As soon as I played this pose animation from Status, I was reminded of countless weekend afternoons spent playing with my nieces down in the pasture. We would ride horses or walk down to Ruffy Brook and after semi-swimming (the deepest spot was about 4 feet deep) we would walk the rails. There was a railroad trestle that crossed a deep ravine over the brook and we would put our ears down and listen for trains. If we heard nothing, we would walk across the trestle. It was always exciting because you could see through the railroad ties and could scare yourself with thoughts of stepping wrong and having one leg fall through the ties or with thoughts of oncoming trains or even of slipping off the rails and falling down into the ravine. Of course, none of those things ever happened. As we got older, we got bolder and would ride horse across the trestle which goes to show that a well-trained horse can be just as idiotic as the person riding him.

Sadly, my nieces children won’t get that same visceral thrill of imminent, but unlikely, death by train as Burlington Northern closed that line. Of course, that makes me think of Jean Richie’s mournful song, The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, that tells how the loss of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad closed the mines and impoverished the people of Hazard, Kentucky. When the Burlington Northern shut down jobs were lost throughout the northern counties of Minnesota. Thanks to the stimulus, unemployment is at a 10 year low of 17%. I know that’s much higher than most places but it was near 30% when I still lived there. It sounds dire, but country folk have more ways to make do than people in cities. And to be completely honest, wild asparagus is much tastier than regular asparagus.

Never thought I’d live to lean to love the coaldust
Never thought I’d pray to hear those temples roar
But God I wish the grass would turn to money
And then them greenbacks would fill my pockets once more
I was born and raised at the mouth of the Hazard Holler
Where the coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty road of all empties
Because the L & N don’t stop here anymore

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