Archive – Day 10
Monday, April 19, 1993
Looking Back...
We finally left New York and hopped on another train (I can’t remember which, but I assume it was the Silver Service) bound for Orlando, Florida.
This day reads more like a travelogue, at least if you can see through the cloud of hate that I am spreading along the Eastern Seaboard. We wound our way along the coast, past Philadelphia and Washington, slipping into the Carolinas during the dark of night.
Ah, smell the New Jersey air. Nice and fresh, isn’t it? And look at the brown sunlight coming down. It makes me glad to be inside a train, hurtling along at fifty or sixty miles an hour.
New Jersey, at least the parts we have passed though, seems awfully run down. Backyard trash, leaning buildings, industrial squalor, smog-filled horizons, weed-infested fields, rusted cars; it is living up to all my expectations.
And upon crossing the river into Pennsylvania all that filth slacked off and we are now traveling through cleaner areas. But the smog remains.
The neighborhood we are passing seems to be middle class, half-acre lots with two or three story houses. And off in the background rises industrial smokestacks. This is a place I don’t think I could live in.
The industrial sections of Philadelphia are just as bad as those in New Jersey, I now see as we pass by. Rust, weeds, condemned buildings, the whole nine meters. And every apartment has clothes on the line. But, I don’t know what it is like on the other side of the tracks.
We just crossed a river, so I can’t compare the two sides.
There are huge groups of people boarding here in Philadelphia. I wonder what’s happening to cause such a mass migration out of the city of brotherly love? After ten minutes people are still coming on. And the line is still about a dozen people long. All together, I would guess that nearly a hundred people got on the train here. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with Philadelphia.
We’re moving at last, after about fifteen minutes of boarding. Utter madness.
I am currently engaging in a beautiful piece of train fare — “Pierce Super-Chik’n” It is a revolting array of chicken parts and soggy breading microwaved to perfection and “Frozen For Your Protection”. But the flavor, although moist, is surprisingly good. Equally surprising is that artificial flavoring is not included, although they have thrown in a bit of MSG. All together a wondrous meal.
Maryland is nice. There are so many more trees here and so much less filth. But the smog remains.
I find now that I am glad to be on the road. As much as I love New York, I also do love traveling. Being able to look out the window one minute and see something completely different than you did the last, always on the move, always continuing forward yet constantly enjoying where you are, all this I love. I am the perfect traveler, and I fully intend to continue that practice throughout my entire life.
I am about to try one of Tony Sepe’s store-bought chocolate chip cookies. He bought them for us, so we felt obligated to take them on the train. So, I’ll try one.
It’s horrible! I would only eat another one if my life was in danger, and I am reluctant to even finish this one. I would rather eat tree moss.
Baltimore has taken the concept of vertical living and terribly perverted it. Run-down, uniform houses, all in a row and all the same. Thoroughly disgusting and revolting.
I believe we are now passing by a lumber farm — a place where trees are grown for the sole purpose of cutting them down for lumber. It’s sort of like cattle farms, and slaughterhouses. It’s all the same.
Our train is stopped and the electric keeps going out. We’re about twenty minutes out of Washington D.C. and our lights are incessantly popping on and off. We’re moving again, but I trust that as much as I do the illumination’s integrity. And I’m getting hungry. I think I’ll eat now.
Earlier it was happy hour in the lounge. Anybody who stayed happy for the whole hour got a free cup of ice.
It’s now late at night (nine or ten) and I want to go to sleep. But, not because I am tired, rather because there is nothing else to do. Is that justified? When the situation arises that no action or thought is available to be done, is unconsciousness the only recourse? Has that situation even been reached? Or am I just trying to avoid (the “B” word, and a very unsettling thought) boredom? Am I so fearful of having to admit that I’m bored that I would rather lose consciousness than face it? Perhaps. Boredom is one thing I wish to stay away from, and admitting to it would be like admitting that I am a boring person. And I do not want that to happen, so instead I sleep, giving up my precious consciousness to avoid the dreaded fate which would otherwise await. Justified? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But that is one of the complexities which makes life so enjoyable. Maybe soon I will sleep. But still I am reluctant.
Actually, I think I will sleep now. Good night.
