I love trains. I love train stations. I love their smell. Their histories.

I love journeys over rails. I love the sounds. The gentle rocking.

I love building long and winding train tracks with my grandchildren. Last night, I had a couple of those delightful hours when we had time to design… and execute… our plans. William, Alexander and I took all of the tracks from my special “track drawers.” (Yes, I actually purchased a piece of furniture a few years ago that would accommodate lots and lots of tracks and trains and train accessories.)

We began in my front parlor, wound the tracks into the hallway, over a bridge to the family room, into the kitchen, through the library and back to the front parlor. Then we each gathered our own trains… Thomas, James, and other Sodor specials, animal cars, birthday cars, Polar Express cars, cabooses… and, of course, houses and trees and people of all shapes and sizes. Last night we even had Superman and Spiderman with us.

To lay on the ground with my little guys and push the little cars into the next cars with their little magnets… to make choo-choo and brake squealing sounds as we push the cars up and down the bridges, over streams and ice and braking stations… to ring the little bells and wave to the children lined up next to the tracks… well, it is simply the greatest happiness of all.

And, there is always the true and real promise of a next time… �