From Ludington, to Mexico, via New Orleans

September 26th, 2008 at 03:16pm Chuck Sweeny

Derek Boals takes trains for this simple reason: the 38-year old resort owner from Ludington, Mich., doesn’t like to fly. He’s riding The City of New Orleans to catch a cruise ship to Mexico, where he plans to go fishing and scuba diving.

SCOTT MORGAN | RRSTAR.COM
Derek Boals of Ludington, Mich. (left) and Joe Kulesza of Las Vegas, Nev., sit together Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, on the City of New Orleans Amtrak train between Chicago and New Orleans, La.

Boals, who also owns a Dairy Queen in Ludington,  joins in  a lively conversation in the train’s dining car, which doubles as a bar car; it seems the closer this train gets to New Orleans, the louder the crowd in this car gets. There’s the southern version of the aging hippie, who followed the Allman Brothers around the Southland the way northern-types chased after the Grateful Dead. The minister who wants us to guess that he really looks like Denzel Washington, and the waitress who doesn’t want me to use her name but lets me know she’s for Obama because he supports Amtrak and McCain votes against funding it. “It’s about preserving my job” she says.

But I digress. Back to Derek Boals.

He admires John McCain because he was a POW who turned down a chance to leave prison early because the other prisoners would not be let go, too. Boals said he’s glad that John McCain will be showing up at Ole Miss tonight to debate Barack Obama. McCain had suspended his campaign and suggested postponing the debate because of the financial crisis affecting Wall Street.

“I like McCain but I am not a big fan of Sarah Palin. I don’t think she has any business being vice president. But he might win the presidency because of it.” Boals, who is independent-minded, says he’d rather have Hillary Clinton run for veep.

Boals is our first interviewee who uses alcohol analogies to describe the Wall Street crisis.

“You don’t drink 25 beers and not have a hangover the next day. You can delay the hangover when you wake up by having a bloody Mary.” He’s not a fan of bailouts.

Boals is concerned about Michigan’s economy, which is suffering from the loss of thousands of factory jobs. He reckons his resort’s business is down 5 percent this year.

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