Cross-posted from michiganliberal.com
This is a little departure from my normal format. But it came to me in a fit of inspiration yesterday, and I thought somebody might get something out of it. - MF
There's one train each day from East Lansing to Chicago and back - and this one was full of people. Pulling up to the station, I got what seemed to be the last parking space.
It was brisk outside on this gray October morning, but I stood on the platform anyway. Every seat in the ramshackle hut that serves for a station was filled.
The station agent announced on the P.A. that the train would be a half hour late. He said he didn't know why.
So I walked across the track and through the bushes to the Quality Dairy convenience store and bought a big styrofoam cup full of coffee. I don't usually drink coffee these days - it disagrees with me. Green tea is more my style. But I needed some caffeine. At the last minute, I grabbed a copy of the Detroit News & Free Press (it's really the Free Press on Saturdays - for now, anyway). The headline was something about how the executives at the company that makes radiators, steering wheels and just about anything you'd find in a General Motors car just gave themselves a sweet severance package the same day they demanded their employees have their pay cut to $10 an hour and a day before the company executives of Delphi corporation filed for bankruptcy and prepared to eliminate the livelihood of tens of thousands of people.
As I sat there, I sipped my coffee and read the stories. There was an article about some of the moms and dads who didn't know how they were going to make ends meet. A sidebar about what bankruptcy means:...and, of course, the story about how Delphi executives giving themselves little golden parachutes. Most ominous was from
this column:
Will impending shakeouts at Delphi Corp. and General Motors Corp. be apocalyptic events for Detroit's auto industry, shattering forever the notion that America's industrial working class could expect good wages, company-paid health care and secure retirements in perpetuity?
A frustrated UAW President Ron Gettelfinger talks like doomsday is near.
"People who live in gated communities in this country need to think about where we're headed," Gettelfinger said Friday, suggesting that the nation's working class is trapped in a downward wage-and-benefits spiral and getting pretty darned angry about it.
It went on...
For Delphi workers, many of them once GM workers who probably believed in the vision of good wages and lifetime security, today's events must indeed seem apocalyptic.
There's a sadness in that but a lesson, too. Detroit's carmakers and unions and the U.S. government must show more urgency in getting the domestic auto industry on a competitive footing.
Otherwise, Detroit may indeed fade slowly into an industrial backwater with lots of angry people who might scare the folks in those gated communities Gettelfinger spoke of.
I'm angry. I'm angry because everyone who paid any attention saw these things coming and didn't do anything about it. I'm angry because those with the ability to do anything about it are either bought or are too weak-kneed to lift a finger. And I'm angry because the people who would move heaven and earth to try to make things right are dissuaded from doing so by a system which makes our officials spend their time prostituting themselves on the telephone for campaign contributions instead of solving problems.
I strike up a conversation with a middle aged-guy in a leather coat standing next to me.
I can't remember how the conversation started...he said something about how the train is late.
"That's the American passenger rail system, for ya", I said.
"Here's a quiz for you", he said. "Do you know when the last time American passenger trains turned a profit?"
"The 50's, maybe?" I said.
"1908. Amtrak gets subsidies to survive..."
"Yes", I said, "about 7 million dollars each year here in Michigan..."
What followed was a polite discussion of how we run the trains in America.
I mentioned that we also subsidize the airports and the freeways. He said something about how 7 million dollars is a lot of money. I said something about how we're not taking advantage of the economy of scale that predominates the operation of a rail system, i.e. the more full trains you have, the better the return on your tax dollars. Currently there's only one train from East Lansing to Chicago and back each day. And it's threatened with extinction again.
"Well, with gas at $3 a gallon, I'll bet we'll be seeing more trains", he said.
During our conversation, a locomotive air horn sounded in the distance. As it drew closer, people emerged from the station and lined up along the platform.
Oblivious to it all, a woman in a long green coat continued to pace from one end of the platform to the other - about 100 yard each way. She must have walked back and forth 7 or 8 times as folded her hands nervously and whispered to herself.
The train came into view.
"That's a freight train", I groaned.
Behind the Canadian National North America engines were a hundred or so 85-foot auto-racks - marked with the logos of a number of different railroads - some defunct, like Conrail, Chicago & Northwestern and Grand Trunk Western - some not: Norfolk Southern, CSX, and Union Pacific. The man plugged his ears as the train roared past, but soon gave up and decided to bear the noise. Through the holes in the cars we could see if the cars were empty, or the vague outlines of shiny new vehicles.
"Chevy trucks from Flint" I shouted. "We might not see these trains anymore, before long", I said before I realized I was probably being too much of a bummer for the idle conversation most people expect to engage in when stuck in these kinds of settings. I looked back at the train and watched the shadows of Chevy Silverados, GMC Yukons, and Cadillac Escalades (at least I thought that's what they were). I thought about what I had just read in the newspaper.
Trains are wonderful for moving large quantities of people or goods. But they are most perfect as metaphors.
As I Watched the shadows I thought about the people who built these trucks...and all of their hopes and dreams. I thought about all of other people, who's lives are touched by all of these people. I thought about my ancestors, and all of the millions who spent their time on earth building the society and the civilization we now call the state of Michigan. I imagined all of these people packed into these rail cars. Men, women, children of every age and color - their stoic eyes meeting mine as the trains hurries off to some nameless place. My eyes well up with tears. I look away.
"It's amazing. Freight trains have priority over passenger trains here." Oops. There I go being anti-social again.
The freight train rumbled into the distance and we made more small talk, and eventually, the musical 5-chime chord of the Amtrak locomotive's horn broke the newly re-established quiet of a Saturday morning in a college town.
I boarded the train and passed by the man in the leather coat to find my own seat. Half the seats in the car faced forward. Half rearward. All of the empty forward-looking seats were gone. So I moved to the back of the car and sat down. The train, Amtrak #365 - the Bluewater - from Port Huron to Chicago gently lurched as it crept into motion.
The train picked up speed as it rolled through the south side of Lansing. - along the Grand River, and along the adjacent bike trail I take to work each day. I see lots of familiar landmarks - the worn limestone-faced buildings of downtown, the old zoo, and the Board of Water and Light yard where they store new telephone poles. The massive and now empty General Motors factory where they used to build Oldsmobiles came into view. I think I read some place that somewhere deep inside of that giant complex is part of the old masonry structure
structure Ransom E. Olds built a hundred years ago to produce the new curved-dash Oldsmobile - when Henry Ford's model T was still a thing of the future.
I see these places every day, but from the train, they look slightly different - like someone picked everything up and moved it around. I guess that's what they call a new way of looking at things.
We left Ransom Olds' old assembly line behind us and drew parallel to one of the interstate highways that lead out of the city. Behind the piles of railroad ballast rock and brush, a billboard briefly appeared. It wasn't there long enough for me to read the words. But I knew what they said already. I've seen
these billboards before:
"Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,
Forgive us our sin of being dependent upon the Automobile Industry and not on You. Please restore invention, productivity and prosperity.
In Jesus Name,
A Michigan Citizen
I overheard a conversation in front of me:
"Do you like the Governor of Michigan?"
"No, I don't really know anything about her."
"Well, she sure is pretty. She's like the Governor of California, Schwarzenegger. She was born in another country - Canada - and can't run for president."
I placed him for a Republican. But later I heard him talk about Amtrak and how George Bush has been trying to kill Amtrak ever since 9/11.
His seat companion - an older lady he's apparently never met - mentioned something about how she plans to retire but her Pfizer stock has been falling.
I listened to the man in front of me recount how his family had moved between Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Detroit - and about how back when George Romney was Governor and LBJ was president, he drove down the freeways of Detroit as the people there rioted and burned the city to the ground.
We pass more and more stations, and see smiling old men in coveralls, teenage girls shivering in the sweatshirts this cold October morning, and a bearded man in a wheelchair. As we pass these things, images from the film I've seen of Bobby Kennedy's funeral train - with veterans at attention, and sad, crying faces lining the way. I think of the old newsreel footage of President Roosevelt's last train, and the man sitting atop the boxcar with a sign: "FDR was my friend."
"We're picking up 60 more people" the conductor said. "I don't know where I'm going to put them. Maybe on the roof" he joked. Just like in India, I thought.
As we passed Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, I relaxed back in my seat and listened to some old Ella Fitzgerald - George Gershwin tunes on my headphones. The autumn colors of the forest blurred past in green, red, yellow and orange, streaks and my mind turned to how I planned to spend the day upon our metaphor's arrival in the big city.