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When the TSA agent at the Atlanta Airport told me my driver’s license was expired but I could go to my gate I nonetheless knew trouble was probably ahead at my destination of Philadelphia. I was going there to see my mother for the last time before her death last year.

As expected I was not able to rent a car so I made arrangements to go by train. Here began my unplanned trip down memory lane starting at 30th Street Station one of our most magnificent railroad stations. I suddenly remembered Shirl and I bringing Greg and Eric to visit nana and pop pop and my brother and sister’s families abroad the overnight Southern Crescent. Ten years later when the four of us moved to New York City where I did a management turnaround of the American Society of Interior Designers we would take the Metro Liner to 30th Street Station to visit family.

Temple University, where I went to graduate school, was the second stop. Depending on where my first class was determined which of the stops I got off.

The conductor then announced Wayne Junction. My father worked about 100 yards from the station for Brown Instrument. Unfortunately it was a different Brown because later it became Honeywell and the original Browns made millions. Coincidentally many years later Honeywell became my company’s largest client.

“Jenkintown, Jenkintown next.” Now I was really reliving my younger years because within a few hundred yards my grandmother had an art shop with kiln and art supplies that I played with on my Saturday visits.

My grandmother, her husband, my mother and aunt ages 11 and 9 were relocated from Philadelphia to Selma, Ala., in 1927 by Kraft Foods which my grandfather joined after graduating with a degree in Dairy Sciences from Cornell. A year later they moved he and his family to Newton MS. When he became ill he returned by train to upstate New York where he died of surgical complications. Try putting yourself into my grandmother’s situation. It’s 1929 (think Depression), you’re in Newton, Miss., but have spent all but two of your years in the north, you just lost your husband, have two young daughters and no job.

Next stop Glenside is where my father was raised by one of life’s great characters Nana Brown. In the back yard my Uncle Andy had a beer distributor business. I would sometimes accompany my father in the delivery truck sitting on a milk box on the Saturdays when he worked for Uncle Andy.

To the west of the North Hills stations which was our next stop I saw North Hills Country Club where we have had several of our class reunions. Now a flood of fond memories of four great years at Springfield Township High School descended on me.

Next stop was Oreland where my parents bought a house when they were married with three bedrooms and one bath for 5 of us. I could see Perkels Pharmacy where I worked starting as soon as I could get a work permit at age 14. I looked for a pole where I use to hang the mailbag so the speeding train could snatch it when I worked for the post office for several Christmas holidays (remember 3/4 mail deliveries per day over the Christmas holidays?). It’s gone so I assume there’s a different way of getting mail to Philadelphia.

“Fort Washington, Fort Washington” the conductor called out. Suddenly I recalled taking Mr. Nicholas Roosevelt there so he could take the train downtown. I was a chauffer for him and Mrs Roosevelt in the summers before my freshman and sophomore years in college. They stayed at their Highlands Mansion and Gardens part of the year and wintered at another estate in Moncks Corner, SC. Mrs Roosevelt was a Sinkler and from there.

The final stop was Ambler where we played our biggest football rival each Thanksgiving morning; sometimes in the snow. I remember my freshman year they were beating us badly so our coach put in the scrubs which included me a skinny ninth grade guard. When I lined up against a burly defensive lineman he broke out laughing which was not good for my ego. Ambler was also where my best friend and I took newspapers we collected to a plant that paid us. Yes recycling was going on many decades ago.

It has been over a year since I wrote this but it was never run. Having just returned from my college reunion where I had another “flood of fond memories” which mostly happened after the above I’m sending installment one and have started on the second installment.

Rep Jeff Brown (Ret)

LaGrange