When I was a boy of about ten or twelve, my parents had a station wagon. During outings, my brother and I, being the oldest of the kids, got to sit in the very back, the trunk part, where there were no seats, while our sisters had to sit in the back seat when we traveled. While my father backed the car out of our driveway, my brother and I would sit facing the rear window and pretend we were driving a train. I loved the feeling of power that driving the “train” implied, if it was only for the ten seconds or so that the trip out of the driveway lasted, before the car started moving forward – and backward, from our vantage point looking out the rear window.

Today, when I go on the automated train connecting the different terminals at the DFW or JFK airports, I like to go in the first car, where I can look out the front window. Secretly I pretend I am driving the train. It lasts much longer than backing out of the driveway, and the joy is the same – still.