Unicorns and Rainbows (DOG EAR)
Unicorns and Rainbows (DOG EAR)
mid the rolling green hills with their scattering of humans, the vast giants meet in council.
So the setup here is my model train club (Orlando N-Trak, or ONT). We’ve been doing this all my adult life, since 1987. I’ve helped build it, I help run it, I help promote it. And tonight, I had to set up the waybills so engineers know where their freight cars are going. With six mainline freights and seven local trains, we’re moving something like fifty to seventy cars. We need to doublecheck to ensure they all start where they are papered to start, and go to places it makes sense for them to go to. No stock cars to the steel mill furnaces. No BBQ.
So a number of guys came over and helped me – appreciated. But it’s getting a bit late, rain is pattering off the tin roof and most of the membership is leaving. Jamie the Mom and Jude the Son are hanging out at the battered central table, conversing with young-guy Alex and bearded-guy Kyle. Aging-hippy Chris joined us. Just a casual kick-back chat. My legs are tired so I have a seat. Right now the topic is travel, with Jamie and Jude just back from the Emerald Isle. The conversations float around the table like hookah smoke. The rain dances across the tin roof. A little thunder. Nobody seems in a rush to leave.
And so we chat.
I don’t even remember how the topic got there but I shared my latest opinion-on-media piece about Lifestyles and Lifehacks, I was, of course, complaining about the lazy use of hanging meaning on phrases to sound “hip and cool”. But everyone, giants all, protested – I’m always complaining (so the charge was lodged). Why don’t I write something good and uplifting? Why do I always carp about things?
- Oddball: Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
- Moriarty: Crap.
Outside of the obvious Kelly’s Heroes reference (which I doubt any of them have seen), they do have a point, mostly. But then one of them (Jamie? Yeah, probably. She’s a tufnut) challenged me to write something positive for once. Well, I like a good challenge and so I agreed. And while the giants guffawed amongst themselves at their supposedly impossible boon, I smiled a private little smile. I wouldn’t have to work on this one. I already had the solution to my task in hand (or at least in mind).
So, scene-setting recap: train club after hours, no zipping trains distracting us. Rain tapping off the roof. Nobody checking watches. Stories of travel, injuries, events, our very lives floating in the air. The chair is comfortable, the conversation is easy, laughs and grimaces and smiles and frowns.
Companionship.
I’ve read that social clubs are fading in America. Too much streaming distractions. Gotta be home with the kids, the online game group, a late night snack, all that. Further, clubs mean you interact with other people, and that means everything from helping to move furniture to listening to problems, conflicts, sickness, death. People will bowl alone rather than join a league and rub elbows with other people. They’ll play Guitar Hero rather than scratch together a band. It’s easier to rely on the comfort of video ghosts than the faulted living. Texting rather than talking – click the phone shut for that vertical break. No goodbyes. No hassles.
But here we were at this beat up old table, just chatting in the flow of conversation. You just don’t get that anymore, a gathering of people there, not because of shared interest, but in togetherness. I’d listened to the stories told that night, laughed and gasped like the rest, told my own, made my points and considered others.
That was a wonderful shared moment where we came together, not for mutual protection against predators, shared needs or a common bus route. We were there to hear each other, to tell our tales and open our lives.
Wonderful, casual, easygoing camaraderie.
The rain had let off. The hour was late. Long drives ahead. We were all verbally sated.
I let the others out, shut down the lights, locked up and went outside. Wet grass, the various cars starting up. As always, I’m the last one out with the gate lock, Looped the chain, locked the property, and drove away, thinking about what a precious, shared moment that had been.
And the giants thus went their separate ways.