The Old Coot rides the rails.
By Merlin Lessler
I took a train to Florida the other day. Me and 400 other
snow birds. A few young couples with kids were mixed in, much to their dismay,
but most of us were old guys and our long suffering wives. The train left from
Lorton, Virginia at 4 pm, first loading the automobiles and then the cattle
(us). It was an easier job to load the four door sedans and SUV’s than the
horde of cranky, old humanoids. We waddled to our seats, lugging bags of
reading materials, electronic devices, blankets and pillows and settled down
for a “long winter’s nap,” expecting to wake from our comas at 9 AM in
Sandford, Florida (just east of Orlando).
Picture this! Hundreds of old coots like me, who can’t walk
a straight line on solid ground, maneuvering about on a rolling, jerking train,
trying to navigate through narrow aisles and lurching doors, which made loud
swishing sounds as they flew open and closed so fast that they startled and
distracted us. At first, we didn’t know we were supposed to push a button to
open the door. We stood in front of it, assuming it would open automatically,
like the ones in grocery stores. It created a traffic jam, until some
know-it-all in the back shouted, “Push the button DUMMY!” (not me)
Then, the line moved through the exit door on one car, three
feet, to the closed entrance door of the next car, confronting the “dummy” at
the front of the line with another challenge. Apparently the memory of pushing
a button to open a sliding door doesn’t remain in an old coot’s short term
memory after taking three steps, so the know-it-all in the back (not me) had to
provide instruction, yet again.
There I was, locked on a fifty car auto-train with hundreds
of my people, unsteady on our feet, moving around in a daze, hurtling south on
wiggly train tracks, laid down a century earlier. The hard of hearing old coots
yelled to their wives, who shouted in reply, to avoid hearing, “WHAT?” after
every sentence. Others, yelled into their cell phones, having learned at a young
age that you need to shout, and constantly ask the caller if they can hear you,
when you are on a long distance call. All this, with a conga line continuously
marching back and forth from the dining car at one end of the train to the bar
car at the other. Adding to the turmoil, were trips down narrow, winding
staircases to the bathrooms. What were they thinking, the train people, loading
a horde of old coots onto a train for a 16 hour ride, supplying adult beverages
on a bouncing, rocking vehicle and then locating bathrooms down a flight of
stairs?
They were thinking though, but only about rules and
where to put signs to enforce them. Every possible peril is acknowledged with a
sticker, plaque or engraved sign. The doors between cars are overloaded with messages:
two exit signs, a “watch your step” warning, a message only a bureaucrat could
conceive and feel the need to paste to a door just below the “press” sign; it
made no sense to me. It said, “Fully equipped FRA Part 223 - Glazing,” lastly,
another “press” sign at the bottom of the door, so you can kick it with your
foot when your arms are loaded with drinks and “freebies” from the dining car:
sugar packets, apples, bananas, coffee, napkins, discount brochures and the
rest of the worthless junk that old coots feel compelled to abscond with. So
much signage on so small a surface. It’s no wonder the dummy (not me) at the
front of the line didn’t notice the “press” sign.
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