If I hold to this resolution, this mission, the insanity of 365 entries, a full calendar year, documenting my time on the morning commute seems to be a (very foul smelling) fountain of inspiration.
If you’ve ever seen the Will Smith movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” than you have seen how, when his character is down and out, they spend countless hours on a commuter train. That’s the same train system I talk about in these posts. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). The scene in the film is also realistic because there are people that you can tell are using the train system as a safe place to rest for while, warm up, etc. I have to say, however, that not all of them smell as pleasant as I would imagine Will Smith might (as I’m sure he is bathed in bubbly french spring water and the tears of the innocents).
This morning, as I ambled my way through the trains in an attempt to find a seat suitable for the next hour I noted two very important details on this particular train car: 1) The back seats don’t appear to be occupied and 2) I see a sock-clad foot hanging over one of the back seats. I knew what I would encounter on the way through to the next car, but I didn’t want to experience what I knew lay ahead. Someone who was sleeping back there is going to have a very pungent aroma around them.
Through the many years that I have been riding the BART system there have been only a few times where I’ve encountered riders that give off an ambience so powerful that it is overwhelming. I’m not here to make judgement or commentary on this because it’s part of a much bigger social issue. I just know that from time-to-time you encounter these types of situations and, depending on how bad you really want to sit, you make do.
The thoughts that come to mind when this happens are ones that would probably have me ear-marked as a bleeding heart liberal because I don’t understand how we, as a society, can’t properly help out one another so that we don’t have these types of situations from ever occurring. I’m not saying giving a hand-out or increasing taxes in order to fund programs to provide health and mental care, I’m talking about genuinely helping out one another when things get bad. (OK, maybe I sound more like a communist)
Wow, I had one thing in mind while I started writing this and, to be honest, I started to question what I was really trying to say. While I did that it took my thoughts in an entirely different direction, all of which just plaid out in text.
The mind is a mysterious thing.
Anyway, that’s an entry for today! Let’s see if I write a penalty entry on the way home.
-Will
