Monday, November 15, 2004, 8:30am
Monday, November 15, 2004, 8:30am
The string of on-time arrivals is interrupted as the ’8:07′ train rumbles into Ashland Station at 8:16am. And my notion softens even more when the car doors overshoot their normal stopping points by a good ten feet. In the reworked pecking order of would-be passengers we scramble aboard without losing too much ranking, arriving myself in this fifth carriage – only one car farther back than usual.
Intermittent light streams into my right eye as I peer through yet another dingy window as brief views of the sun snaps between buildings followed by irregular strobe lighting where the it slides through leafless trees.
No Norm this morning, but William is here, which is odd in at least two ways. William once ran the back end of this train before Norm took over last spring, and it was William who also checked my pass on the way home last Friday evening aboard the 6:05pm express train. Perhaps he’s merely filling in because he knows the ropes, but this might also signal another staffing shift.
Far inbound along the tracks I recognize the old Boston Brave’s field slipping through my view in its most recent guise as Nickerson Field. Past what is now a football field I watch flags projecting from the walls of Boston University’s brand new indoor sports arena – a building under construction at some phase since the beginning of my railroad commutes. I’m guessing it’s big enough to hold a hockey rink and seems generally proportioned along those lines. Not much room for seating, though, and knowing the popularity of hockey in New England, it’s hard to imagine how they’d build something that wasn’t closer in scale to a profession arena.
