Baker's heartbeat

Amtrak passenger train arrives in Galesburg, Ill. There we are, in our coach seats, for $90 total, round-trip The bullett-shaped, silver engine and passenger train came around a bend en route to the railroad station in Galesburg, Ill., and this passenger was ready to record the moment. It was the Baker's first "vacation" train trip in more than 30 years of marriage; we've been on metro trains in New York City, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Chicago, but this was a first for traveling from our home on a weekend vacation. We are in good company. According to Amtrak, the publicly-funded network carried 31.7 million passengers in fiscal year 2018. I started this process by buying the tickets. One initial challenge came with the website, Amtrak.com. I punched in "Princeton, Ill." as the station of origin, and nothing happened. After repeated tries, I called AAA Travel for help, and the advisor suggested using Galesburg, Ill., as the train station of ch

Baby Myla, at two months old It was 1977 and this Iowa State University student was searching for another class to take. "Target riflery" fit nicely into the schedule, and I, 19 years old, trotted off to the university's Old Gym to learn about caring for and shooting (1) rifles; and (2) pistols. I turned out to be pretty good in the program and it was one of my most memorable ISU classes. I tell this to show I have no particular hatred of guns, but it is so clearly past time for our legislators to pass common-sense gun control measures. I, like many Americans, am appalled and saddened by not one, but two mass shootings in a matter of hours this past weekend. In addition, it was a bloody weekend in Chicago, where some 60 people were shot and seven died. "Back-to-back nightmares," reads the headlines in Monday's Quad-City Times. As of Sunday, it is reported that 252 people have been killed or injured in a mass shooting incident. This is so far, in