So now it’s 1994, and for all practical purposes your poster series is complete. You’ve been on such a roll these last few years that you’re actually ahead of schedule, and at the moment you aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself. The last scheduled print is the one commemorating Milwaukee County Stadium but, although the piece is already designed and ready to go to press, you won’t be releasing it until the new ballpark is a definite Go. In fact, you’ve decided to wait for the Brewers to break ground on the new stadium before releasing the County Stadium print, and that is exactly as it should be. After all, you need the old ball yard to become a memory in order for it to take its rightful place in your series. But the official groundbreaking is over two years away, so now what?

Well, you’ve been working so hard on creating the posters, and stirring memories in others, maybe it’s time you enjoyed them yourself. Maybe it’s you who needs to be stirred into action. All of the pieces in the series have stories, some joyous and some heartbreaking, but each is part of the person you’ve become, and together they represent a visual map of your personal genome. The process has been liberating and even—dare I say it? —Spiritual. But what are these images suggesting you do at this precise moment? I’ll give you a while to think about it, but I think you already know the answer.

That’s right, they are suggesting a well-deserved vacation, a journey…by train. They are calling you to become one with your art, and that’s exactly what you will do. But where will you go? And what train will you ride?

The one you always wanted to ride was the Milwaukee Road Olympian Hiawatha, which could have once taken you all the way from Milwaukee to Seattle, Washington. How wondrous it would have been to ride a beautiful Art Deco appointed streamliner as it cruised majestically past endless prairies, mighty rivers, dense pine forests, and especially snow-capped mountains. And how proud you would have felt that each and every car displayed the name of your hometown. It would be as if the Great Pacific Northwest (and everything in-between) was a part of Milwaukee, connected to your home by a single road…The Milwaukee Road.

But the railroad went out of business for good in the late ‘80s, and The Hiawatha was discontinued in 1971 when the entity known as Amtrak took over the remaining U.S. passenger services throughout the country. Before then, three railroads—The Great Northern, The Northern Pacific and The Milwaukee Road—each ran transcontinental passenger trains from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest: The Empire Builder, The North Coast Limited and, of course, The Olympian Hiawatha. Right now, Amtrak offers only its version of The Empire Builder and, while it isn’t the Milwaukee Road, it’s the closest you’re likely to get. And it’s the one I think you should ride, because ever since you were a very little boy you’ve always wanted to see Montana, and Amtrak’s Empire Builder is the only train that can now get you there.

Why Montana? Well, it all goes back to that USA puzzle map you had as a little boy, doesn’t it? The puzzle was your guide to the future, a map of all the places to which you would someday travel. The states were printed in different colors and carried stylized illustrations and symbols of the things a visitor might encounter there. Florida had palm trees and oranges. California had The Golden Gate Bridge and movie cameras, Texas had The Alamo, Wisconsin had a dairy cow and a wheel of cheese, and Montana had mountains. You’ve always remembered how the Montana piece was deep purple suggesting to you the floor of a huge and mysterious forest. And it had mountains too, snow-capped mountains. And you knew, playing with that puzzle all those years ago, that someday you would go there. And that day has come.

Amtrak’s Empire Builder will take you right to the gates of Glacier National Park, and the trip will prove that whoever designed your puzzle map, knew exactly what they were doing. Montana will be everything you hoped and dreamed it would be: dense pine forests and soaring snow-capped mountains. And, yes, it will have a very Big Sky. You will feel as if you’ve entered one of your posters and, in your heart, you’ll be riding the Olympian Hiawatha after all. Along the way you will reflect not only upon this wonderful journey to the mountains, but also upon the journey of the last few years and, actually, of your entire life. It has been quite a ride, hasn’t it? So go and enjoy yourself, and when you return don’t be surprised if you find yourself itching to add one final piece to the puzzle that is you.

Windows On the West   1994   John T. McCarthy, Jr.   8-color silkscreen

Note to those of us who reside in the future. Here is a link to a 1952 promotional film about the Superdome Olympian Hiawatha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQupCrYLLbk