Train of Thought
As far as I'm concerned, trains are the very best way to travel. You might think I made this decision as I read four chapters of my all-time favorite book with the Pacific Ocean lapping against the shore on my right. Or when, having pulled the curtain closed to shut out the interior lights from reflecting on the window, I ducked my head under those same curtains to look up into the New Mexico night sky and saw, for the third time in my life, the band of stars that make up the Milky Way. Or maybe when I woke up on Tuesday morning to see small frozen ponds and the remains of a recent snow in Iowa.
But no, it was at none of those times that I made up my mind. Nor was it during the two meals I shared with a couple from Missouri, recently moved to Riverside, CA, in which I learned as much about them and their family history as I know about many of the people I wouldn't be off the mark in calling "friends." Nor was it the rich strawberry cheesecake that came with dessert. It wasn't even when, sitting in one of the retaurant style booths in the lounge car, prepared to pass four or five of the last hours of the trip reading up on some exciting academic thriller, a 7-year old came up and asked if he could sit across from me cause he had a book to work on, too. (It was a Disney themed math book. We worked on everything from telling time to going shopping with a handful of change. Though I think Disney was being a bit disingenuous about our "shopping trip"--really, when was the last time a Disney movie poster cost 65 cents?)
No, I can tell you the exact time I made my decision. It was sitting at the Corner Bakery in Chicago's Union Station during my layover. I was waiting for my friend Debbie to show up, sitting at table just off the busiest thoroughfare in the station. The flow of people reminded me of the various "ant highways" that I have seen in the Santa Ynez apartment complex, though I doubt I have ever seen this many ants. Between 4:45 and 5:05 when Debbie showed up, how many people scurried past? Several hundred? Several thousand? There was no way I could have counted. Just a never ending stream of people--one stream flowing down the stairs from the Metra lines into the food court and then either parting to my left and the way down to the street or to my right to the rest of the food court and the Amtrak lines. One stream (flowing uphill!) from the street below up to the same intersection and then up to the Metra or right to the food. And the third stream which, coming from the food court forked right and left up and down. And somehow, the streams never merged, never broke flow. They just whirled and swirled and kept right on going.
What was at the center of this confluence? What stood out just above the vortex of swirling waters? Hanging down from the ceiling, with a separate display facing in each of the four cardinal directions, a digital clock. Foot-high neon green digital numbers. Hours. Minutes. Even seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick. Another second gone. Hurry up. Gotta move. No time to lose. Time is money. Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was a psychological experiment done on students at a prominent seminary, preparing to become ministers in various Christian denominations. The psychologists (probably suspicious of the effectiveness of such an endeavor, by the way) wanted to learn something about helping behavior. So they created two groups (you always have to divide people up between the clean and the unclean). Both groups were told this was a study on public speaking and stress. Both groups were told to prepare a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then to proceed across campus to another building where they would give the sermon. The only difference was that one group was told the group they were to speak too would be hearing lots of others and time was not important. The other group was told there was a tight schedule to stick to, and that they should hurry over to give their sermon right away.
Now for the real experiment. On the way across the campus a man was set up in a condition in which it was clear he was in desperate need of help--just the kind of help the man in the parable had needed. Do you think the seminary students, ready to sermonize on the virtues of helping others in need, stopped?
Yes and no. The ones that were taking their time stopped pretty regularly. Those that were on a schedule hurried on by, and in some cases, never even noticed the person in need of help.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tock.
Of course, that clock was about trains too--but primarily about those short-range trains of the Metra. You could tell the difference in the Amtrak passengers. No hurry. No worry. No expectation that their train was going to leave on time. And even less expectation that it would arrive "on time." In fact, both my trains were around two hours late getting in. Shrug.
More time to gaze at New Mexico mountains. More time to meet a young woman with two kids, desperately in need of sleep on a trip from Oregon to Florida, who seemed grateful that I was willing to indulge her four year-old in card games with the previously mentioned seven-year old. Somehow, I lost every game, as the two of them seemed content to make up their own rules. But I didn't mind. When he corrected my phrase, "You beat her that game" to "No, it's beated. Beat-ed," I think I learned more about language than in all of Derrida's circumlocutory babble. And when the girl started dealing the cards by turning them over, looking at them, and then determining she should give all the best cards to her new 7 year-old friend, I think I learned more about social collectivity than in all of Foucault's endless analysis.
And when the boy's new step-father (his actual father is in heaven now), with the smell of alcohol not just on his breath but emanating from his whole body came to take the boy back to a mother who looked to be in a drug-induced daze, I understood why this boy had sought me out, and had come up with new activity after new activity for hours so he wouldn't have to go back to his seat. Cards. Math homework. Pencil fights. He even shared his Doritos and root beer with me. I didn't ask. He insisted.
On a plane, he would have just been an annoying yelling, kicking, distracting menace. On a train, you get a slice of this boy's whole life. And you have the time to wonder--who will help him with his math tomorrow?
But no, it was at none of those times that I made up my mind. Nor was it during the two meals I shared with a couple from Missouri, recently moved to Riverside, CA, in which I learned as much about them and their family history as I know about many of the people I wouldn't be off the mark in calling "friends." Nor was it the rich strawberry cheesecake that came with dessert. It wasn't even when, sitting in one of the retaurant style booths in the lounge car, prepared to pass four or five of the last hours of the trip reading up on some exciting academic thriller, a 7-year old came up and asked if he could sit across from me cause he had a book to work on, too. (It was a Disney themed math book. We worked on everything from telling time to going shopping with a handful of change. Though I think Disney was being a bit disingenuous about our "shopping trip"--really, when was the last time a Disney movie poster cost 65 cents?)
No, I can tell you the exact time I made my decision. It was sitting at the Corner Bakery in Chicago's Union Station during my layover. I was waiting for my friend Debbie to show up, sitting at table just off the busiest thoroughfare in the station. The flow of people reminded me of the various "ant highways" that I have seen in the Santa Ynez apartment complex, though I doubt I have ever seen this many ants. Between 4:45 and 5:05 when Debbie showed up, how many people scurried past? Several hundred? Several thousand? There was no way I could have counted. Just a never ending stream of people--one stream flowing down the stairs from the Metra lines into the food court and then either parting to my left and the way down to the street or to my right to the rest of the food court and the Amtrak lines. One stream (flowing uphill!) from the street below up to the same intersection and then up to the Metra or right to the food. And the third stream which, coming from the food court forked right and left up and down. And somehow, the streams never merged, never broke flow. They just whirled and swirled and kept right on going.
What was at the center of this confluence? What stood out just above the vortex of swirling waters? Hanging down from the ceiling, with a separate display facing in each of the four cardinal directions, a digital clock. Foot-high neon green digital numbers. Hours. Minutes. Even seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick. Another second gone. Hurry up. Gotta move. No time to lose. Time is money. Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was a psychological experiment done on students at a prominent seminary, preparing to become ministers in various Christian denominations. The psychologists (probably suspicious of the effectiveness of such an endeavor, by the way) wanted to learn something about helping behavior. So they created two groups (you always have to divide people up between the clean and the unclean). Both groups were told this was a study on public speaking and stress. Both groups were told to prepare a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then to proceed across campus to another building where they would give the sermon. The only difference was that one group was told the group they were to speak too would be hearing lots of others and time was not important. The other group was told there was a tight schedule to stick to, and that they should hurry over to give their sermon right away.
Now for the real experiment. On the way across the campus a man was set up in a condition in which it was clear he was in desperate need of help--just the kind of help the man in the parable had needed. Do you think the seminary students, ready to sermonize on the virtues of helping others in need, stopped?
Yes and no. The ones that were taking their time stopped pretty regularly. Those that were on a schedule hurried on by, and in some cases, never even noticed the person in need of help.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tock.
Of course, that clock was about trains too--but primarily about those short-range trains of the Metra. You could tell the difference in the Amtrak passengers. No hurry. No worry. No expectation that their train was going to leave on time. And even less expectation that it would arrive "on time." In fact, both my trains were around two hours late getting in. Shrug.
More time to gaze at New Mexico mountains. More time to meet a young woman with two kids, desperately in need of sleep on a trip from Oregon to Florida, who seemed grateful that I was willing to indulge her four year-old in card games with the previously mentioned seven-year old. Somehow, I lost every game, as the two of them seemed content to make up their own rules. But I didn't mind. When he corrected my phrase, "You beat her that game" to "No, it's beated. Beat-ed," I think I learned more about language than in all of Derrida's circumlocutory babble. And when the girl started dealing the cards by turning them over, looking at them, and then determining she should give all the best cards to her new 7 year-old friend, I think I learned more about social collectivity than in all of Foucault's endless analysis.
And when the boy's new step-father (his actual father is in heaven now), with the smell of alcohol not just on his breath but emanating from his whole body came to take the boy back to a mother who looked to be in a drug-induced daze, I understood why this boy had sought me out, and had come up with new activity after new activity for hours so he wouldn't have to go back to his seat. Cards. Math homework. Pencil fights. He even shared his Doritos and root beer with me. I didn't ask. He insisted.
On a plane, he would have just been an annoying yelling, kicking, distracting menace. On a train, you get a slice of this boy's whole life. And you have the time to wonder--who will help him with his math tomorrow?