Riding a train for long distances gives you the opportunity to meet people that you usually wouldn't. For example, the waiters/waitresses force people to sit together even if there are other tables open so that you interact with your fellow passengers. If you sit in the lounge car, it's inevitable that someone will sit with you and start chatting. And I engaged in several interesting conversations: a coal miner from West Virginia whose family worked in the train industry for generations, a woman who rides the trains periodically as a vacation, a Vietnam vet who returned from the war to become a taxi driver and one night his passenger shot a man in front of him.

And then there's this: A middle-aged woman — I want to make this very clear that this woman was at least in her forties — said to me, "Have you heard about this thing that happened to the Jews called the Hologram? I saw it on The History Channel a few weeks ago. It's so sad." It took all of my effort to keep my face straight and not look at her in horror. There was no way I was continuing that line of conversation without sounding condescending.