The Passing Of The Florida Rail Pass

I had just finished reading the Donkey Show by Michael Patrick Welch. I think I was somewhere near Biloxi. The sun was rising. I could see water on both sides of the train. I don't know how long we were nearly inert, and I didn't care. The announcer said we should be moving soon, and we'll be in New Orleans shortly. Yes train travel can be slow. I'm not even sure why we weren't moving. I don't mind slow, most of the time. I'm a baseball fan too. My least favorite assessment of a film , is , it was slow.What does that mean? That phrase -it was slow- usually makes me curious, maybe there is actually a story. If you pay attention, more might be going on during those slow times than during a car chase or an explosion.

I was glad to have finished the Donkey Show. Michael is a friend of mine from New Orleans. I really love his novel about teaching creative writing in one of the worst high schools in New Orleans. It is also about falling in love, struggling to get by and mostly about living in New Orleans. It had been my favorite city in the United States. Henry Miller had noted it as a bright spot in this country in his book Air Conditioned Nightmare. It was a book that meant a lot to me years ago.

My trip was almost exactly a year before Katrina. I was evacuating Hurricane Frances, before I was even sure it was going to hit Orlando. I bought a one-way ticket to New Orleans. The cost of the ticket was thirty one dollars. I only paid for the journey outside of Florida. I had a Florida Rail Pass. It cost two hundred and forty nine bucks. It was good for a year. During that year I was free to ride anywhere in Florida. I took several trips to south Florida, and some short rides, like to Kissimmee (ten or so minute ride) for lunch.

I haven't been to New Orleans since that trip. I'm almost afraid to see it. Katrina, makes me sad in so many ways. When I got to New Orleans I wanted to stay. I always felt that way. I'm not sure if I would still feel that way. It seemed like another country to me, that was what Miller found appealing about it.

I had hotel reservations for the weekend that Katrina hit. I was going with several others to see the reclusive musician Jandek. The show was canceled, a minor subplot of the devastation.

Jonathan told me to meet him for a drink a little after five at a bar in the Marigny district. He was getting off work. He would take me over to his apartment after that. I could stay there for a few days, while he shacked up with his girlfriend. Jonathan performs with Michael in his band and in skits for reenactments of episodes of the Donkey Show.

Jonathan departed, and said something like I'll see you in a couple of days. I went to get a beer after he left. I ran into a few Orlando acquaintances at a pub on the edge of the Quarter. There was a crew of five of them. We drank a beer. I went to a payphone. It was a year before I bought my cellphone. Payphones were getting scarce, but there were some around then. I checked my messages from the payphone. I had several messages. One from Contos, Alex, Tess and Kay. They said they were headed for New Orleans.

A couple of nights later we were all together. Apparently they left the Hideaway in the middle of the night and drove towards New Orleans. Alex said that it was raining so hard until around Gainesville, and he doesn't remember seeing any other cars on that stretch.

I told them about the great artist warehouse that Michael took me to. Bands played all night. It was in a very rough area. The owner of the warehouse was a German artist in his sixties. He showed me bullet holes on the outside of the building.

We ran into Trish too. She was staying in some posh place in the Quarter. Alex, Trish and I walked out of a bar and the sun was up. It had been up for at least an hour or so. I had fallen into the New Orleans myth. I was drunk, and going to bed late morning. I would be ready for that night.

I was in New Orleans for about a week. I barely saw Jonathan. The trains were all canceled. Last minute plane flights were exorbitant. The Greyhound was also canceled.

We roamed the Quarter watching the spectacle of Southern Decadence weekend. It was a large gathering of the Bear's, not the animals, but the large hairy, gay subculture, huge hairy guys wearing thongs, John Deere hats, looking like they could hit a softball out of any park. Michael and his girlfriend Morgana gave us a tour. They said that the crew had toned it down a little, since the police cracked down on public indecency. Michael told me of seeing a bear sodomize a very willing bear in broad daylight, just off the main drag. I didn't see anything like that.

I finally reluctantly (because I love New Orleans) got a ride home with Trish. Alex and I rode with her. We were the last of our crew to leave town. I hadn't seen much of Contos. He was reuniting with some old cronies of his. He used to live in the city. Kay and Tess were hanging out together.

I didn't want to leave, but I had some things to tend to. The next year the train route from Jacksonville to New Orleans was discontinued. Katrina put an end to that. I don't know that it's coming back.

I just found out that the Florida Rail Pass no longer exists. I asked someone at Amtrak about it. They said it ended in September, and there are no plans of bringing it back. Alex and I bought our pass at the same time. We were both working out of our house, so we would just hop on the train when we had some free time. We had a lot of it then.