​When you hear someone say, “I’m waiting for the train,” most of the time, you probably think that person is at the Amtrak Station. She might be in Chicago, waiting to the catch the line to Milwaukee, or vice versa. Or she might be waiting for the metro in Washington, D.C., hoping to get out to Alexandria, VA on time.
 
We wait to catch trains and we also wait “for” trains. That “for” can be when the 200-car coal beds rumble through the tracks in your neighborhood, sticking you in your car long enough for a snooze.
 
That’s also one of the best times to use your smart phone. In fact, I must say, that situation provides one of the strongest arguments for keeping your phone charged and ready in the car.
 
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been stuck at a train crossing. We lived Columbus, NE years ago, and freight trains regularly honked through town. You got used to the delay, and twiddled your thumbs. Smart phones hadn’t been invented 15 years ago.
 
It didn’t matter back then because you still knew how to daydream on your own. There was no need for the Internet, streaming music, or the phone numbers of hundreds of friends and colleagues at your fingertips. You enjoyed the weather, hummed a tune, wondered what was for dinner.
 
I’m not sure our kids relate to those days. In fact, it seems even those of us who lived and remember those days don’t take the time to enjoy the solitude of stopped traffic provided by a train flashing by.
 
Instead, we pick up our phones and browse. I must admit this is an ideal time to find out the lifetime batting average of Bobby Richardson, who played second base for the New York Yankees in the early 1960s, of find out the age of Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
 
You can settle bets during these times. You can even instigate bets, sending text messages with random questions to select friends that no one could conceivably have the answer to without online research.
 
Waiting like this is a good time to research weekend movies or your upcoming vacation. You can fantasize about going someplace exotic and pretend that might actually happen. Then you can check all the web sites to see what it will cost and disavow yourself of the notion that will ever happen.
 
If you’re a concert or sports junkie, you can use this time productively as the train cars slowly chug past you. Look up your favorite sports team, see when they are town, the tap the phone to see how much tickets will deplete your income. If you’re hoping to see the reunion tour of Lynyrd Skynyrd, you’ll be able to access every city they’ll visit and figure out that none are close enough at your home to justify a purchase.
 
Recently, I watched a train take 15-20 minutes to clear a local road. Two days later, I was stuck waiting for one. I was ready.
 
The smart phone came out. I double-checked the speed and vast number of cars that appeared to follow the engine. Given the pace, it was clear there would be a long wait.
 
I responded to two texts, cleared off my email, played my turn in “Words With Friends,” checked the local weather, and mapped out my business trip for the next day. That took 90 seconds.  I was still bored.
 
So I daydreamed. I thought about my next column, putting down some notes. I wrote this column in my head.  Here it is.

​I’ve been driving around the Milwaukee metro area a lot the past two weeks. Actually, I’ve gotten out west several times towards Oconomowoc and up to the Stevens Point area in the central part of the state. And something strikes me.
 
People ride their bicycles here without helmets. It’s fascinating, particularly since I am a non-bike-helmet person myself. I’ve been a serious rider for almost 40 years, riding across North America one summer, commuting in Washington, D.C. for 13 years on a 26-mile round trip almost every day, and pedaling to work in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, as well as Columbus, Nebraska, weather permitting and depending on my daily commitments.
 
When I took off 32 years ago on my cross country trek, I had a helmet. Friends thought I would die for a multitude of reasons (crazies attacking me while I slept defenseless by the side of the road; nut jobs running me off the road; wild animals attacking). None of those threats materialized, except a few adolescent males who thought it was funny to come up close to me and yell out the window and throw full beer cans, oranges, apples and bottles at me. That got my anger up, but didn’t increase the need the wear a helmet.
 
I wore the helmet for a few weeks on that trip. I don’t remember when I took it off, but it wasn’t long. I felt comfortable on the road and knew if I got hit or fell, I would get my arms out and use them to take the brunt of the hit. There was no question I could die if hit by a semi or car plowing me to the side at 60 mph. But a helmet wouldn’t help anyone in that situation.
 
As we’ve moved around the U.S. for my job the past 25 years, how bicyclists dress reflects that part of the country, region, city or even a small local area. That’s why seeing so many people not wearing helmets jumps out at me.
 
Coming from DFW, given my visual observation, I would suggest about 99 percent of bicyclists wear helmets there. They might be acknowledging how many DFW drivers are nuts. Or it might be their fashion statement (my personal favorite). Or it could be they are more aware of safety and recognize people are not paying attention to bicyclists in the metro area, so best to take the extra step of protection.
 
Contrast that with my initial observations in Wisconsin: Over 50 percent of riders have not had helmets on. That’s a conservative estimate, and doesn’t reflect serious riders in packs or people bike commuting in heavy traffic. But it does reflect several commuters I’ve seen in the suburbs, casual riders in downtown Milwaukee, students around the UW-Stevens Point campus, and multiple families out on bike paths.
 
Perhaps car drivers are more respectful of bicyclists in Wisconsin. Maybe those pedaling feel safer and more comfortable without helmets. Perhaps bikers in Wisconsin don’t care about owning the coolest, high tech helmet. I don’t know.

But it does seem to me both here and elsewhere in the country that how people use their bicycles and dress for their rides reflects a certain attitude and culture. It says positive things to me about Wisconsin people regarding a comfort zone – feeling safe in traffic.
 
Wisconsin has a long tradition of bicycling culture so there is an acceptance of sharing the road and awareness that cars should pay attention to cyclists on the right. No bike helmets up here.

​Sometimes it takes a good cross country drive to change your perspective. Not that people select that as the sole reason they take a vacation or rent one of those silver sausages to tug behind their SUV, but it is one of the benefits. As you drive, you see and experience new things.
 
This past week, I took off from North Texas, heading to Pewaukee, WI, just west of Milwaukee, to start a new job. A side benefit has been waking up to cooler mornings, taller trees and more greenery.
 
But the drive north and start of a new job hold more than that in terms of my senses. I’ve been struck by the sights and smells and how it affects my mood.
 
The drive was long. The nights short. Sleep got cut off. The demands of a new job require learning new things, absorbing a lot of information quickly, and all of those variables tend to wear you out.

Oddly, I’m still thinking about the scenery morphing after crossing the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The drive west to east on I-44 through Missouri is hilly and filled with deciduous trees. Up and down you go.
 
Crossing to Illinois, you hit the plains. Why does it flatten out? I asked several people, and none had the answer. I figured maybe it had to do with the glaciers thousands of years ago. Google probably knows and at some point I’ll look it up, but right now I still marvel and wonder why. Did the river slowly recede from east to west, leaving the flatlands? Two hundred years ago, it was prairie grass.  Again, why? Why the grass there, but the trees on the other side of the Mississippi?
 
I don’t have the answers, but have lots of questions. The same goes for the smells you encounter.
 
Wherever you live, you get used to the smells. You probably never think of this. It might be the restaurant near your office that you sniff as you leave the air conditioning to head out to lunch. It might be dust blowing in off the plains, with a unique odor.
 
Regardless of what you nose breathes in, you get used to it, and you don’t think much about it. When you shift to someplace new, it smells different. This makes sense based on the different vegetation and terrain. But it isn’t something you typically consider until you head cross country, step out of your car and inhale deeply through your nostrils. “Ah, that Kentucky bluegrass is incredible.”
 
Streams look different, filled with rocks and rushing refreshingly through greenery. The sound of gurgling water wakes you up and realize you haven’t heard that sound for years.
 
There’s a lot to be said for the long drive to live in a different part of the country or world. You spend a lot of time thinking, reconsidering how you view the world and preparing to step into a different lifestyle, and community.
 
We’ve been fortunate to give our three kids some different parts of the U.S. to experience as they’ve grown up. I hope they’ve gained from the sights, sounds and smells of each area, as well as the knowledge and opportunities to embrace challenge.
 
Letting go of the old is hard. Getting restarted is difficult. But the fun part is the experience. When you keep an open mind and seek out strange new worlds, as Star Trek explorers do, you find your life enriched.

Give it a shot. Breathe deeply. Live long, and prosper, my friends.

​Last week I went to lunch with a friend and we both got water that came with plastic straws. We ordered drinks that both came with straws.  A second round brought two more straws, so our combined toss-away factor of plastic to recycling (if restaurants put straws in the recycling) was six. If they don’t recycle, then all six went to the landfill or are blowing down Route 66 somewhere, looking for a home to rest.
 
We can blame ourselves for this extra garbage. I could kick myself, but try to remember (and forget) to ask the waitperson NOT to let the bartender put a straw in the glass. In the first place, I DON’T WANT ONE! I hate sucking on a straw. I want to drink from a glass.  Where did this hollowed tube thing start anyway?
 
As a kid, I can remember it being a birthday treat to use straws. Or, that once every few months we went out for an extra special treat to get a hamburger or pizza, we got Shirley Temple’s and the straw and cherry seemed to enhance the sweetness of the drink. You looked forward to it, so perhaps the straw as an instrument of joy got embedded into your brain and once you reached adulthood, that feeling didn’t leave.

But it did. I don’t want a straw any more. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I “wanted” one.  But they keep coming off the processing line, straw after straw, shipped to restaurants, stuck in drinks, where customers pull them out because they don’t really want them, and then they get wiped off the table into the garbage (most likely) where they get buried, not decomposing for generations.
 
I’d like to make a suggestion to cut down on this plastic waste, and of course this is going to upset the plastic straw manufacturers because I will cut into the jobs, profits and production: Waiters and waitresses should ask customers when a drink order is placed whether you want a straw.
 
“I’d like a gin and tonic please.”
 
“I’ll have a Dr. Pepper.”
 
“Would you like a straw with those drinks?’
 
“No thanks, Lyndon Johnson was President the last time I used a straws, but thank you for asking.  I appreciate you looking out for the environment, and cutting down on waste.”
 
This interplay would be a fascinating exercise both for the waitperson and the customer. Waiters and waitresses would be made aware of the amount of excess they generate based on every meal they serve. Customers would have to think about what they really want, and whether a straw is really some necessity or just another adornment not worth jack.
 
Many meals and drinks get dressed up. How something “appears” often adds to a product’s attractiveness, gaining our attention or getting us to buy something we don’t want or need.

Though I don’t think plastic straws fall consistently into that category, they certainly are there mostly for cosmetic purposes and not for functionality. For that reason alone, most of us should just say “no” on a regular basis.
 
It might be tough to draw those last few drops out of your drink without spilling it onto your shirt when  tipping the glass causes the ice to shift and all the liquid comes suddenly shooting towards your face, slipping past your lips and splashing you publicly. But that’s okay.
 
You can live with the embarrassment. That’s what the extra napkin is for. Just say no to the straw. At least the napkin will decompose.