Feeling like a teenybopper
Age is generally a relative thing. Let’s say you are, oh, 35 years old. Go to a Jonas Brothers concert and you’ll be as ancient as the redwoods compared to other people in the joint. Stop by a retirement community and you’ll be a mere stripling compared to everyone else. Today I got the 6:56 to Flatbush Avenue after arriving in Ronkonkoma on the shuttle, it being an M-3 consist for a change. I was able to get a single seat, though given the relatively low level of crowding in the car it wasn’t necessarily a big accomplishment. What I noticed, indeed couldn’t help but notice, is that almost all of the other riders in the car were men in late middle age or above. There were hardly any women and hardly any men under 55. Compared to most other trains the 6:56’s ridership skews male and older, but never to anything like this extreme. Today’s train should have been called the Flomax Express … okay, Flomax Local. You know what I mean. We made it to Brooklyn without any riders having died of old age, quite a miracle if you ask me, and for a bit of a change I got a 5 train to Fulton instead of my usual 2/3. Unlike the 6:56, it was quite crowded, and also unlike the 6:56, there actually were some people without gray hair.
I got to Penn quickly enough after work, on a 3 from Fulton, though as soon as I entered the LIRR concourse at Penn I knew from the crowding that something was up. What I saw was more than just the crowding that one would expect on the start of a long weekend. It turned out that service had been suspended on the Huntington and Port Jefferson lines due to a derailment west of Huntington. Of all wretched times to have such a situation. Of course it did not directly affect me, but it could just as easily have happened on the Ronkonkoma line. I got the 5:41 to Ronkonkoma, absolutely jammed today, and the crowding was made worse by the luggage many riders were carrying. A 50ish woman took the seat next to me and spent much of the time on her cell phone. Of course I had my iPod to cover the sound, and in any event the noise level in the car was much louder than usual what with the weekend travelers. As we approached the Hicksville stop the conductor announced that service to Huntington and Port Jefferson had been restored. I later found out that the derailment was fairly minor, just one set of wheels on one car off the track, and that it had been caused when a broken water main had undermined a track section. We made an unscheduled stop at Deer Park, with no announcement why, but made it to Ronkonkoma and the shuttle on time.
Gym: after five days in a row, I was just too worn out to go tonight.
