Dear Reader,
When I was a kid I was a train watcher. My Grandpa and Grandma Tindell had a trailer house parked on a lot in a little fishing community, snuggled in alongside the Mississippi River. At the
top of the hill was the world, and at the bottom was a fisherperson's paradise. Serious fisherpeople (is that the politically correct word these days?) took up summer residence there.
The fishing was great, but I fell in love with the trains. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, every couple of hours a train with over 100 cars would roll on by. I liked to get as close to the trains as I could, but in order to do that, I had to cross rattler country. The train tracks were high up on a ridge. Huge rocks had been dumped on the hill that led up to the tracks and rattlesnakes lived there. Hundreds of rattlesnakes.
I didn't mind walking by a rattler sunning himself on top of a rock. It was the ones that might be hiding down in between the rocks that always worried me. But the only way to feel the "whoosh" of the cars passing by, and to make sure that the engineer saw me waving--then he'd always tip his hat and blow the whistle--was to take the risk and climb the hill.
There aren't too many trains for me to watch anymore. But there are a lot of exciting opportunities that come my way every day, and if I want to feel the "whoosh" and hear that whistle blowin', I've got to take the risk and start climbing the hill.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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