Flying
on today, out to San Francisco.
This direction you get the bonus hours added to your day, so that you
leave at noon on a five-hour flight and get there at 1:00PM. I remember the last time I rode out to
Kennedy we went out along Eastern Parkway through Brownsville where I used to
teach twenty-five years ago. We
had a day care center in the high school as there were so many students who
were also parents. And all those
little children now twenty-five year olds. Remarkable.
Yesterday I needed to take a train back into the city, from
Hackensack, NJ. It was my first
time in Hackensack. I was in a
glass tower, across from two malls.
The train station was mercifully close to the office and when I got
there I looked for the station to buy a ticket. There is no station building and certainly no one selling
tickets anywhere. Instead, a
machine.
Next train will be arriving in about thirty-minutes. A bit longer than I hoped but according
to the schedule I could do worse.
My default for commuter rail is what I know about the other side of the
Hudson from here in Westchester. Though
I was born and lived for about six months in a town not far from here all my
conscious memories and certainly all my conscious railroad memories are from
across on the New York side.
There, within an hour of the City the trains should run every hour and
further out from there, every hour.
But suburban New Jersey does not appear to be served so well.
The machine was easy enough to use. I got my ticket and pondered the one
track before me. I could guess
which direction New York was, but I wasn’t sure. This lady will know.
Friendly, she confirmed that the train would be there soon. Within a moment I’d clarified that, in
fact, I was from here, sort of, and knew a thing or two about Westchester
trains but nothing about New Jersey Transit. Listening, I confirmed that locals don’t think much of the
regularity of service either.
And, in spite of my aching tiredness and my imposing
headphones and the abundance of free seats, this lovely older woman and I
struck up a conversation. Soon we
were 谈古论今[1] She
was retired. She’d worked her
whole life at RCA, in Rockefeller Center.
RCA owned NBC, where she’d migrated to internally. And then, it was bough by GE. She talked about Neutron Jack Welsh and
how he cut staff mercilessly but drove the share price higher and higher and
that commuters' New York of my parents generation and the days of working for
one company your whole life long filled out before me.
Marge was this woman’s name. I told her about China, and what its like to raise a family
in Beijing. And she was interested
and informed which was refreshing.
She mentioned that she and husband were Members of the Asia Society,
which I was thrilled to hear.
Later she mentioned she was a member of the Korea Society as well, which
just about left me gob smacked.
I’d have probably gotten lost changing trains in Secaucus,
without Marge’s help. A new
station I learned. We chatted
amicably, each considering the bits we were assembling about the other’s
life. Still fresh within my
homeland reentry mind, this retired commuter’s tale was fresh and
memorable. And we’d have probably
gone on for a bit till we arrived at Penn Station where we went our separate
ways.
Now, Penn Station is a blight. I believe it must slowly, dismally affect all the people
from New Jersey and Long Island who use it, every day. Obviously once upon a time there was an
ennobling national landmark here.
Now there is a dirty, low ceilinged, dark series of tunnels that call out
to no one to aspire to anything other than their train. And all the people who travel in every
day from Westchester and Connecticut get to pass through Grand Central. This process, times a million
souls a day, must harden mindsets, stereotypes, aspirations. I walked across to Eighth Avenue and caught the A Train down to West Fourth to change for the F.
Up above, the other night at the Vanguard I’d mentioned that Mark
Turner was the tenor player and the composer of a number of the tunes. I have him on the earphones now. An album called Dharma Days from 2001
has arrived at a spacious, wispy tune called “Casa Oscurra.” I don’t think Mark smiled once the
other night, but he features a big Colgate quality set of upper front teeth on
this album’s cover. Ohio born, a
year or so older than me, sounds like he grew up in California and his main
influence is apparently Wayne Marsh whom I don’t know well, but will find out
more about now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Turner_(musician)
It’s raining outside.
It will make for an atmospheric ride through Crown Heights, Brownsville
and East New York, on my way to JFK in an hour or so.
[1] tángǔlùnjīn: to talk of the past and discuss the
present (idiom) / to chat freely / to discuss everything
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