Welcome to Florida

 

His name was Chuck and he loved trains.  For a good number of years, during his working life, he worked as a conductor for the railroad.  He really loved his job.  In fact, his hobby was model trains.  He had two regulation size ping pong tables set up, end to end.  He had put together an entire town of miniature buildings, trees, roads with intersections, bridges and even little streetlights that actually lit up.  His train tracks ran through and around and over, it was quite a maze.

The little cars and trucks that were parked here and there were all hand painted.  His attention to detail was amazing.  Under the tables were the electric cords, transformers and power strips that ran everything.  The roads leading out of the town were not paved.  I don’t remember if he had them painted to look like dirt or if he had real sand glued to the tabletop.  It was cool, whatever it was.

When I heard he was retiring to Florida, I knew he would be setting up his tables, trains and the entire town.  He would never leave that behind, so I bought him a welcome to Florida present.  Just small enough to sit at the edge of town, it was a little motel.  It said Roach on the side.