A Brief Stop in Poughkeepsie

 

Poughkeepsie Train Station

Another cloudy and cold day, and because I did not check the emails from Amtrak, we arrived at the train station two hours early. While walking in town, I heard the fragment of a conversation where one man said to another that afterhours he could spend a night somewhere, that he should not be sleeping outside in this weather. At least he would be warm and get some sleep. Several people I saw in town looked like they struggled with the basics.

There are hints that life in Poughkeepsie was once better. For instance, the Bardavon Theater, built in 1869, continues to screen movies – albeit classic films, rather than first-run features.

I stopped in at The Poughkeepsie Grind to get us a coffee and hot chocolate. Despite the bleak weather, and the state of the town, the people in the coffee shop were festive and happy. The holidays were approaching and there was a sense of relief and celebration among the patrons.

The Poughkeepsie Grind

The train station in Poughkeepsie was once a small-town treasure, it is still a nice a pleasant place to start an adventure although many are commuting from it for a day’s work. We sat across from a man who had missed an earlier train and was passing the time talking to a friend about movies and music. He noted that he had worked at a record store while in college and, therefore, had listened to a lot of bad music in the 1970s. My attention drifted as I was more attuned to my Poughkeepsie Grind coffee and the latest stories that purported to be news. His severe critique of the band America, their only hit in his estimation was “A Horse with No Name,” was emblematic of their entire catalog, suggesting that all their songs were with no name. It made me smile, and I returned to the news on my phone. The conversation continued with him thinking that “Dust in the Wind,” might have been one of their songs. Not meaning to interrupt, I instinctively shook my head no and he saw me. The tilt of his head and raised eyebrows inquired me. “Kansas,” I noted was the band instead I said apologetically, it was a popular song in my circle when I was a kid. Had he not been on the phone I would have added that the tendency to name bands after geographic locations, Kansas, American, Boston, meant that they were easily confused. After he ended the phone call and got ready to board his train, he looked at me and shook his head, “I listened to a lot of bad music in the seventies.”