Three years ago, when she’d first graduated and landed the job at McKendricks, Alma had found the idea of working in San Francisco terribly exotic. The noise, bustle and colors of the vibrant metropolis was like working in a living art show. The diverse group of people who’d moved from all over the world, just to live in the city by the bay, made every co-worker, restaurant lunch or overheard conversation a virtual trip to another country. And the job itself represented the heart and soul of new methods and ideas that were building the countrys economy back to what it used to be.
But standing on the overpass, looking down on the old train tracks, Alma realized that she wasn’t really interested in business, no matter how vital a force it was in people’s lives. She’d never be able to muster the kind of passion for it that the people around her seemed to have. And she seemed to feel her creative potential drying up, when she thought about the status report she needed to finish tonight for tomorrows meeting. A lifetime, or at least forty or fifty years, of walking home from the same metro station stop every day after a work day spent in the city, stretched before her as unending as the train tracks below the overpass. Well, at least she’d found that great historical e-novel at the library last weekend. That would be something to look forward to after she got the report done.
Alma peered down through the metal screen that protected walkers on the overpass. The same train was there, that always sat on an old spur track. Other trains swooshed past on their way to and from their peninsula destinations, but the old train had, she supposed, been retired from service. And, for some reason, after three years it hadn’t been worth anybody’s while to collect it and send it on to the scrap yard, or wherever old trains went when they were past their prime. She leaned her head against the mesh and shut her eyes. She already felt past her prime, and she hadn’t even reached her thirtieth birthday.
A gust of unexpectedly frigid wind blew suddenly against the back of her bare neck. She straightened up and opened her eyes in surprise. It was only September, and she hadn’t even brought a light fleece jacket to work. Alma tucked her brief case more firmly under her arm, and began to turn away from the wall. It was at that moment, that she saw that something about the old train below had changed.
For one thing, it was moving towards her. For another, it was now brilliantly, and very strangely, colored. A loud whistle, unlike any train whistle Alma had ever heard before, suddenly split the air and as it did so, she felt herself falling through the mesh screen, straight down onto the tracks below.
Was she falling, or was she flying?
Engaged on an exploratory walk in suburban Millbrae last Friday, I was surprised to find that not all Time Portals sport that vintage look.
When I was little my older sister used to play this song on the piano for me. According to the "Singing in Harmony"* book that sat on our piano, it was the song that the sphinx sang to Peer when he went to Egypt on his wanderings away from his homeland. The book has lovely line drawings of the whole story behind Peer Gynt, and I still enjoy reading the story and trying out the right hand version of the melodies.
You’ll find Las Pilitas Road in San Luis Obispo County when you get off the 101 freeway, going south, just before you head over the grade . It’s quite a ways down to the old Las Pilitas Railroad bridge. You have to drive SLO, and watch out for animals that might stray across the road.
Go ahead, park the car and, walk across. You just may find more than a view of the creek on the other side.
Take your chances in 1917. You’ve got a guide waiting, after all. What’s her story?
Click on the picture above, to get the details.
It's been a really spider'y summer, and I've gotten a kick out of every different eight-legged visitor I've managed to photograph. At this age I don't shriek like I used to. OK, I admit I talk to them as I pop the container on top, slide the old piece of postcard stock underneath and carry them out on a move to the garden.
