Miomarmo

One Way to 'Celebrate' the Anniversary of a Loved-One's Passing

Today we are thinking of someone very special. The founder of this site (and our company) died one year ago today. We are spending the day remembering, but the day feels heavy. We miss Rich. We wish he was here instead of us sitting here remembering him, searching our emails for messages we received from him, and passing around photos. We are telling the funny stories, and the sad stories. I remember afternoons in NYC with him after a client meeting (though I won't say what we were doing!). I remember watching movies with him on his couch one night. I remember when he sent the entire staff, and their significant others, to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Broadway. I remember how he made me think, how curious he was about the world and life, and how strongly he communicated his opinions!

So, as with most people we miss when they're gone, we start to think of others in our life we've lost. I remember my grandmother and grandfather. When my grandmother passed away my grandfather was, of course, devastated. To make the anniversaries of her death less of a day of mourning, and more of a day of celebrating he announced that every anniversary of her "death" would be a birthday in heaven. The first anniversary was her First Birthday in Heaven. Then her Second Birthday in Heaven. He imagined how wonderful it was for her there, in heaven. Because he loved her so much, where she was (paradise) was much more important on that day than where he was (sad to be without her).

You may or may not be helped by thinking about a "heaven," but we can all find it in our hearts to celebrate life, even after someone's gone. They will forever be a part of YOU, of your life's story, and of your now and future as you have been blessed with knowing—and loving—them. I would love to think people could be happy when they think about me after I'm gone. And I'm going to find a way to do that for my friend Rich today. Happy First Birthday in Heaven, Rich.

Walking New Jersey Point to Point

Back in the day, my husband Paul and Rich biked the 200+ miles from High Point to Cape May in one very long all-day trip, appropriately titled “The Longest Day.” You can make the same journey -- but you don’t have to do it all at once!

Check out a fun online initiative from Rutgers: Walk New Jersey Point-to-Point. Just wear your pedometer or walk on a treadmill and keep track of your steps and mileage. If you don't have a way to count your steps, the site has a table to help you figure out how many miles you've logged by gardening, mowing your lawn, and chasing after your children.

You will need to create an account and set a goal for yourself to keep track of your journey. Walking from High Point to Cape May is just one of the trips you can log; you could do the Lighthouse Tour, the Historic Tour, or create a custom goal of your own if you don't live in NJ. Or get a team together of friends or co-workers together and walk as a group!

I'm beginning to walk the trip Paul and Rich took those years ago, and I think next I'll try the ambitious 1,000 Mile Challenge. It might take me all summer to do it, but eventually I'll get there, the same way you do anything. One step at a time.

Remembering Rich

There haven't been many posts on Miomarmo lately. It's not that we haven't had anything to say. It's that our hearts have been so full, we haven't been able to write about it.

In late January, our beloved friend and co-creator of Miomarmo, Rich Mansfield, passed away from a massive heart attack. Though Rich had been writing about making his peace with the end of his life, it was still quite unexpected to us and for all those who loved him.

While Rich may not be here with us, his spirit of love, generosity, and just general joy for life live on. And we have his words to remind us of just how special and precious life is.

Rich wrote:

Before I go, I want to have a ready reserve of strength, courage, gratitude, consciousness, and even hope for the future.  I don't want to go kicking and screaming like Jimmy Cagney being dragged off to the electric chair in Angels with Dirty Faces.  With certain apologies to Mr. Thomas, I propose to go "gently into that good night."

His last post was titled "Sunrise, Sunset", a tribute to the fragility of life, and one of his favorite natural phemonena.  I think of him with love every time I see those beautiful colors in the sky and know he's somewhere enjoying them still. We love you, Rich.

Read all of Rich's posts here, including the one quoted above. And click the picture to enlarge and see that great Rich grin.

Sunrise, Sunset

I took these photos today.  Same beach in Santa Monica. Early in the morning, then early in the evening (panning more to the north to the Pier and the Ferris wheel).  There is a cool metaphor for life here, but I think Fiddler on the Roof got it just fine.  I'm filled with wonder looking at them side by side....  Check out the Youtube video link.  It's one of those songs you have to hear every so often.  Mazol tov!

 

Visit an Ailing Friend

I learned of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai while listening to National Public Radio in the car on the day before Thanksgiving.   Our good friend and colleague Chintan Parikh is originally from Mumbai (he still calls it Bombay), and I was aware that he and his wife, Tanvi, are currently visiting their family in India.  The carnage was reported to be indiscrimate and savage.  I was worried for my friends.

I regret to say that I am becoming accustomed to this type of savagery.  Like the denizens of the famously black comedy, Brazil, who accept terrorism as a natural part of urban living.  A mess to be avoided on the sidewalk.  The brutality of the deeds reported on the tv and radio is so extreme that it can seem cartoonish to a suburban guy like me.  I am very aware of what happened at the World Trade Center, and I have many connections to New York and people who were directly affected by the events of September 11, yet, to tell the truth, it is beginning to seem like a long time ago.  And something I don't like to think about.

I was halfway to my holiday destination with hours of driving ahead of me when the BBC reporter starting describing the events of that day.  Unlike the dozens of attacks I've heard about in the last few years, this one had a heightened reality for me.  I had to think about it.  And the more I did, the more helpless I felt.  I felt, in other words, what victims of terror feel.  A feeling I have blocked out for a long time. 

I pulled over and called Chintan, and I got that error signal.  Great. What does this mean, I wondered.  The line is dead?  My worst fears were taking shape.  But minutes later, Chintan returned my call to say that he and everyone he knew were out of harm's way.   In a few hours it would be Thanksgiving Day in the US.  Of the many things I have to be thankful for, I promised to make make a special personal note for that one.

I also want to remind everyone that an attack like this is meant to deliver the message "Come to Mumbai and you'll be killed."  This is an open, prosperous, and truly diverse city that welcomes all religions, sects, and ethnic groups.  A perfect target for agents of destruction.  The Mumbai terrorists walked into the best hotel in town, a Jewish center, and a train station, and shot as many people as possible.  That was their plan.  Their purpose, as always, was to make us sick with fear and hate the way they are sick with fear and hate. 

Early reports are that their purpose is failing.  The city is pulling together, and security is being improved much as it has in Manhattan.

My friend Chintan has been nudging me for years to come to Bombay and visit his homeland.  I think this is the year I'll go.

Excellent editorial piece about the attack on Mumbai and why it was targeted.

The Revolution Will Be Televised! Live From Venice Beach, California!

I came to Santa Monica, California, for a few reasons, not the least of which was for health and exercise during the winter months.   It’s a quest for endless summer, serenity, lost youth, all that.  There are quite a few geezers out here, like me, walking around, eyes cast slightly heavenward, thinking about something or other or trying to remember something or other, a look of bewilderment on their faces.  They are probably up to the same thing I am.  I’m just ten years early.

My seaside amble on Saturday morning took me south into Venice Beach for the first time during the daytime.  It would be too easy, and not really accurate, to call it “hippie central,” but you would recognize that element right away.  My first experience upon crossing the city line was to step out of the way of an oncoming rollerblader.  (Skate boards, bikes and roller blades all over the place operated by all age groups.)  She looked like a heavy hippie version of Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction.  Her blonde curly hair was blowing, Medusa like, in different directions.  She had an angry look on her face and she was singing at the top of her lungs a song that could only have been entitled, “How Does It Feel to Be Loved By Me?”  I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t feel too good to be loved by her.  I looked around to see if I could catch a reaction from anyone else, but no one seemed to notice.  It then occurred to me, in my bewildered way, that there were lots of people there, but they were in their own little worlds, too, just like Angry Heavy Fatal Hippie Chick Woman.  

Welcome to My World

A long line of tables were set up where you could enter Tarot Card Reader World, Weird Beer Cap Earring World, Nuevo White Kid from Privileged Background Drop Out Dread Locks Rasta World, Listen to Me I Sound Pretty Much Like Johnny Cash World (he was a good Johnny but he looked like Jerry “and that’s what tortures me”), Reggae for Kids World, Nice Breakfast with Nice People World, Exotic Indian Sex Techniques World, Hand Carved Wood Crap That You Don’t Need World, Fear No Art World (don’t ask), Pump Iron and Scare the Crap Out of Skinny People World, Bong World, White Guys Can Play Basketball Pretty Good, Too, World.  There was a Jimi World and a Jim Morrison World but no Beatles or Bobs anywhere. There were quite a few Obama Tee Shirt Worlds.  On Venice Beach, I think they believe that the election of Obama as president is the signal that The Revolution has finally begun.  One Saturday morning a guy with long grey hair, dressed in blue jeans and wearing a tie dye shirt with a big, silver peace symbol hanging from his neck is going to suddenly get up on his feet and shout: “Hey everybody, let’s all get high and storm the university gates again!”   I bet quite a few Venetians will get up with him and take a crack at it. 

Give Me a Buck

Through all these worlds is flowing a river of white middle class people on bikes, walking dogs, jogging, pushing baby carts, and walking aimlessly, eyes cast slightly heavenward.  An old black guy sitting on a bench asked me if I could spare a buck.  He had me figured for Searching for Endless Summer and Lost Youth Probably Has a Few Bucks in His Pocket and Is Probably Sorry About the Historical Oppression of Poor People and Would Probably Feel A Little Better About It For a Little While If He Gave the Guy a Buck World.  I only had a five, but I told him to keep the change.  I rationalized it later by saying to myself that I liked his simple pitch in the middle of all that New Age commerce: “Give me a buck.”  But really, I was sorry that I didn’t get two pairs of weird beer cap earrings for the same money.   To give as presents.

Okay, there’s a lot that I don’t “get.”  And I am trending toward bewildered.  But I walked five miles, inhaled good ocean air (and some incense), and ate some good vegetable curry with rice served by twenty-something hippies.  I think the place was called “Benice” (in Venice, maybe that’s the joke), but it looked like what the Sixties hit song “Sugar Shack” described.   Now that I think of it, the whole scene was bordering on a bad Sixties parody.   These guys need to find their own decade.

That's What The Man Said

Well, Mr. Venice Beach, I was a friend of the Sixties, and you, sir, are no Sixties.   If you have a revolution, I’m pretty sure it will be televised.   Cop cars rolled through every 20 minutes or so.  In my Sixties they get the finger.  In this version, you get permission from The Man to smoke weed by faking an illness.  Even so, as my new governor likes to say, “I’ll be back.”  Heck, you still have the Pacific Ocean, palm trees, and real fine beaches.

New Jersey and New York Know About Moving People Around a Region

This headline in November 14, 2008 Business Week:

GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead

Powerful Senate Republicans oppose a government bailout for automakers even if it means bankruptcy for General Motors

Catchy headline but it doesn't tell the whole story.  Republicans are rightly drawing a line in the sand.  Detroit's problem, unlike the banks, is not access to capital.  So, why give them capital to do with as they see fit?  They had plenty, and they burned it.  Instead, give them a new mandate.  Give them the capital to transform their business.  A sustainable business that will accomplish their current mission:  Move people.  Let's pray that a new congress led by do-gooder democrats doesn't try to "save" us by putting Detroit on life support.  Instead let's pursue many, many of the kinds of projects quoted below.  These projects offer energy independence (which is TRUE national security), sustainable transportation practices (which is TRUE environmental stewardship), and public works that create good jobs (TRUE freedom and prosperity). 

The following is an overview of a project in NJ/NY to augment mass transit infrastructure that dates back more than 100 years.  A fully formed plan has been on the board for several years now awaiting a measly $2 billion federal funding.  (Admittedly, $2 billion used to be some money, but, now?  I think that was just September and October in Iraq.  Seems measly anyway.)   Please read below and imagine hundreds and hundreds of similar projects around the country. 

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The monumental project, also known as Access to the Region’s Core (ARC), will greatly enrich commuter rail service between New Jersey and New York, doubling train capacity with two new single-track tunnels under the Hudson River, an expanded Penn Station in New York and track and signal improvements on and along the Northeast Corridor from east of Newark to New York.  

“This key federal approval dovetails with our economic recovery plan, which includes a commitment to major capital projects that can jumpstart the state’s construction sector and ensure the creation of thousands of jobs for New Jersey residents,” said Governor Corzine. The project will provide customers on 10 of NJ TRANSIT’s 11 rail lines with one-seat, transfer-free rides to New York. 

It will remove more than 22,000 cars from the New Jersey Turnpike and other area highways, providing motorists the benefit of reduced traffic congestion.  It will create almost 6,000 construction jobs and will help generate 44,000 permanent jobs providing an additional $2 billion in annual personal income for the state’s residents. 

“Without a doubt the Mass Transit Tunnel project is New Jersey’s signature public transportation endeavor against which all others will be measured for decades to come, and that is why I intend to work tirelessly for the federal funding that will make this crowning achievement a reality,” said Senator Frank Lautenberg. “With change coming to the halls of Congress and to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I believe that arguments for stimulating the nation’s faltering economy through the targeted funding of worthy public projects will be heard loud and clear and acted on quickly,” said Senator Robert Menendez.

The Federal Transit Administration’s approval of the FEIS was published in the Federal Register on November 8.  Following a 30-day comment period, the FTA can issue a Record of Decision, formally concluding the environmental study process and opening the door for New Jersey to receive federal matching funds. The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority today unanimously approved an amendment to the Regional Transportation Plan updating the cost of the project. "Federal approval of the FEIS for a project of this scope and complexity places construction of the tunnel - and the resulting significant short- and long- term economic benefits - on the near horizon," said PANYNJ Chairman Anthony Coscia. "We are very excited about achieving this major milestone."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Let no man say it cannot be done.”

I have proposed that we convert our car culture into a mass transit culture.  I believe that this is the right thing to do for many reasons, and now is the right time for one reason:  economic survival. 

The American auto industry, the backbone of our manufacturing capability, is slipping into an abyss of bankruptcy and uselessness.  Why?  Because they lost the business to Japan and Germany.  Look around the highways and parking lots.  Look in your own garage.  How many Ford Tauruses and Chevrolet Caprices do you see out there?  Camrys or LeSabres?  Escorts or Civics?  Lincolns or Mercedes?  Not even close.

Our manufacturing leaders were too arrogant and short-sighted to see that the very countries that provided a significant portion of their market share were steadily building auto industries of their own.  They were using intensive market research (which in American was used only for advertising purposes) and advanced manufacturing techniques and theories (like Demming) made in America to produce the cars that people wanted at prices they wanted to pay.  Lately the Koreans have made still more inroads, and China is already gearing up.  Mr. American Car Industry, you’re dead.   And your young protégé did you in.

The good news is, as our Hindu friends tell us, that death can be a reincarnation to a higher ground.  For the auto industry, it could mean that it is reborn as the mass transit industry.  There is precedent for this kind of turnaround.  And economists and writers like Lester Brown, in his book Plan B, are already drawing the parallels and pointing the way.  

Congress, lead by Democrats, have declared that the companies that have been leading the charge into the abyss are too big to fail.  They’re right about that.  It’s an economic and human catastrophe waiting to happen.  But propping them up on a life support of taxpayer capital won’t save them.  It will only delay the inevitable, impoverish the country, and set the stage for a truly desperate crisis that might dwarf The Great Depression.

Call me a socialist, but it’s time to stop playing free market patty cake when then only solution to “saving an industry” is to put US Treasury capital to work.  These industries are too big to fail, but they need a new business.  Mass transit should be the “strings” attached.

When our nation’s survival was threatened by Fascist aggression in the late 1930’s, Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated that the auto industry would turn 100% of its resources to military production.   The auto companies resisted, insisting that they could add military production and make cars.  But Roosevelt prevailed and no new cars were made between 1942 and 1945.  Instead, American became the manufacturing engine to produce the tools of victory over Nazi world domination.

In his State of the Union address on January 6, 1942 — one month after Pearl Harbor — President Roosevelt announced ambitious arms production goals. The United States, he said, was planning to produce 60,000 planes, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns and 6 million tons of merchant shipping. He added, “Let no man say it cannot be done.”

By war’s end Americans had not only achieved these targets, but far exceeded them, winning a war of survival at the same time.  The converstion is well explained in Doris Kearns Goodwin book, “No Ordinary Time.”  From the beginning of 1942 through 1944, the he auto industry in partnership with the aircraft industry turned out 229,600 aircraft.  Hard to imagine but the auto industry supplied some 455,000 aircraft engines and 256,000 propellers.  Assembly was accomplished by the aircraft industry.  Kearn’s book tells of Merry Go Road makers who turned out gun mounts; toy makers who turn out compasses; a corset making turning out grenade belts as so on and on.  As we all know now, The Greatest Generation was on a mission, united by the need for survival, and this generation exceeded goals that no one thought possible. 

It seems to me that we are at such a time again.  We cannot sustain our dependence on automobiles, and the loss of this sector of our economy might arguably be premature, but it was always its destiny.  Everybody on the planet can’t have a car!   We can’t even have as many car owners as we currently have.  No matter how fuel efficient.  Fuel efficiency is the bridge to a new economy that is based on thriving mass transit industry which is supported by a host of sustainable manufacturing operations that will help America once again rise to preeminence in manufacturing.  If we let the Chinese become our manufactures, they will eventually become our masters as well. 

That’s the way it worked after World War II when American rose to dominate the world with its manufacturing superiority.  Things haven’t changed that much.   My state capital’s motto is “Trenton makes, the world takes.”  That was true once, but Trenton doesn’t make much these days, and a drive around that city will tell you what that means. 

Why Can't Johnny Get a Job? Maybe He's In the Wrong Business?

The current economic crisis invites comparisons to tough times in the past, and we’ve been hearing a lot about 1929, 1973, 1983, 2001 to name only a few.  Unemployment is fast tracking to 10%.  The most erudite pundits can cite economic turmoil in European and American markets going way back.  I heard one guy talking about a failure during the days of the Roman Empire. But for me, recent events fit nicely into a the recent context of what has been called “runaway consumerism.”  

Ronald Reagan helped to lift America and the world out of recession with his call to supply-side economics.  This idea can be summed up as:  “If you make it, they will buy.”   But President Reagan didn’t invent this idea, it goes way back and it works.  It doesn’t take a Stern MBA to tell you America clobbers the rest of the world in consumption.  We’ve perfected “consumerism,” baby.  This is because we have somehow tied up our identity as a nation with the idea that we must “consume” to be good citizens.  The consumer/citizen association reached it’s zenith when, after the 9/11 massacres, George W. Bush implored the nation to remember to do its holiday shopping lest the terrorists shall think they’ve won.  

It looks to me like we’ve followed Bush’s evocation to the max, borrowed (“leveraged” is the buzzword) out the wazoo, and scooped up houses, cars, and foreign made gadgets that beep and buzz and make us smile like simpletons.  Bush did not create the urge to consume, but he failed to lead at a crucial time.  “Buy stuff?”  How about “Let’s become energy independent?”  And I don’t mean with some George Jetson miracle technology like “hydrogen fueled” cars (see Bush’s  2001 State of the Union Address.)  I mean by passing legislation to REQUIRE the manufacture of fuel-efficient cars, research in alternative energy systems like wind and solar, and building accessible mass transit.  Eight years of a Republican “supply side” government and we saw almost none of that.  “Greenies” are still looked upon as weak and naïve, a kind of 21st century hippie culture.

Now we are faced with the reality of impending collapse of this supply-side,  rampant consumerism.  GM and Ford built it, and they didn’t buy. They bought better cars that last longer and cost less to run.  Now, our democratic friends want to “bail out” the auto industry.  GM?  Ford?  They are dead; they’ve been dead.  They just didn’t know it.   And, who else is “too big” to fail.  Hello?   GE?  AIG?  We’ve been preaching free trade and open markets and good old competition and, guess what, we lost!  We lost because we made the wrong stuff.  What possible good would it do to prop up an industry that will burn the capital as fast as it gets it.  You might say, yeah, but people will keep their jobs, millions of people, and millions of jobs.  That’s good, right?  My opinion: it would be far more efficient to pay that money DIRECTLY to the affected workers without filtering it through the GM/Ford money burning machines.  Given the kind of billions that the auto industry is talking about, one economist estimates that it comes to about $10k per affected worker.  Then what?  Learn to deal blackjack?

Or, could we retool these industries to produce new infrastructure?  For the money we’re talking, we can retool and build new plants.  What a job bonanza!  (Too much work?  Can’t get people to give up their cars?  Hell, then just buy Honda.  They make cars that people want.)  What a future!  Building, sewers, power, bridges and roads, yes, some, but primarily MASS TRANSIT.  

It’s very simple: consume less.  Protect the future with systems that will survive the population growth and resource demand.  That doesn’t make you a bad citizen or a failed American. It makes a future.   It’s demand-side time, baby!  And the first things we need to curb are the cars.  Free markets do work, and they are killing the cars.

Five Minutes in San Bernardino

I arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.  It’s now Thursday evening and I’m about to spend my second consecutive night in a bed that is not traveling at 40 to 60 miles per hour.  It’s true what they say about taking the small things for granted until you don’t have them.  A bed.  That isn’t hurtling through the night in the middle of nowhere.  Great thing.  Really. 

And, although I have come to the difficult conclusion that I have failed in my attempt to prove that long distance travel via train is preferable to the same trip via plane, I can say that I do not regret the experiment.  Yes, I better appreciate a stationary bed, but I also gained some insights into what trains need to do to compete with planes, and how we should consider our transportation choices.

The most obvious problem with choosing the train for a long haul is cost.  For what I spent to travel on three difference trains chugging along tracks that were out of repair for three days and  for three nights, I could have flown first-class on any airline and arrived at the same place in six hours.  If I flew coach, I would have spent about $600 less.   If I took the train and rode coach, I it would have cost less than $300, so could be a little cheaper than the plane, but I would have been sitting in the middle of a college reunion.  It looked like hell for old folks back there.  I knew starting out that there was a big price and time disadvantage, but, I reckoned, I’ll have more time to meditate, read, interact with people of a similar mind, and, you know, just SLOW DOWN. 

Well, I slowed down.  And I’ve concluded that hell might just be a place where you go very, very slow for many, many days and nights surrounded by civil servants who hate the “servant” part of their jobs. Now that I think of it, they’re not too crazy about the “civil” part either.   The other passengers,?  Not my demographic.   A few of them: not even my planet.  To paraphrase an old Red Smith line:  If God had meant for us to go that slow, and carry that much luggage, around that many terminals, for that many days, he would have made sure we were born with wheels and a caboose.   There were Red Caps around, but not enough of them, and not helpful enough.  Not civil or servant enough.

As I said, I wanted to prove that the train is superior, so the thought that immediately arose in my head when I realized we had crossed the California state line was not welcome:  “Thank God it’s over.”  I knew I would write the blog, but how do I spin that to sound good?  No denying or spinning it, the thought was there, and it was insistent.  I looked out the window of my prison cell sized compartment, saw a row of palm trees silhouetted majestically against a beautiful red sunrise sky, and I knew we were close.  I checked my clock: 6am.  The Southwest Chief was due into LA Union station at 8:15am.  Life was good.  Though I was hungry, I remembered it was too late for breakfast.  Henry Ford, my porter/conductor informed us the night before that we were to get to the dining car between 5am and 6am for breakfast or we would be out of luck.  There were a lot of Amish on the train, so I expect they made it, but I can’t imagine a normal human being could stagger along the narrow passageways in the semi darkness at that time of day and then keep food down.  Alright, no breakfast, but, so what, just two more blessed hours and I would be free from the loud speaker tyranny of government employees and the claustrophobic confines of this rolling hell hole.  California here I come!

But it wouldn’t be that easy.  Henry Ford came on the loud speaker to announce that we would be making a short stop in San Bernardino.  As usual, he reminded us that there was time for a cigarette (then he does coughing noises, very funny) or to stretch your legs.  But you better be on the train when it pulls out.  He also made a pitch for the opportunity to take a photo of the beautiful San Bernardino train station.   I saw it from my window, and thought, heck I have to take a shot of that.  I get off the train with my iPhone camera.  Say good morning to Henry who was standing right at the door.  Walk thirty steps to position myself in front of the station and take two quick shots.  I turn around and the train is pulling out.  Without me!  I flashed back to Silver Streak and all the great laughs from Gene Wilder trying to get back on a training that was leaving without him.  I ran after the train thinking that surely my pal Henry Ford would have noticed I wasn’t on the train.  I was only off for sixty seconds!!  But, no, the train was moving steadily down the track and out of sight.  My personal belongings and my computer (which is my job!) were rapidly moving out of sight on a train that had people who were not of my planet aboard.  Panic was starting to set in, and I checked my watch: 6:30am.  I tried to calm down and thought, you just have to get to Union Station.  Good old Henry will turn your stuff in.  Don’t’ worry.

San Bernardino is a big commuter stop.  Not like the stops on the prairie where Henry has previously threatened to toss out smokers.  I learned that the next train to LA was leaving in a minute, and that, furthermore, it arrived at Union Station at 8am.  Fifteen minutes before the Southwest Chief!  I bought a ticket for $10 (I had my wallet!) and boarded the commuter train.  Great service, nice car, filled with people who had jobs, glided by the famous LA traffic jams.  Arrived at Union Station on time, found the track where the Southwest Chief was coming in,:Track 12, way the hell over in the farthest part of the mammoth station, and there I was waiting at the track 10 minutes before the train, my train that I had been on for more than 40 hours, would arrive.  Amazing! 

My head was full of revenge fantasies pointed at Henry Ford.  I had settled on a nasty letter to the head of whoever is in charge of whatever.  But when Henry got off the train, greeted me with a big smile and asked, “How did you get off the train so fast?”  I mellowed, and replied, “You left me in San Bernardino.  I took the Metrolink here.”  He apologized profusely, and assured me that my stuff was okay in my compartment.  I wasn’t so sure, but he was right.  Crisis averted.

I made my laborious way back to the baggage claim (really a huge station), claimed my bags, got a taxi, got in the traffic jam (which goes both ways somehow.  At least in NJ it usually goes in only one direction.)  Arrived in Santa Monica and sat down at a desk that wasn’t moving, in a chair that wasn’t moving, and drank a Coke that wasn’t spilling.

In a nutshell, my experiment showed that the trains are running on crappy tracks.  The service people are nice, but they just don’t know what service is.  And the pricing is not competitive.   And the advantage of SLOWING DOWN doesn’t wash when you are going mad from loud speaker announcements and views from a window that shows landscapes, thought quite beautiful, crawling by.  Really, I don’t think Andrew Carnegie traveling from Pittsburgh to LA in 1884 went any slower than we did.

I still believe that if we build an infrastructure to support local and regional rail we might someday be able to accomplish long haul travel.  In the meantime, we will be creating good jobs and working toward energy independence and sustainable practices.  Europe, where rail service is often impeccable, is a great model for local and regional service, but they don’t have the challenges of distance that we have in America.  I think it will be a while yet before the airlines are threatened by the trains.  But we can start converting our auto commuter culture to a train commuter right now.  Hire GM, Ford and Chrysler.  Let the Japanese and the Germans have the unsustainable auto business.  They are taking it anyway.   I’ll have more thoughts and evidence to support that in subsequent posts.

In the meantime, happy motoring….