thomas wolfe – TOKIDOKI (NOMAD)

I lived in Littlestown as a child and attended Rolling Acres Elementary school. from wiki:

Originally laid out by Peter Klein in 1760, the town was first named “Petersburg”. German settlers in the area came to call the town “Kleine Stedtle”. As confusion between the town and a neighboring town (also named “Petersburg”, now York Springs grew, the town officially changed its name to Littlestown (essentially a translation of “Kleine Stedtle” from German) in 1795.

“I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

14JUL13. Littlestown, PA.

“and felt that one of the most wonderful things in the world is the experience of being on a train. It is so different from watching a train go by. To anyone outside, a speeding train is a thunderbolt of driving rods, a hot hiss of steam, a blurred flash of coaches, a wall of movement and of noise, a shriek, a wail, and then just emptiness and absence, with a feeling of “There goes everybody!” without knowing who anybody is. And all of a sudden the watcher feels the vastness and loneliness of America, and the nothingness of all those little lives hurled past upon the immensity of the continent. But if one is inside the train, everything is different. The train itself is a miracle of man’s handiwork, and everything about it is eloquent of human purpose and direction. One feels the brakes go on when the train is coming to a river, and one knows that the old gloved hand of cunning is at the throttle. One’s own sense of manhood and of mastery is heightened by being on a train. And all the other people, how real they are! – Excerpt From: Wolfe, Thomas. “You Can’t Go Home Again.”