Friday, February 4, 2005, 5:55pm
Friday, February 4, 2005, 5:55pm
“Do you know if this is the Worcester train?” … I hear asked by a follow early-bird squatter aboard this evening train.
Tonight’s puzzle is soon settled by one of the newer station platform announcers. Instead of waiting until the last second it seems that the T is playing it straight tonight. Or perhaps this particular announcer is contravening the rules and in such lousy weather showing some mercy by rendering an announcement ten minutes ahead of departure.
A few of the old announcers can still be heard among the disembodied voices, but it does not seem to be a profession with enough appeal to make a lengthy career if it – or at least not long from the same microphone announcing the same trains day after day. I do most miss the announcing of one guy who must have been the dean of all announcers considering the liberties he took to create such high art from the whole thing – Auburndale he intones as “OHHHH-burn-dale,” and when announcing the long haul Amtrak trains the final destination is the 38th Street Train Station at “WAAAASH-ing-ton.” More than a year ago I made lots of audio recordings of those announcements, and one of these days I may burn a CD so the announcing crew can relive old times – if that is their pleasure.
But on the other hand, I probably won’t do this until I am no longer riding the trains into Boston, since I’d rather not discover some rule against unauthorized sound recording devices that gets me banned from the trains.
With this resolved, my attention turns to the lively present-moment voices filling the rear portions of this second to last carriage aboard a train that has now indeed become the 6:05pm Worcester Express. It does not take many people to change the feeling of a place and in this case only two are talking – albeit loudly! Nevertheless I can make out none of it, which is really odd since the guy talking right now is plenty loud, but there are also enough other noises and reflections so that a ‘restaurant effect’ has taken hold, and except for a word here and there all I hear is yak yak yackity yak.
Past the Hancock tower I see the same red stripe as this morning but now it is crowned with a halo circle of white light. I believe the same sort of signaling is rendered from atop the Empire State Building – which would-be entirely consistent given how the old art deco Hancock tower is little more than a miniature and somewhat squat version of that once-again tallest building in Manhattan.
I know I’m about to leave the crucible of the commute for a moment, but it does seem to connect on some level.
The mountainous Twin Towers of lower Manhattan were the tallest buildings in the world until Sears built their tower in Chicago, and I remember soon thereafter seeing them clearly outlined against a misting horizon from a viewpoint atop the palisades 25 miles upriver to the north. Knowing their size from this distance, I can’t begin to imagine the magnitude of forces released when they fell on September 11th.
That morning I changed course after an office visit with Arthur and headed home to be with Sue and Chris. It seemed horrible enough to see the building belching smoke, but little did I know until later that the very last image I saw of scattering debris as left the house was the collapsing of the South Tower.
All that day I collected my news from those I knew who were closer to events – the printed circuit board designer who lives in Western Pennsylvania a few miles from Shanksville, the newly minted lawyer in Lower Manhattan who had just begun his first day on the job in that same financial district and who walked home across the Brooklyn Bridge in his socks. And I also remember one of my greater concerns of that day, how those events might be used to justify all sorts of hidden agendas that would have nothing to do with a proper and effective response.
Niccolo Machiavelli makes it clear that fear is the greatest tool of those seeking power. Hatred can mobilize a rebellion, but fear breaks the will to fight against authority because the first priority in any struggle is to survive, and fear arises when this singular fact slips into doubt. In early 2001, the fear mongering experts in Washington already knew those lessons, though until September 11, 2001 they had no handy boogiemen.
After two wars and a whole bunch of false warnings later, they are now so comfortable with the language and methods of fear that out of habit they can’t say anything without first stirring up a smoke screen of Chicken-Littlisms. Social Security will go bankrupt in 2046 – not true – and there won’t be enough money for retirement for those working today unless people are allowed to pour their government retirement into the stock market – also not true. Will enough people buy it this time? Maybe. But it is as likely that this will be recognized as over-reaching all credible bounds, perhaps turning the tide from fear to outrage to courage – and maybe a future vote back to the center of common sense.
“Framingham. Station Stop is Framingham”
That’s my cue to stop. I clearly am easily annoyed by heavy-handed manipulation and the abuse of power. And I wonder sometimes if it was just my parent’s toe-the-line acquiescence that has set me so against abusive authority.
“Ashland will be next…”
