On a sunrise power walk before my injury, I passed by the caboose that sits on a platform near our museum. I loved how the light of the rising sun kissed the side of the old train car. I was fortunate enough on a quick photo stop, to catch what I saw.

This morning, as I was editing the photo for size and thinking about the caboose, I smiled in the realization that something so common in my not too distant past was now historical museum material.

In the 1980’s, with the advancement in technology, the caboose was rendered an unnecessary expense. That decade seems like yesterday to me. Our daughter was a toddler when the caboose was still commonplace and I remember how she’d be so excited to see it at the end of a passing train. There’s another entire generation born since then who would have no idea of what a caboose is or what it was used for.

Because I generally feel pretty youthful for my age, I can’t help being amused about the numerous obsolete things from my lifetime that are now museum material. Perhaps this was a bit of a reality check.

“History was, is, a one-way street. You have to keep walking forwards, but you don’t always need to look ahead. Sometimes you can just look around and be happy right where you are.”

Matt Haig