A Prayer For Owen Meany

by John Irving

"But every time we rode the train to Sawyer Depot, my mother and I weighed the advantages of sitting on the left-hand side of the train so that we could see Mt. Chocorua - or on the right-hand side of the train, so that we could see Ossipee Lake. Chocorua was our first indication of how much snow there would be where we were going but there's more visible activity around a lake than there is on a mountian-and so we would sometimes "opt for Ossipee," as Mother and I described our decision. We also played a game that involved guessing where everyone was going to get off, and I always ate too many of those little tea sandwiches that they served on board, the kind with the crusts cut off; this overeating served to justify my inevitable trip to the lurching pit with the railroad ties going by underneath me, in a blur, and the whoosh of the rank air the blew upward on my bare bottom."