Grain Trains and City Trains

I love when kids get on the subway and they immediately go to an open seat and sit up on their knees so they can look out the window. They stare out the plexiglas with sincere curiosity and are surrounded by adults who hardly look up from the personal device in hand. I smile every time I see a child do this. It makes me feel less sorry for those kids who never get to experience a train the way that I did as a kid, running up a hill at the sound of a grain train coming so I could count the cars with my cousins and cheer for the caboose. That's what it meant to see a train as a kid in South Dakota. As an adult in NYC, now I ride a train every day. I hardly ever glance up from the personal device in my hand, but every once in a while, I look out the window and see the train like a child.