Talk To Your Spouse With The Passion That Mr. Bennet Talks To His Train
This man said goodbye to this train in style. Welcome to the next daily installment of this true story, which you can find posted here each afternoon until it comes to an end.
Chapter 69: Mr. Bennet Gave The
Goodbye Announcement
As we travelled past Galesburg, Illinois and continued toward Chicago, our beloved Lounge Car Host, Mr. Bennet, gave a sweet and appreciative goodbye announcement that summarized the events of that trip. He pointed out, for example, that this was the earliest that he had ever gotten into Denver. He had never been into Denver before 6 p.m. It was quite a touching 3 or 4 minute recap of the trip:
Up to the capital city of the Gold State, Sacramento…
Shortly after leaving Sacramento we stopped at Roseville…
At Roseville we made a hard right turn to start our eastbound track…
Made our way across the Sierra Mountains, we got to see Donner Lake…
We came down into Truckee California, our last station stop in the Gold State…
We picked up the Truckee River…
We rolled along the Truckee River down into the Silver State….
Making Reno, Nevada our first station stop…
Elko, Nevada was our last station stop…
The rest of the night we rode across the Silver State into the state of Utah…
Early morning, that’s right, early yesterday morning, we arrived in Salt Lake City…
After we departed Salt Lake City…
We had a chance to ride across Soldier Summit…
Middle night, early morning….
Green River Utah was our final station stop …
That’s where we picked up the Colorado River…
We entered into the Ruby Canyon, a canyon that can only be seen by rail or by raft, if you were on board the train, you saw Ruby Canyon by rails…
Grand Junction Colorado was our first station stop…
We got back on the Colorado River, we rode the Colorado River for over 230 miles…
We went through the upper and lower Gore Canyon, the Glenwood Springs Canyon…
We made our way over to Granby. That is where we said goodbye to the Colorado River…
Shortly after leaving Granby, we made our station stop into Fraser, that’s where we entered the Moffat tunnel…
At the Moffat Tunnel we was at 9,000 feet in elevation…
We came out of the Moffatt Tunnel yesterday, we descended 4,000 feet into the Mile High City…
We had excellent conditions and I have never arrived in the Mile High City before 6 p.m.…
We departed after a very nice long break in Denver…
All the time, making Fort Morgan Colorado our last station stop…
Then we entered into the Cornhusker State, Cook, Nebraska was our first station stop…
Early morning we departed Omaha to enter into the Hawkeye State…
Creston, Iowa was our first station stop and Burlington was our last…
We crossed the mighty Mississippi River into the Land of Lincoln where you find us now…
Galesburg was our first station stop, and the third largest city in the United States, the Windy City, Chicago, Illinois will be our final station stop of this journey…
We would like to say Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for choosing Amtrak as your mode of transpiration for you holiday travel needs. We look forward to seeing you on an Amtrak train another day and another way….
This was followed by some applause by happy passengers, me among them.
***
After that excellent announcement, I went down to ask him if he does that goodbye announcement from memory or if he has notes prepared. A few moments after I got downstairs and asked him that, his fan club followed me down, some pals from upstairs. We all heard the touching announcement, and the natural thing was to go visit him.
Danny from upstairs and even the French speaking Moroccan girl came down to say goodbye to him. At this point, Mr. Bennett started using a few favorite phrases of his own, but it was complicated for a non-native speaker, such as the French speaking Moroccan. Those favorite phrases include “A closed mouth don’t get fed,” or “When life deal you a lemon, don’t suck it and frown, make lemonade.”
What followed reinforced what I had to say about the importance of having paper around when speaking to a non-native speaker. None of what he said was understood initially, which made it a chance for learning — perhaps for all of us. Accordingly, we ended up with a napkin full of Mr. Bennet’s aphorisms for the French speaking Moroccan girl to continue on her journeys with.
Somewhere, wherever in the world she may now be, I suspect that French speaking Moroccan girl is saying to a quiet friend of her “A closed mouth don’t get fed,” and is saying to her down on her luck friend “When life deal you ze lemon, don’t suck it and frown, make lemonade.”
We, before long, arrived at Chicago Union Station. And I was soon with my family.
-Allan Stevo
This is a selection from my forthcoming book, “The Amtrak Vignettes.” A neat story began with the writing of “The Amtrak Vignettes” in October 2023. Every day until that story comes to an end, I intend to share a part of it here. It is a part of my faith journey as a Christian, a faith journey that has been deepened since the Ides of March 2020. Some of it gets pretty wild and nothing that a “reasonable” person would find himself in the midst of. Few will be scared off by it. Instead, many will grow deeper in their faith. I know that, because I know my readers well, and I know that few come here expecting me to give a milquetoast version of anything. Come here to be challenged. Stay here to have your life changed. That, I believe, is what will come of this work. You can support that work by signing up below.