By Bob Gaydos

Trains! Trains! Trains!

     Long ago and far away, in a bustling, friendly North Jersey place called Bayonne, a young boy (about 5) clambered out of bed in what seemed like the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

     He opened the bedroom door and entered a world of light and laughter and clinking glasses and aunts and uncles and … trains!  Trains! And tracks. And …!

       Oh! Oh! Oh!

    It was explained to the hyper-excited boy trying not to wet his pajamas that Santa had been there and brought the train set and set it up, but was coming back with more presents so the boy had to go quickly go the bathroom and then he could play with the trains for a few minutes and go back to bed and be quiet not to wake his baby sister sleeping in her crib.

       And so he did.

       He expanded on those trains and surrounding accessories for another dozen years with the aid of Santa, parents and aunts and uncles for many more Christmas Eve visits. The layout expanded to cover a side of the living room around a Christmas tree in another, larger, home until eventually, at the “request” of his mother, it moved to the basement.

        Then the boy went off to college and life.

       Those trains, the Lionel New York Central passenger line, are still in good shape, in storage now in a big box in the basement with all the rest, after the long run in Bayonne and a revival bringing joy for that boy’s own two sons some four-plus decades later in Middletown, N.Y.

        That Christmas Eve with Santa’s two-stop visit returned vividly to that young boy’s mind as he listened to the news last night, now some seven decades later. A reminder of a simpler time. 

        A time of family, community, innocence, hope and peace. A time worth remembering and, perhaps, removing from the boxes in the basement.

rjgaydos@gmail.com