"...The Disappear(ed) Railroad Blues."

I-86 in New York state, the so-called "Southern Tier Expressway" is our favorite route to Chautauqua, much nicer and more scenic than  I-88, which cuts across the middle of the state making a beeline to Buffalo(!).  And while it's a nicer drive, it's still a helluva long time to be steering a car and basically staring at the macadam in front of you while the fortunate few passengers get to find other things to look at and ways to amuse themselves.

About an hour east of Jamestown sits the Seneca reservation, replete with the now de rigueur  (for our displaced indigenous peoples) casino.  In addition to the casino, three things about the Rez stand out for me.  One is the fact that many of the highway signs are in both English and, one assumes, Senecan, or some tribal language, at any rate.  That's pretty cool to see.  The second thing is that the 20 or so miles you spend on the interstate driving through the Rez are probably the worst-maintained miles I've ever driven on our interstate system, and have been unchanged and unimproved in the dozen or so years we've been driving that way.  Sure seems like we're still stickin' it to those savages.

The third thing, the most amazing thing to me, is a sign at one of the exits proclaiming the points of interest to be found there.  The top of the sign promotes a railroad museum, the bottom advertises the Seneca/Iroquois museum.  Don't know if they're at the same location, but, top billing aside, wouldn't it seem that the only two possible exhibits that could be more offensive to Native Americans than a railroad museum are, perhaps, a tall-ships celebration or a smallpox-blanket diorama?  It's pretty hard for me to think of anything that contributed more to the demise of the native population here than the Iron Horse.  Really?  Both museums together?  Yikes!

Genocide aside (and we've done a damn good job of keeping it at least aside, if not totally hidden, haven't we?), the railroad system is arguably humans' greatest transportation achievement.  For moving the most  goods and people most efficiently, it can't be beat. And, if we'd advanced the technology involved rather than dismantling the whole system, it would almost certainly be the greenest form of transport, too.

Conversely, the interstate highway system, President Eisenhower's baby, of course,  is arguably--or maybe it's not even arguable--the most inefficient, wasteful and environmentally-destructive system ever devised.  It's possible that it's the single biggest contributor to the horrible change humans have wrought to our very planet.  Yep, Ike had one brilliant and fabulous idea, a warning, actually, to beware the Military-Industrial Complex and the havoc it could wreak morally, financially and psychologically to our country and the world, an idea we have emphatically ignored and rejected.  And he had one horrible and horribly destructive idea, the interstate highway system, which we have embraced wholeheartedly.  Yay, us.

The long drives I've taken in the last few weeks have made me long to be on a train, staring out at the scenery whizzing by, lulled by the "clack, clack, clack" of steel-on-steel, partaking of a much more enjoyable journey.  That, coupled with the fact that Bellows Falls and North Walpole, where I spent my formative years (dasn't say "grew up," as there are too many who would dispute that) were railroad towns has made me nostalgic.  Amtrak still runs right under the square in BF; if you're sitting on the deck at Popolo at the right time, you can watch it run right beneath the restaurant, whose beer and soda lines were laboriously fished over the top of the tunnel.  And, as some of you who have listened to my show have heard, the Montrealer blows its horn as it heads into that tunnel at around noon every day.

 So I'm honoring all of that this week with "train" and "railroad" songs; I'm sure that with only a few minutes' rather cursory thought you too can come up with a very long list of songs on topic.  I hope you can tune in tomorrow from noon till 2 (ish)--I have a lot of 'em--to hear my list.  100.1 FM, www.wool.fm on the webs.

And, although none of you were in attendance, I'm sure you'll be excited to know that our Block Party on Saturday night (held in part of the old train yard, as a matter of fact) raised enough to pay our bills for the next 3 months.  You should still become members, though, if you haven't yet.  We wicked deserve it.