SOLTuesday: An Adventure on America’s Deteriorating Transportation System

I was supposed to return to New York this afternoon on an Acela, after a lovely long weekend at niece Emily’s in Salem, Mass. Her husband drove me to South Station in Boston in plenty of time for me to pick up food for dinner on the train. However, when I checked the train board, I saw my 4:15 had the dreaded “Delayed” next to it.

            It was now just 4 p.m. I went to the information booth and the young man there knew nothing. “There’s a delay” was the extent of his knowledge. Around 4:20, there was an announcement: no Amtrak trains would be leaving Boston “until at least 8 p.m.

            Back to the information desk. A woman in a red-beige-white-black print had more information. It appeared that a tree or some trees had fallen on the track, maybe around Providence, and gotten entangled in the electric wires that power the trains. They had to be cleared out and hopefully that would happen before 8  p.m.

            I immediately texted my daughter and my niece, but they were both still at work and didn’t respond.

            For the next couple of hours, that announcement was repeated every 15 minutes, conveying no more information. It did, of course, end with the obligatory “We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

            Lolita, the woman in the print dress, was more forthcoming. At one point, with four young women and me huddled around her wondering what to do next, she pointed out our options: (1) rent a car from Enterprise because they would deliver the car to the station, (2) walk a block or so away to the bus station and take a bus, (3) get a flight and take the MTA to the airport, or (4) change your ticket for a train tomorrow. Or wait for that illusory train sometime after 8. How long does the station stay open? I asked; until all the trains have left, Lolita assured me.

            My niece was the first to call back. Of course, we’ll come get you and you can take a train tomorrow, she said. At the ticket window, my choices were either too early in the morning, or too late. My niece works during the day, her husband at night; their boys are starting school tomorrow. I’m an optimist—there will be a train tonight. I decided to stay at the station.

            Around 6:30, a young woman sitting near me pointed out updates on Twitter. Each tweet announced that “due to ongoing power issues” various numbered trains were terminating somewhere or originating somewhere not Boston. When I saw my Acela originating in Kingston, Rhode Island, I went back to the information desk. The young man had no idea who sent that tweet.

            However, a tweet that all service between Boston and New Haven was suspended “until further notice” alarmed me. “Until further notice” to me means not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe never. There followed a rather wild period of me rushing back to the info desk, getting encouraging words from one worker, but somewhat more measured comments from Lolita, who was besieged, but being as helpful as she could with the limited information she had. Maybe I should try to change my ticket for tomorrow again? But now the line at the ticket window was long. Had I missed my chance? Just in case, I called my niece, who was just sitting down to dinner, to see if she could come get me.

            Outside, I noticed Lolita in more conversation and I thought she might know something more. My daughter called just then and I had to tell her I’d call her when I know something more substantial. Then a new announcement about trains boarding, and my train number was 2173 was among them. Gate 8.

            Finally, I was in a line to get on a train. Texting my niece to say, “there is a train.” Getting on the train and finding a seat and calling my daughter to say, “I’m on a train.” I was in the Quiet car, but half the people there were on their phones to report: “we’re on a train!” The conductor gave us some leeway for maybe 10 minutes. We left Boston at 7:35.

            Somewhere between Providence and Kingston, we stopped for 20 minutes. We were at the disrupted area, which now had only one track open, and waited for three northbound trains to use that track. And tomorrow I will have to call Amtrak to get the Acela fare I paid reduced since I’m not on an Acela now.

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SOLTuesday: Finally, the Colonoscopy

             Two weeks ago I posted about my positive Cologuard test and frustrating effort to get an appointment with a gastroenterologist so I could have a colonoscopy and find out what, if anything, was going on inside of me. Today I had the procedure.

 

The Prep

            If you’re not 50 or older, here’s what prep means. While the New York Times recently reported that it can be done much more easily, Dr. G. prescribed the traditional method, which involves (1) no eating of certain foods like beans, lentils, quinoa, nuts, or seeds for three days before the procedure, (2) no eating AT ALL the day before (that was yesterday), and (3) while you are not eating, you are drinking an entire gallon of yucky tasting, slightly oily liquid that will flow through you stomach and intestines and clean it all out like a squeegee. Oh, you are allowed to have clear broth, soda, Jell-O (which I hate), and Popsicles — the Popsicles I could get behind, and drinking chicken broth did have the slight flavor of food. Also a quantity of ordinary water, which the printed instructions I was given said would make me strong.

            But then you are rushing to the toilet every five minutes and sometimes not quite making it. Or you just spend the whole day sitting on the toilet. Investing in a box of Depends helps if you don’t want to sit on the  toilet all day. And of course, you can’t sleep for fear you will leak into your bed. Shades of toddlerhood!

 

The Procedure

            On the other hand, this was a breeze. Since I was also having an endoscopy, after I got into my hospital gowns and was wheeled into the procedure room, a plastic device was placed in my mouth, so the endoscopy tube could be inserted. “But I can’t swallow” were the last words I spoke before the short-term anesthesia kicked in. The next I was aware of, a nurse was saying I could wake up now, and it was all over. I felt nothing, but was a bit woozy, and a friend met me to accompany me home, where I ate real food.

 

The Report

            I don’t have colon cancer. That’s a relief. And reading Dr. G.’s report was both enlightening and amusing. He found six “sessile polyps,” which the internet informs me are considered to be precancerous, and removed them with “cold bx forceps” (bx is medical for biopsy). But what I liked were all the references to parts of my insides being “unremarkable” — which I suppose is medical for “normal.” Amusing were the photos, and surprising how similar my esophagus and intestine look. Both shiny pink. 

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SOLTuesday: Personal Archives

            I’ve been writing essays about all of the jobs I’ve had in a very checkered career, in between (and following) three different bouts of undergraduate education. Sometimes I was working and going to school at night at the same time, so it seemed appropriate to mention some of my classes.

            This took me to a set of files in my personal archive, a folder containing all my grades while I was at City College (in New York City), as well as a couple of folders of papers I wrote for those classes.

            There are courses on my transcript I have no memory of: Constitutional Law—Individual Liberties; Metropolitan Government and Politics (I was a history major, so those political science classes make sense, but they left no imprint in my brain); Russia Since 1855 (don't remember much of this, either, though this is probably when I read Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s “What Is to Be Done?” about 19th century Russian socialism).

            My school papers, though, are priceless because of comments from professors. On the midterm for the history class on the Progressive Movement is this note: “When will you start speaking up in class?!!!” 

            I’m not sure I ever did, not back in 1966.

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SOLTuesday: Rats!

There were rats, rats, rats as big as cats,
In the store, in the store.
There were rats, rats, rats as big as cats,
In the Quartermaster's store.

 

Maybe I first heard this song on a Burl Ives album, or from Pete Seeger. Wikipedia says it’s an old folk song, dating at least to World War I, or even older, perhaps to the English Civil War of the 17th century. I thought of it this morning.

            I grew up mostly in the country and suburbs, so I never saw a rat until I was living in a city, in Washington, D.C. I was walking home from work and happened to glance to my left, where an alley opened to the street. There was a creature, not as big as a cat, but big, just sitting there, staring out, its eyes red in the twilight. I scurried past it quickly.

            Moving to New York City, the occasional rat has run past me away from the trash bags waiting for the Department of Sanitation. Last year, one was rummaging through a trash basket at the end of my street, and I tried to call the city help line to report it. Perhaps I was successful,
because I haven’t seen any near that trash basket since.

            Then, this morning, out for a walk along Riverside Drive before it got hot, I saw this creature. Obviously dead, dried blood streaking the pavement. What had happened to it? Was it poisoned? Or had some larger creature attacked it? I wasn’t sure which was more unnerving, having a rat run past me, or seeing a dead one on the street. I thought about Albert Camus’s The Plague.

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SOLTuesday: Blast from the Past, 1962

           Fifty-eight years ago last month was the Cuban missile crisis. I was just 20, living in Washington, D.C., and had just started working for a couple of lawyers, while my roommate worked at the School for Advanced International Studies. We had no TV, so when we heard the president was going to address the nation, my roommate’s father picked us up so we could watch the speech.

            We already knew something was up. My roommate’s boss had written an article for the New Republic the month before about Cuba, and with all the rumors and following JFK’s speech, he was inundated with media calls. At the end of each day, as he left the office, he would say, “See you tomorrow, God willing.”

            Our apartment was a block away from Dupont Circle, which had been identified as an air-raid shelter; you know, in case of nuclear attack. My roommate and I spent several evenings discussing what we would do if we heard the air-raid sirens: run for Dupont Circle, or just start drinking all the alcohol we had.

            I often ate my lunch in a little park near my office off Pennsylvania Avenue. After JFK announced the blockade of  Cuba, for a few days, there were dark clouds in the sky to the south. Real clouds, not just my fear.

            A year later, I was living down the street in a communal house. One of the residents had just gotten out of the Army, mostly for talking too kindly about communism. He told us that during the missile crisis, another soldier had said, “We might be going down there.” To which he replied, “You might be, but I’m not. Viva la revolucion!” That was one of the facts the Army held against him.

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.