|
Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. Competitive Commuting by J. G. Fabiano
I discovered a new sport the other day; it had nothing to do with breaking records or winning titles. It had nothing to do with organized sport or the winning of large sums of money but it had everything to do with survival! We've never seen this type of sport in Maine. In order for us to do what we have to do, to support our families, all we had to do was show up. Showing up had little stress because it usually entailed a short drive down a rarely-crowded highway or back road. However, like everything else in this world, times are changing. The population of our now very popular community has increased exponentially over the past twenty years. More and more people are making York their homes because it represents what life should be. There is little industry to support this population boom so many of our new citizens have to travel long distances in order to get to work. This necessity has crowded our roads and made life a bit more difficult for people who yearned for a better quality of life. A new means of transportation evolved from this increase in population. The train is now becoming part of a new routine to get people to their high-paying jobs in Boston, Portland, or New York. In fact, this new means of transportation has become so popular that Amtrak had to increase the number of passenger cars. But, this also produced a new type of sport that takes place every morning before 7:00 am and every afternoon around 5:00PM. This sport is called competitive commuting. In Wells or Exeter this competition is minor league. There are a few people attempting to get the best seats but everyone is still able to stretch out and enjoy their journey up north to Portland or south to Boston. The trip down to Boston gets a bit tricky as soon as you hit South Station. This is because if one has to travel down to New York City or Washington DC you have to somehow get over to North Station. I think they did this to get people used to the competition that was about to begin. There are a couple of ways one can transfer stations. You can take the "T" but that entails changing trains about three times. Since I still get lost in York I figured if I attempted this means of transportation I would end up somewhere in Indiana. The next best way to make the transfer is by taxi. This sounds easy but remember there is a whole bunch of people making this transfer at the same time. Plus there is that process of digging the largest, most expensive hole in the world going on in Boston. So as soon as you leave South Station you are in the midst of total chaos. Let the competition begin!
I made it to North Station just in time to pay the ransom charged by the cab driver, buy a cup of coffee, and then throw it away because I had no time to drink it. Off I ran to the track I was supposed to get on and to my surprise I actually got on the right train. The ride from Boston was ok, mainly because I was comparatively comfortable with the fact that I could not get lost. Of course, that did not mean that the train did not have the capacity to break down. I sat on Route 128 in Massachusetts for about an hour and then off to New York's Penn Station I rolled. As soon as I arrived at Penn Station I knew that I made a logistical mistake. At first this was not apparent but when I climbed from where I exited Amtrak to Penn Station I was in the midst of more people than I have ever seen in one place in my entire life. This particular blunder was that I arrived a precisely 5:00 pm. I was awed by the amount of people jammed into the station; all waiting to take the train to their homes via The Long Island Rail Road. I panicked! It took me about 30 minutes to find the ticket counter. At first I attempted to use the automated machine but it proved much to difficult for me to figure out. Bio-informatics should be so complicated. I pushed my way to the ticket counter, paid my $8.50, and the person behind the ticket counter mumbled something to me as he gave me my change. I think he said a short prayer. My mellow Maine personality had to change. I found myself walking very fast and all of a sudden had the capacity to weave in and out of people while knocking only small women and children to the side. The big women at this particular station scared the heck out of me. I then noticed that everyone was looking up at a large black sign at the front of the station. The sign was making continuous clicking sounds as it showed everyone who needed to know what train was leaving when and from where. I joined the crowd. Pavlov's dog had nothing on me. I looked down at the ticket I was given. It was about an inch square and had some kind of a language on it that I couldn't understand. I think it was Arabic but the only think I could read was a number that said 18. I looked up at the black board and noticed that the name Huntington Station appeared but it was not loading. I also noticed that there were 25 other gates. The crowds no longer threatened me because if I divided all of the people jammed into the station by 25 it really wasn't that bad. The board started clicking like a wild animal would after eating a very bony animal and stated that Gate 18 could now be loaded. The entire population of Penn Station emptied into Gate 18. I was immediately transported to the ally and stairs that led down to Gate 18. I am not saying that I walked or ran toward the gate. I am saying that I had no choice because I was swept up in the crowd like an old piece of driftwood would be slammed onto the beach during a major Nor'Easter. As I was being carried by the crowd down the stairs I noticed a few of the small women and children I had earlier pushed aside. They had a smile on their faces; irony was theirs. The swarm of people now pushed their way toward the openings in the train. It was a perfect example of diffusion in that I was going from an area of greater concentration to an area of lesser concentration. Or at least that is what I thought. The only problem with this theory was that I discovered that there were more people in the train than waiting to get on board. The concept of sitting down became a myth. I was immediately planted by a large mural of a woman's face holding out her tongue showing a malignant tumor on it. The caption read that oral cancer should be checked and that it no longer hurt. I can tell you for a fact that having my face pushed against the tongue of a woman with oral cancer on her tongue does hurt! I spent the next hour with my new poster-friend unable to move or sometimes breathe. People came and people went. I did not move. After an hour of counting my new fictional friend's teeth for the twelfth time I was finally catapulted outside the train at my appointed station. Looking as the train rolled off into the horizon I knew that I just had my first and hopefully last experience with competitive commuting. I also came to the total realization that I had lost! The End
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
