The chair where Thom sat and read the Record with his morning coffee, the only chair in his one room apartment, was exactly twelve minutes from the chair back stool, swivel, at his counter-top desk at the train station. He had to be ready to answer any tourist’s questions and hopefully sell a ticket by eight-thirty, so he’d leave his apartment by a quarter after eight. Plenty of time. He even had his choice of routes: walk up along the Bayfront which took a little longer; walk the back way along Cordova St. all the way which was a little faster and usually quieter; or the shortest and most uninteresting route, straight up St. George St. It is estimated that six million people visit St. Augustine each year and that half of them walk along St. George St. during their visit. Everyone strolls and stares into store windows or buys an ice cream or stops for a beer and a pizza or spends time studying useless objects that seem artful in the setting of a St. George St. shop. It is the route taken the least by Thom as he walks to the station six mornings a week.
From the time he unlocks the door of the station until he is ready to answer the first question, give the first directions, and sell the first a ticket is just a couple of minutes, but he never has to do any of those things that quickly. First train stops by at nine, and few tourists are stirring before ten. After that the day starts to build up to the mid afternoon peak when tourists start to shift the summer day into the summer night and the trains slowly empty until the last rolls by at a quarter after five and by five thirty the station is dark.
The hours in between unlocking and locking the front door are filled with the routine of addressing the four questions a tourist asks: what, where, when, and how much.
On occasion a tourist will ask why. Those are the moments that divide a day, small strokes of light that split the day into sections of darkness. These are not the why questions that come from questioning process or costs or rules. There are the why questions that come from the desire to know more and to be assured that the experience is significant enough to merit the investment of time.
Even though he seldom got to share his knowledge, Thom knew the city’s history far beyond the dates dividing its periods, the names of its five distinct architectural styles, and the difference between coquina and tabby. Thom knew why the town was there and had been there so long. He saw the threads that made up the city’s fabric, and he saw it in context of what had gone on before, generations before, along these very same street corners he passed each day.