We were in St. Johnsbury today - they don't seem to have quite as much snow as we do here at Joe's Pond, but still things looked a lot more like a normal winter than we've seen so far. We thought things were relatively quiet in town except the grocery stores seemed to be crowded. I guess lots of folks shop on Friday.

We made a quick stop at Allen's Lumber where the snow was piled high because of plowing from both above and below. From their parking lot, I took this shot of the Pormerleau building - St. Johnsbury's railroad station until a few years ago when it became a commercial building with a Chinese restaurant, a fast food place, a video store and the NEK Chamber of Commerce housed there at one time or another. Now it's being updated and the town offices are going to move in soon. It's a lovely old building, and every time I go in I'm disappointed that there are no long gleaming benches with curved backs like church pews and I don't hear the urgent click of the telegraph, there's no barred window with a ticket agent behind it, and no vague smell of cigar smoke. You don't even hear and feel a train outside - I guess if you hung out for a while there might be one eventually, but not like I remember, when just about any time we went "down to the station," a train would come come in, hissing and belching steam with lots of noise as the wheels squealed to a stop.

The railroad station was the meeting place whenever our family went to St. Johnsbury. My father would drop me and my mother or my grandmother off upstreet where the shops were - Weiner's, McLellan's, Nolin's Shoe Store, and Hoveys Shops, and he'd go on to do whatever errands he had, and we'd agree to meet at the station as a certain time. It was a good place to wait, with interesting folks to watch. People spoke in hushed voices, and some had suitcases with one handle and no wheels. Some were saying good-bye to passengers, and some were there to meet passengers; some, like us, were there because it was convenient, and I'm sure some were there just because they liked trains.

There were cobblestones where now there's smooth pavement. And when it was time for a train to come in, there would be a taxi or two waiting. The Avenue House Hotel was a hotel then, not filled with apartments, and there were several restaurants - the Spanish Villa and the Willoughby Diner on Eastern Avenue, the Concord Candy Kitchen on Railroad Street, and later, Ned's - I think that was the name, belonged to Ned Handy - directly across the cobblestoned street where the banks is.

Of course the building will never be the same on the inside as it was years ago, but outside - it looks pretty much the same, thanks to people who appreciate the architecture of this stately old building. It will be interesting to see how these latest renovations change it.

Woody is delighted that he's had his home and humans all to himself again. You can see he's really tired and has to spend lots of time catching up on sleep. He was particularly happy tonight that Fred started a fire in the fireplace. We haven't had one for a while, using the oil furnace, and Woody spent a lot of time staring at the lifeless stove, we think wondering where the warmth was.

After a very brief investigation, Woody tried out his new kitty door in the garage, and seemed to recognize it right away. We wondered if we'd have to retrain him to work it, but we didn't need to worry. Life is back to normal for him - and for us.