Chicago Blues

Amtrak Residency
Day 10
3/22/15
20150321_173559Got up with the rooster crow — or in Amtrakspeak the ear-blasting 6am breakfast call — to see off the Warren-Powells who hopped off in Osceola, IA at 7:40am. I then wrote until an early lunchtime (the last meal aboard my beloved California Zephyr before it concluded its run in Chicago) during which I met a pair of retired micro-brewers, Wendy and Don Littlefield. The better half is completing her first novel, a murder mystery that I look forward to reading.  They also hipped me to Philly Inquirer food writer Craig LaBan, whom I should have known about as I’m now a Philadelphian, but I didn’t. Now I do. We also talked about our shared appreciation for August Wilson and the fact that they’ll be seeing Two Trains Running in Chicago soon. This was the second time on this trip that August Wilson came up.

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The train station in Galesburg, IL, historically an important railroad town, boasts and antique Pullman car…

I spent my final few hours aboard the Zephyr Continue reading “Chicago Blues”

Please Look After This Bear

amtrak residency, day 8, 3/20/15.

Amtrak Residency
Day 8
3/20/15
20150320_153251I have slingshotted around San Francisco and am now hurtling back toward the East Coast, back on the California Zephyr at 9:10am this morning to cross through now-familiar terrain but staying on the opposite side of the train as much as possible to take in a different view: Continue reading “Please Look After This Bear”

After the Gold Rush

Amtrak Residency. Days 6 and 7. Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Calfornia.

20150318_164818Amtrak Residency
Days 6 and 7
3/18 and 3/19/15

 

 

 

 

20150318_124147Yesterday and today were mainly traveling days.  Up refreshed by 7:30am yesterday despite the previous night’s ghostly shenanigans, I worked on LITTLE ROCK for awhile before heading to the Hot Springs Pool for one last dip before skipping town.  I had lunch at Polanka, a hole in the wall run by two Polish Continue reading “After the Gold Rush”

Crossing the Great Divide

Amtrak Residency
Day 4
3/16/15

Ron Pasko who runs the lounge car on the California Zephyr
Rod Pasko

I woke up about 6:30am to see a brilliant quarter moon hanging over dark Denver so close you wanted to eat it. I jumped down from my upper berth and commenced to working more on revisions to LITTLE ROCK.  By the time we pulled out of Denver the sun was up, and from here on out was where the finest viewing on the California Zephyr began.

The observation car was absolutely packed, a standing room only crowd, so I went downstairs to the Continue reading “Crossing the Great Divide”

Still’s Still Moving to Me

Amtrak Residency, day 3. A run along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago before boarding the California Zephyr.

Day 3
3/15/15
The Ides of March

It was many, many years ago that I began my career as a Dramatic Author; and a hard and bitter-fought beginning I can well remember that it was. I was inexperienced, shy, and foolish; without money, without influence. I knew not a single soul connected even in the most distant way with the theatrical world. I knew no one to advise me or give me a hint. For years I danced in impotent frenzy around the high strong walls that guard the city of Dramatic Art. I ran my head against the stones, I tore myself against the spiky gates, I soused myself in the dirty moat, I screamed and cursed, and blubbed. At last, I climbed over and got in… I enumerate the difficulties that beset me only to show to the struggling young besiegers of today how, with the aid of pig-headed obstinacy, sublime conceit, thick skin, and a genius for nagging and boring and worrying human people’s lives out of them, it is possible to force even so strongly guarded a portal as the stage door of the present century.
Jerome K. Jerome, British satirical playwright, 1888

20150315_11141220150315_111743Today’s a traveling day.  I got up early and wrote for awhile, then spent the remainder of this brisk, sunny morning running 10 miles along Chicago‘s Lake Shore Drive Continue reading “Still’s Still Moving to Me”