Wave good-bye as the Boomer train leaves the station

We staged a farewell lunch for a work colleague today. She's moving on to greener pastures, and by that I mean another job. That's what young people do, move on. It's the circle of life.

Ten of us dined at the Albany which, as you locals know, is right across the street from the UP train station, now known as the Cheyenne Historic Depot. Twentieth-century passengers used to eat at the Albany before their trains departed for Chicago and San Francisco. There also was a Burlington Northern Depot, which has been torn down.

I rode trains as a kid growing up in the fifties. By the time I was in my teens, I had switched to air travel, as did most Americans. At 16, I was driving a car and have been ever since. Train travel was passe. Slow and annoying. Kind of like us Baby Boomers, now reaching retirement in alarming numbers.

I thought about this at lunch. Half of us were new employees from several different departments. They all had moved on from other jobs, as young people do. I was the oldest one at the long table. We conversed, had fun, teased the departing one. As the only one with a camera, I shot photos. Not to say nobody else could take pictures. I probably was the only one there lacking a smartphone equipped with the usual snazzy camera. I have a dumb phone. "They won't trust me with a smartphone," I sometimes joke. My colleagues have heard it more than once.

Pretty soon, I will head out the door of my workplace for the last time. Retired at 65, wondering where all the time went. I'll walk on down to the Historic Depot and climb aboard the train that takes Boomers to wherever we go when we retire.

All aboard!