When you eat dinner on Amtrak they sit you four to a table and always four to a table. Traveling alone, I ate with three others traveling alone as well. It was a gold mine if I was going to write a profile for a newspaper.
It’s was a little quiet at first until I decided to strike up conversation with the woman across from me in our four person booth. She just wrapped up a four day conference in Portland at the Double Tree hotel for animal training and psychology. It was more than clicker training (she made a point to tell me.) She explores communication between animals and the connection between animals and people. She believes the role of animals has changed in the last few decades from creatures to companions. However, in the scientific world, animals are treated with greater emotional distance. This is something she wants to change.
She ordered the chicken.
The man to my right is a retired police officer. He worked throughout the state of Oregon primarily in the gang intelligence department. While serving, he worked on the streets tracking down “dope” and being shot at on multiple occasions. He is thankful to have never fired his weapon mainly because it is a “million dollar investment.” Now, almost 70 years old, he stays focused on his three-year-old granddaughter; watching children shows and constantly feeding her “machine-like hunger.”
He ordered the lamb shank.
The man across and to the right of me has worked with computers his entire life and the entire life of the computer. He began with general drafting on a computer that A) took up an entire room an B) he had to schedule time to use. Calculation needed to be computed using a series of punch cards (funny to think about now as I’m blogging on an iPhone). He later did governmental work creating circuitry for ground to air missiles. Then alluded to other government work. I joked “work you can’t talk about?” He simply replied without a smile. “Yes.”
He ordered the chicken.
All very amazing people I would have never otherwise met if Amtrak would have let me sit wherever I pleased. Sadly, I didn’t get their names. I guess they’ll just have to be strangers.
