My Vancouver friends would tell me that I was staying in probably the worst neighborhood in the city. From the train station to my hotel, the homeless roam their streets. Outside my hotel, the encampments are the transit residences to clusters of people, huddling, sharing and, in general, just looking after each other

Since this first Christmas without Carolyn is a first rate train wreck, it’s appropriate I’m riding Amtrak’s Cascades line to Vancouver, BC. Upon boarding, I did stifle the impulse to ask the conductor to show me the emergency brake, just to prove to me he knew where it was.