I am sitting on a Long Island Railroad train to Penn Station, Manhattan. Spent the weekend on Long Island with Mom. I love Long Island, but I hate the Long island Railroad. I mean, it’s great that we have the LIRR, but I have the right to hate it, don’t I? I’ve traveled on it for the past 30 years. The LIRR is the reason why I now live in Manhattan. I was so sick of using the damn thing that I moved out of Long Island because of it!
I hate it for several reasons; it is expensive, during rush hour you can’t get a seat, even though you paid an arm and a leg for your monthly ticket, if it drizzles out the trains stop running, it is seldom on time, ticket prices increase every year and service stays the same, you can’t get a parking spot in the parking lots of the stations, changing at Jamaica, the gap.
Shall I continue?
I suppose that’s enough for now.
My relationship with the LIRR began many years ago, when I would spend the summer at temp jobs in the city. I’d travel in with my father, who commuted daily. He was very regimented, to say the least (OCD is more like it). We’d have to sit on the same seat in the same car every day. The smoker car. Well, actually, when I first started riding they ALL were smoker cars. You could cut the smoke with a knife.
After a few years, smoking was limited to a certain couple of cars, “The Smoker Cars” or just “The Smokers”. The smoke was even worse in there. And through the tobacco haze, there I was, I inhaling all the lovely toxins that the smokers exhaled. It didn’t really bother me at the time. I’d grown up with my father’s second hand smoke all my life.
I remember, a woman would bring along her five-year-old daughter every day. In the smoker. I think back on it now, and can’t believe she did that to that poor child! I can just imagine what the girl is like now; wrinkled, grey skin, and hacking up lugis.
Back then, I’d wear my most fabulous pumps with my most fabulous outfit and walk through the streets of the city that way. All the time, trying to catch up with my Pop, who was power walking in his most fabulous shoes and most fabulous suit. Never slowing down for a moment. I was mostly behind him the entire way. We’d stop for coffee and a cinnamon bun, and continue on our way.
Pop taught me a lot, those summers. How to maneuver the city as well as the commute. It was an education. He educated several of us over his 40 years of commuting; me, Sookie, our across the street neighbor (and my first crush) Tommy, and our cousin Sam.
Years later, after Pop retired, I’d do the commute on my own. That’s when I taught myself how to use the subway system. It was a difficult commute, as I had to get to the Upper East Side once arriving at Penn Station. So, then, sometimes I would drive instead. That was also no picnic either. Sometimes taking two and a half hours door to door. I would think, “Which was the lesser of the two evils? Driving or training?” Both sucked.
After twenty years of this, I tried reducing my commute time by moving to a town which had the shortest LIRR commute, like Rockville Center and Merrick, Long Island. I also looked for apartments in these towns, but walking distance from the train station, so to lessen the commute time even more. But even this was not good enough. Better. But not good enough.
That’s when I decided to bite the bullet and try my luck in Manhattan. That’s when the love affair began.
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