Waning Light at Galva
In the not so distant past there lives a different place, somewhere buried in memory. It's a place where a warm fall sun slowly drops toward the horizon line and an eastbound California Zephyr makes a late-running dash into the Windy City. It's not far from a little place called Galva, IL where an old timber bridge crosses the former CB+Q mainline in the heart of the Prairie State. It's a warm and quiet late afternoon there, and the years do nothing to change it. The human soul, it seems, was never meant to age in years. In those days, it seemed only 'yesterday' that railroads like the Rock Island and Milwaukee plied their rails and struggled their last remaining days in cold winters and hellish conditions. Stations had personnel and baggage handlers, and passenger trains were daily. Dear reader, stand with me here on this bridge for just a little while and gaze at the great play that is being unrolled before our eyes under a Prairie State sky. It is merely a