This story takes place early 1958. At that time cross country travel was still very much by rail since air travel was comparatively expensive. The Royal Canadian Air force (RCAF) also moved new recruits by rail and I was one of those new recruits. I boarded the train in Calgary Alberta destine for a training station in Quebec. I was looking forward to a rather boring 5 days on the train. The only entertainment was reading books etc. or sitting by a window watching the country go by. The passenger trains usually had a "Dome Car" of some sort which was often the place people went to watch the scenery go by during the day.
After I settled on the train, I decided to walk the isles of the passenger section, I was, like any young man, on the lookout for young women. I saw three; one I would get to know much better later as Jenny. After waking the whole passenger section, I sat five or six seats behind Jenny. I wanted to see if she was with someone on the train. No one joined her.
When dinner was announced I was in the lineup in a flash. As an 18-year-old, I had an insatiable appetite. In the dining car seating was first come first serve so all the tables soon had people at them with empty seats at most tables. When I was about to leave Jenny came in alone. I hoped she would come to sit at my table, wishful thinking, she didn't.
The next morning for breakfast I arrived about Β½ hour after breakfast started and when I walked into the diner Jenny was already seated. There were seats on each side of her, but I was too shy to just walk over and sit next to her.
I decided if she was alone in the passenger car this morning, I would ask to sit beside her. After all it couldn't be worse than asking a girl for a dance. Later when I stopped at Jennifer's seat, she looked up at me with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I asked and she nodded and picked her sweater off the seat.
I sat for a moment not sure how to start a conversation and settled on asking where she was going. She answered to a small town in Ontario of course she asked the same of me.
Once the ice was broken, we were talking so fast we could hardly wait for the other to finish to start a reply. At lunch time we made our way to the diner and there was no question we would sit together. Jenny wanted to catch up on letter writing in the afternoon, so we agreed to meet in the diner at supper time.