Another Railroad Days bites the dust

It would be irresponsible to have a Galesburg-oriented blog and not at least mention Railroad Days, which once again just came and went. I love Railroad Days; I love Galesburg. But I know very little about either one, actually. Enough about Galesburg to do this blog. Enough about Railroad Days to be glad to see them again.

This year it rained and all I could think of was, it's raining on our parade. Kind of dampened everyone's spirits and at the same time kept a lot of kids home who could have been at the top of the ferris wheel. I have had a lot of personal issues lately and for that reason found myself on Mulberry Street a lot and I could therefore drive right past the Railroad Museum and the train station. And I was glad that there were people at the heart of it all, checking out railroad history and walking around the old railroad cars parked there.

I drive by Judy's a lot because I live in her neighborhood, on her block actually, and I always honk and wave when I see her. This weekend I saw her, honked and waved, and she never even looked up. She was too busy. Some other diners caught me and smiled but the light turned green and I had to keep going down Fremont Street. I consider Judy to be the person who brings the most tourists to Galesburg: fresh people, from far away, come to see Galesburg and especially Judy's. She's a tourist attraction. The place was packed.

I have a couple of daughters who wanted to do the fair so I took them down to the bank where one cashed in some money so they could go. Picked them up an hour or two later and they got into the car screaming at each other. They had had some kind of fight and it didn't get better; it got worse. All past the Innkeeper's, through downtown, and back across by the Railroad Museum they were screaming so loud I couldn't hear myself think. This was my Railroad Days. There will never be another one like it.

Let me record that it happened. It looked like the model train setup out on Fremont had a nice full parking lot. People got out there. People came to Galesburg. Biggest drinking weekend in western Illinois, I told my daughter's boyfriend. I don't know if he liked that or not. It was somewhat of a novelty to him to get out of Peoria, have a living room, and stay out of the crowds. In some ways we live our separate lives, taking care of many children, some of whom have special needs. The world goes on. People come to town, then they go back. Now comes the Fourth.

No Kings 3-28

Quakers in.Galesburg

Quakers, or the Society of Friends, do not number more than a few thousand nationwide. So it's not surprising that Galesburg's Friends' Meeting, Spoon River, has apparently gone dormant. Quakers are spread far and wide even in the Midwest.

Quakers believe that each person can access God directly, and does not need a church hierarchy to get in the way. We can by ourselves discern what is right and good and necessary, and what should be our path. Small rural meetings used to have farm families that helped each other in a pinch, and worked as communities, but thoough rural people could be as nosy and judgmental as anyone, it wasn't built into the religion that one had to behave a certain way. There was general agreements about many things - violence for example - but there was rarely unanimity about things like fighting in WWII, or whether one could carry a gun if one's job required it. People are left to their own consciences in such matters.

As the rural communities aged out of existence, Quakers have had to adjust. College towns still have functioning meetings and big cities often do too. But places like Galesburg - maybe not.

I moved here in 2022, and brought Cloud Quakers with me. It had been started before the pandemic because at the time I had to drive across two mountain ranges and the Tularosa Basin (inluding the White Sands) just to get to my meeting. Here, I would only have to go to Burlington. But I already have a meeting, so I don't. I drive enough in my life anyway.

Our meeting gets. on zoom Sunday evenings at 7 pm local time. To try it, follow directions at the page linked above, or find us on Facebook. We'll be shocked to find someone from Galesburg, but on the other hand, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. There are. isolated people eager to practice the religion and have a community all over the place. We have a healthy meeting, but I'm surprised we don't have more since there are basically Quakers all. over the place, in places like Galesburg, with no place to go. Community is important to religion. You can. say you practice non-violence, and practice doing good in this world, and work for social justice and peace among people, but it's really important for us to check in once in a while, get advice on what's right or wrong, or talk about our spiritual journeys. Having real people share our struggles not only helps us get them on the table, but also gets input from like-minded people about how to approach the. problems.

We often don't have much in coommon about. religious dogma in our meetings; we are more likely to agree on politics than on the nature of the Holy Trinity or Heaven and Hell. Though we avoid argument about these things (often), most of us are seekers of some kind and have active spiritual/religious lives. Galesburg now is the home of this meeting. It is international; it is regular; it has been going oon for about six years; and it will survive and carry on.

The world needs more Quakers, and needs those of us who are out here in the world, to carry our flag and show how it can be done.

Interview

Galesburg Public Library Blog interview
https://galesburglibrary.org/local-author-highlight-thomas-leverett/

I'll say more about this later; it will be coming around Facebook soon enough, too.

A Train Story

I arrived at the train station at 10:40 at night as that was the expected arrival time for a train, an Amtrak, that was very late. It had been a very long day. The station was locked and deserted. There wasn't a soul in sight though there were cars in the parking lot. I walked around to the front of the building: still no one. Emptiness. Silence.

I figured, the train is probabiy just a little more late, and I settled into my car to read for a few minutes. I was there to pick up an 18-year-old who has an incredible story. Basically someone put the wrong date on his birth certificate, December 8, when his birthday was yesterday, December 9. So he was going to Chicago to have it fixed and get a new birth certificate. And he needed this because of the whole car/license rite of passage that all 16-20-year-olds go through. He's >dying to get a car. So at 7 this morning I had brought him to the train and now, at 10:40 supposedly, he was. coming back.

At about eleven the station showed signs of life. It's as if some guy was taking a nap deep within it and just came out, turned lights on, and unlocked doors. Similarly some people showed up in the parking lot around me. It's as if they came out of nowhere. These people had a more updated Time of Arrival than 10:40; they knew something I didn't. Because they were all there at once.

I walked with the station manager out to the tracks. It was cold and windy, a very bleak winter night; what a time to have a birthday. I asked the guy if hard ice could derail a train. I know that they can plow their own snow, drifts of six feet or more, but the question is whether hard ice itself could run them off the track. He didn't know. We saw the light in the distance - train coming. It was coming through Galesburg, and toward us, and its light was steadily getting bigger.

Out there on the tracks there was an interesting view back at the station, and of the train museum, and of the town itself. There was some construction out there, and there was some decoration, altogether a bizarre combination of lights, with of course the one train light being the most important.

The train, it turns out, had hit a car in the suburbs of Chicago somewhere, and scraped it along the tracks; an ambulance had taken its passenger off, and the whole thing had caused the huge delay. Some car, he said, had tried to beat the crossing guards. Later I looked it up and it seemed as if it wasn't even news. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

When the train finally arrived it had dozens of people. I was surprised. That's why there were cars in the lot, I guess. Everyone was grateful to finally be back in Galesburg again. The kid had had quite a birthday, but had the birth certificate in his pack. He had succeeded....and had had a memorable birthday.

Prairie St. II