The Name Came from a Railroad Track
Before there was a book club there was a weekend in an RV outside Calico, a ghost town in the Mojave. Brian and David flew kites through the afternoons and played guitars after dark. They also toured the town and its cemetery well into the night, which was not, strictly speaking, permitted.
The club came afterwards, and by accident. David was about to start a book. He and Brian had played music together — at church, at other things — so David asked him to read it alongside and talk about it. He asked Bruce as well. Possibly Phil; nobody is certain, and Brian means to ask him.
They joked that this made them a book club. Then they finished the book, picked another one, and it stopped being a joke.
It still had no name.
In 2021 the group went back to Calico together. On an old train trestle, scrawled along one of the rails in handwriting belonging to nobody they would ever meet, were two words: RUST PUNX. Brian photographed it. The club had been going for a year and had just found out what it was called.
The name came from that railroad track.
BOOK CLUB was added to the rail later. By us.
And since
Six years, forty-one books, seven jackets — and a fair amount of getting out of the house.
