The Narthex

Though using a wide variety of clever devices daily, few of us know how they work. Our roles in society are so specialized, and our cars and computers so sophisticated that most of us do not understand how they operate and can not fix them. All that matters to us…

At 9:00 on Saturday morning, cars are not jammed in the parking lot and only a few customers cruise the aisles of employee-owned WinCo's supermarket. At that early hour, it takes me about 30 minutes to finish my usual shopping list, with an average bill of $50 a week for…

1:00 PM, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Friday, April 15, 2011 Jason, Craig, Joe, and I sit together in the train's lounge. We are absorbed in the luscious scenery where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland conjoin with the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The Appalachian Trail runs through here. We are entering…

On an Amtrak train approaching Maryland, Friday, April 15, 2011 Craig invites Jason, a young genius in his late twenties, to join us. He is a non-degreed application technician devoted to robots as chief artist and scientist in the employ of Mechanimal in Pittsburgh, PA. He is traveling to D.C.…

3:15 PM, Thursday, April 14, Chicago, IL  On Amtrak, Craig, the eco-engineer I met earlier, and I arrive at Union Station, Chicago. Since we are both traveling to D.C. and have a three hour layover, we decide to walk down Wacker Drive and eat at a restaurant. Craig and I…

4:00 PM, Wednesday, April 13, 2011, near Raton, NM  We’re approaching 9,000 feet as we climb to Raton. These are the first pine trees we have seen on this trip. I’m beginning to feel some shortness of breath climbing the steep stairs from the rest rooms. It’s an uncomfortable feeling,…

Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 11:10 AM, Albuquerque, NM As I deboard the train for exercise during our stopover, I notice an old man having great difficulty stepping down the coach stairs. There he stands wobbly on the platform, mustering the energy to walk hesitantly with a cane, struggling to pull…

In the 1960s I made a penniless pilgrimage cross country from Boston to California. In 2011 I went in the other direction, this time aboard an Amtrak train. Join me as my train leaves southern California into northern Arizona. I have selected a few poignant episodes to illustrate what occurred…

On my evening walk, I spied a silver-bearded fellow sitting up like a marmot-in-surveillance between the wall and bushes of the Senior Center. I gave him a brief sidelong glance. His steady glare seemed threatening, but I could have imagined that, for it was hard to judge from a distance.…

Decades ago, to avoid social isolation, I took up ballroom dancing and within a month met an attractive woman who was my age. She could dance well and had a compatible personality, so we hit it off. We entered dance contests and won prizes. We dined out every week and…

I met Bill, a 92-year-old retired Hewlett Packard technician, while he was standing outside a packed pool room waiting his turn at a senior-center billiards tournament. He was wearing a Starved Rock, Illinois T-shirt. Such an unusual name got the better of me, so I asked. “It’s a national park,…

Late on a Sunday morning I walked into the nursing home to visit Della. I peeked into her double-occupancy room. Her bed was closest to the hall door, and she lay there with her eyes closed. But she somehow knew when to open them and look at me. Though her…

Three houses over from mine, Wanda, a 72-year-old woman, lived with Marsha, her 47-year-old daughter, and Devan, her 17-year-old granddaughter. The teen got pregnant, and not long after baby Gary was born, the kid’s father was knifed to death in a gang fight. His lifeblood pooled in front of my…

On my regular walks each evening, I pass by a public building where meetings are held almost every night. Two ladies stood outside chatting at 8:25 PM, and I approached them. “What is this meeting about, and is it open to the public?” I asked. “Come and see,” the younger…

Two of my old friends are in the same nursing home, so visiting them each month is a two-for-one event for me. As I walked into the entryway, a middle-aged man in a wheelchair sat with his head hung low. My friends often complain of my coming and going like…