On the Road Again 2014 #6

The first night on the train I came in contact with two older women who were playing crazy eights in the Dome Car. What attracted my curiosity was trying to figure out what their native language was. One of the women along with her husband had got on just past Sudbury and were in fact sitting cross from me. I thought they were French speaking. As they were playing cards, discussing rules they seamlessly switched back and forth between English and French. I thought that perhaps that there were no equivalent  words in French but then I realize that one was primarily speaking in French and the other in English - they clearly understood each other; they just preferred one language over the other. While I have known many people who would have been described as being fluently bilingual I have never seen two people who fit that definition better. I am in no position to know how good their French was, but their English was for the most part was accent free. The husband had a bit more of a French accent. What was really interesting was that both the husband and the wife worked on their find-a-word books - both in English.

The couple left at Edmonton I was sorry to see them go.

Not everyone I met is an interesting or as likeable. A Scotsman got on, along with his teenage daughter in Edmonton and left a few hours later at Valemount. I met up with him in the lower level of the Dome car. He was talking to a handful of young people rather bombastically. The first thing I heard him say was that he was amazed how many people had never seen the movie Braveheart. He later, when talking abut Pink Floyd, put people down by wondering what people had been doing with their lives because they did not know a specific song. He cited a number of things such as the fact that it has been proven that the Chinese had been the first non North Americans to visit the Atlantic part of Canada. The proof of this was how much the Inuit look like the Chinese! He mentioned a number of other "facts" equally as convincingly and I was quite sure equally as wrong. After he left a couple of people remarked that they had learnt more from him than they had in school. I guess if one yells loud enough you get to be right. I ignored the temptation to argue with him.

There were also two elderly ladies sitting a few rows behind me. All one of them did was to complain. While she did make it clear that she thought the young rail staff were not as responsive as they could have been, she reserved most of her complaints for her family and how they had done her wrong. The fact that her sister and her children had decided not to visit her was all their doing as she was generous to a fault. She reminded me of a close family relative. I am always surprised how loudly people talk about what seems to me to be pretty personal stuff. And to make it worse it was not even that interesting, just tiresome.

There were also the kids. Again I admire parents who can keep their young kids happy for a day and a half or longer in a relatively confined space. So many of the kids start off being perfect angels, well behaved and cute. But as they realize  that (1) it is difficult for their parent to control them if for no other reason then it is hard to yell at your kid in public and (2) the parent would rather not have the child crying all of the time, the behaviours become more and more annoying. Not all of the kids were like that but a surprising number were.

However these marginally contacts were minimal. Ninety-nine percent of the people are quite wonderful and I have enjoyed meeting them immensely.