ART & POETRY BY PAUL & KATHY BOECHER

Today is National Train Day and tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so I thought I’d combine my post to include both of them. In the olden days, when I was just a girl of 9 and my sister was only 5, we were placed on a train by our parents to visit our grandparents up north in Wisconsin. The fact that we traveled unchaperoned is still a mystery to me. In the modern world, it’s very unusual. Either my parents were very naive. Perhaps their trust level was way beyond the norm. Maybe they paid the conductor to make sure we got to our destination. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of us for the summer. I never asked.

Going to spend the summer with our maternal grandparents was something both my sister and I couldn’t wait for. We felt very sophisticated as we stepped onto that shiny locomotive. The conductor led us to our seats. Of course, I got the window seat because I had seniority. We both watched as the Milwaukee skyline disappeared into the distance, being replaced by magnificent dairy farms and animals grazing. I’ve often said that every child should experience life on the farm at one point or another. It was an extraordinary adventure for both of us.

Grandpa had taken a job with the electric company and turned the farming over to his sons, so he wasn’t home much, but Grandma instilled some lifetime lessons for the time we spent with her. She grew up as a pioneer woman. Her strength in adversity is still a trait I’m working on. She was like a second mother for a few months. My own mother inherited most of those same attributes, and I picked up the baton.

Those train rides were the best. I’ll never forget eating in the dining car. It probably was the start of my observing of people and how they talked, moved and interacted. The best and most important part was the destination at both ends of the ride.

Paul has painted several scenes with trains. In the two I’ve shared today, you can see so much detail. Train travel was the means of getting from place to place when I was growing up. When I took a train trip in my senior year of high school, I would fall in love with the man I married and spent a lifetime with.

HAPPY NATIONAL TRAIN DAY AND HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

The train we boarded was an older model, but it had a club car and a dining car.