Ashland is a college town, Randolph-Macon College, affiliated with the Methodist Church. It is Division III in NCAA football, so it’s small. But the students give the town a certain energy.

Right now, I am watching some young women in dresses, nice dresses, like cocktail dresses, having fun near the train depot. The clock at the depot isn’t accurate. A couple walk by. I guess they are 60ish. She is wearing a flannel shirt and white jeans. She has long blond hair and is a little heavy, zaftig, to put it in Yiddish. Attractive. He is tall, heavy, with white hair. My imagination has them married since the time of the Carter Administration. I fancy their children are grown. They might have gone to school here. They’re spending the weekend at the bed & breakfast, the Henry Clay Inn, to re-kindle the romance. (I should write scripts for Hallmark Channel movies.)

Meanwhile, voices are heard off camera view. Sounds like the young cocktail dress women. Probably a party. Do college women ever wear dresses today? More people walk by, men, in jackets, but no ties. It’s like a wedding happened somewhere.

The last train through town was #53, Southbound Autotrain, the one where you stow your vehicle in a covered freight car, while you ride the train in a nice bedroom accommodation from Lorton, VA to Sanford, Florida.

So it’s time for another train to pass through, as the dusk settles in. We have to remind ourselves it’s 2019, not 1959.