When I was young, I spent my summer days
Playing on the track.
The sound of the wheels rollin’ on the steel
Took me out, took me back.

Big train, from Memphis.
Big train, from Memphis.
Now it’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

–John Fogerty, Big Train from Memphis

For many of those who grew up hearing the whistle and roar of passing trains in the night, the sounds evoke home, family and childhood.  My husband and I each became accustomed to the music of the trains, and we miss it here in Virginia.  When we return to Rochester or Atlanta to visit his parents or mine, we savor the familiar, comforting sounds of the train.

H and his childhood friends really did spend their summer days playing on the tracks and beneath the adjacent highway overpasses, at least when they were not deep in the neighborhood woods.  The tracks are easily accessible from his sister’s house in Rochester.  If we have time, we head over to see what’s new and what’s as it always was.  It’s a particular joy for H to explore the area again with his daughter by his side.  She appreciates his tales of boyhood adventure as well as the desolate beauty of the landscape along the tracks.

 

D was delighted to find this sturdy rope well-anchored to the underside of the bridge. 

               The unruly landscape bordering the tracks gets a beauty treatment of fall colors.

           A mingling of the seasons: touches of gold and green among the fallen brown leaves.

           D negotiates the tangle of weeds as she emerges from down under and years gone by.