Monday morning coffee… starting another week on the back porch. The temperature this morning is closer to normal, it’s already passed 73 and headed up. The humidity is making it feel thick out… and the sky is full of clouds.

The birds are singing their normal morning salutations… the crickets are quite loud this morning, even to the point of overshadowing the back to work traffic roar from the bypass.

Off in the distance a train whistle announces a crossing. It’s funny how far a train whistle will carry across these coastal plains. Every time I hear a train go by I find my mind drifting back to my grandparents place in Orchard… their house was located about equal distance between two railroad crossings and about a half mile from the tracks… out in the country like that the trains really moved down the tracks. You could tell the difference as to whether they were coming or going just by the sound of the whistle. Another thing about back then… passenger trains were still common, even on the track that followed Highway 36 through Texas. Those not so long silver bullets would fly by on the tracks… I can’t remember when I last saw a passenger train pass down the tracks.