I've Been Working On The Railroad

           I have been working on the railroad... All the live long day, 12 hours a day and then 24 or more at the hotel and then 12 at home. Railroaders work long hours, alone. Thinking about kids, and what you might try to do when you get back home. Sometimes it is so loud in the cab, that trying to talk to your co-worker is an impossible task. Yelling from across the engine. Miles and hours go by, looking out the window, looking for a change in scenery, that mostly stays the same.

          We glide into town from the north. past Johnny Cash's Amqui station and into town trough empty back yards. Over the Cumberland river and then directly into the main vein. We stop, right behind Union Station. Louisville to Nashville, 187 miles from Station to Station, the old Mainline. L&N. Homeless folks come and go as the police come and make them leave. The underpasses and woods are littered with a temporary reminder that some don't "make it." Occasionally you might see a person walking around with a guitar. I wonder.. really? You meet folks at the hotel, getting ready for some try out. Dreaming of that fame and looking for a win.

          The sons of Pullman Porters and the sons of engineers from Birmingham, Louisville, and Evansville stay in a hotel in Nashville out by the airport. I have lived away from home for over 10 years at a Holiday Inn. I ain't go no home, at least for 1/2 of my life. Nashville could be my second home, but I'm more like a refugee. The town that we built, is not interested in us anymore. Railroaders have been ousted from historical relevance by a corporate dream of progress.

          Country music was born of song from folks and struggle, extracted from a mountain or from a want to explore the bright lights of the town. The lights are so bright now that some can't see the source. Folks are sitting in the audience. Lost. When WSM - William Smith Monroe sang Muleskinner Blues on the grand ol opry.. that was the beginning. Something happened. The ship is sinking. the Titanic sounds of country music and the Amplitudal Modulation has not changed in many years.

           The hotel smells like an Avon convention, as country music touristas filter in and out. Leaving for the night to experience Nashville and all of her Disney style country fame. Nashville is a woman. sometimes a woman dressed in a cowboy hat, short skirt and boots, yelling Y'all come, but now she is just as lonesome as I. She used to be the country queen broadcast from a high tower on the outskirts of town. Now she is a whore..hocking some ME rica,  just a used to be, selling herself as something that was. Historically speaking!