luck,

CT



CHAPTER TWO

Now my daughter will tell you I embarrass her. That I tell everything to everyone I meets but see what she don’t realize is that I am just being friendly like, sharing my part of the world. Now a days folks keep to themselves, try to hide who they are but the days I knew was different. A different time, a time when we all knew we were in this together and that we all weren’t so different from one another no matter our status or color of our skin, at least we hoped.

Yes, we painted the picture with leaving a few details, ain’t nothing wrong with that. That’s just polite. Still some folks these days, stand up and scream we was lying, telling tall tales, hiding who we were all along but that ain’t how it was. We were all just trying to get along. Maybe it was the Depression, maybe it was the war but we all knew that life was a short adventure and ain’t none of us that far from poverty yesterday and a dream tomorrow. That’s what it was and if sharing our stories of who we was and what we aims to be was making us a fool, well then we were all fools but we were fools together trying all to find happiness, trying to find our golden ring and if we could have a few laughs about each other along the way, well that just made life richer.

Life was rich then. Life still had a touch of glamour but that is all gone now. Somehow we thought that finding enlightenment or whatever it is they call it now days would set us free, that we were all living in the dark before. But I knew great men and woman in that time. I knew bad folk too but for anyone to say that we didn’t know…we knew what life was. It was all just a ride, a chance to say something about who we was. Maybe the enlightened don’t know yet themselves what it’s really all about.

It was 1937 in San Francisco when I boarded that train, the greatest day of my life.  It was the last that we all would know of living like the classes, ordinary folk who could still dream. Kind of funny, the age of enlightenment was supposed to wake us all up, shake us into reality…I still don’t know why they thought that was so wrong but now that it’s gone, they all want it back somehow, finding fantasy in drugs and such, didn’t have to be that hard.

I saw it. I saw it all. From that spot right there at the bulkhead of the Southern Pacific dining car. I saw the last of the dreamers, the last of the brave and the end of dreams and the end of fairytales. I saw them. I loved many of them and in some way I like to think that they thought kindly of me too. All from a dining car, a dining car on the Daylight train from San Francisco to L.A.