SOUND IN THE NIGHT

He was freckled faced and scrawny; over 6 feet with a head full of thick, red hair. Bryan was a new college friend of my son Bob, it was midnight and they had just arrived at our home for a weekend visit.

We lived out in the country, in an old, turn-of-the-century farmhouse, and it was still in pretty rough condition.

I was in the process of restoring it and had finished most of the downstairs, but our "Guest Room" was upstairs and had not yet been touched.

The heavy counterweights clunked inside the window as I raised it to air out the room. The glass panes were wavy and cracked and the old wallpaper seemed to be ungluing itself in several places.

Bryan smiled as he sat his suitcase at the foot of our antique bed and looked around. Just then it started to rain and the drops did a little dance on the tin roof outside the window. In the distance, our 1 a.m. train began it's long wail and would pass by within 100 yards of our front door.

Bryan smiled again, looked at me and said: "Oh man, you've even got a train ! This is so cool!" - "What do you mean? I said, "I was about to apologize for the condition of the room."

"Oh, no- please don't apologize Sir," he said, "I grew up in a house just like this over in West Virginia, and that train just took me home!"