I have ridden a lot of public transportation in my life. Caltrain is one of the cleanest most efficient, most orderly public transportation systems I have seen in the United States. Trains run on schedule. There are always enough seats. You can take your bike on Caltrain and there is a designated car for bikes with orderly racks for bikers to line up according to where they are disembarking. You can drink on Caltrain.
But the best thing about Caltrain is the commuters.
Californians are friendly. I may express frustration at the superficiality of Californians, but I have to give them points for initial friendliness. This goes not only for native Californians but transplants as well. Every time I am on Caltrain someone is making a new friend. I wonder how many couples have met on the Caltrain. It seems that Caltrain should start a matchmaking service. But I digress…
I don’t ride the Caltrain very often but occasionally my work brings me to our closet of an office on Stanford’s campus and I find myself among the community of regular and irregular commuters. Today was just such an occasion: recruiting events at Stanford all day and a dinner date with an old friend from college put me on the Caltrain platform at Palo Alto at 9:01 pm, hoisting my bicycle over my shoulder and heaving myself into the bike car at the front of the train.
After strapping in my bicycle I moved to the last seat in the car and hunched myself down next to the window to stare out into the expansive California suburbia. Before I arrived the entertainment had already begun. Two seats away from me was a group of four Santa Clara University students, their eyelashes heavy with mascara and their cleavage spilling out of their skin-tight tank tops. The young women were rolling their eyes and mocking a group of teenage boys, no older than 15, sitting on the second tier of seats across from them. The hormones were apparently too much for these young gentlemen and they showed immense control in their ability to keep their pants on.
Across from the young women, out of sight of the taunting teenagers sat a middle-aged white woman with thick blue eye shadow and drooping leathery cheek skin giving unsolicited advice and commentary to the young women about when she was a young woman (born and raised in San Francisco). At Menlo Park a middle-aged black man with graying hair took the seat across from the middle-aged white woman and the fun really began. I don’t know how it came up, but somehow within the first 40 seconds of the conversation I heard the woman’s voice rise above the flirtatious taunting of the teenage boys with the claim, “George Bush is a disgrace to humanity. A disgrace. He disgusts me. He should be wiped clean away from this earth.”
The black man tried to lend a voice of reason to the woman’s vehement hatred, saying that the American people were in fact responsible for electing him, and we all had to take responsibility for the way our country has deteriorated over the past eight years, and let’s see what happens with this new president coming in who will listen to everyone. The debate continued and soon the young women from Santa Clara University joined the discussion with their nasal, breathy, valley-girl voices, ignoring for the time being the somewhat annoying but obviously flattering attentions of the 15 year old boys.
At Redwood City a middle-aged heavyset white man with gansta rap blasting from his headphones joined the party and sat one seat ahead, between me and the gaggle of giggling college students. I shrunk into my seat and stared out the window with a slight smile on my face at the fascinating and comical scene unfolding before my eyes and ears.
The middle-aged folks and the college-aged women continued speaking about politics, and race, and the state of humanity, with the black man making statements like:
“Obama, he’s different and we don’t know what will happen with his presidency, but you know what, he’s changing the game.”
And the middle-aged white woman: “Bush is a dictator.”
And one of the black man: “You know, we may be different colors on the outside, but we all bleed red. You know, in the end we’re all just human.”
And one of the young women: “Yeah, I mean, everyone in South Africa is white.”
And the middle-aged white woman: “I was born and raised in San Francisco. Born and bred.”
And another young woman: “We don’t want to just care about ourselves anymore.”
And the gangsta rap in the background and the train pulling to a stop at Hayward Park and the teenagers banging on the glass of the young women’s window and making obscene gestures as the scurried away to their mothers and the train moved out of the station and the black man asked:
“Where are you girls from?”
Southern California. Connecticut.
The young woman said, “You Californians don’t know what cold is!”
And the middle-aged woman: “But when you’re from California born and bred, you have to understand…”
Texas.
“What part of texas?”
And the middle-aged woman: “George Bush is from Texas. Did you ever meet George Bush? He should be wiped clean from the earth. If I met him I’d kill him myself. They only kill the good ones.”
San Antonio.
And the rap music paused for the middle-aged white man to lean forward around the seat in front of him and say “San Antonio? I have a good friend who just moved there. He wants me and my wife and our six-year old daughter to move there too. His daughter and my daughter are best friends.”
The talk shifted to people. California people, southern people, Texans, Northern California versus Southern, Portland, and the black man noted:
“This is Northern California right here. The commuters, we’re a little community right here,” and he chuckled and slapped his palm against his right knee.
And the middle-aged white woman: “I was born and raised in San Francisco. Lived here my whole life.”
The talk continued about San Antonio with the young women telling about the school system, the parks, it’s a great place to raise kids and people there are really friendly, just genuinely friendly. “Southern Hospitality,” they said. The middle-aged white man took mental notes and almost missed his stop with the thrilling dialogue.
“So what are you ladies going up to the city for?” A concert. Their friend is having a concert, and yes, they are skipping class tomorrow to attend, and can they catch a cab from the 22nd Street station, and the black man said: “I don’t know. You know, I never go to the 22nd Street station because of all those stairs. You ever climbed those stairs? No? Well, I have a bike and I just don’t like climbing all those stairs!” He chuckled and slapped his hand against his right knee.
The young women put their four airhead-brains together to think of how to get a cab at the 22nd Street station and were rescued by an unseen voice from the second tier, “The number for Yellow Cab is 333-3333.” And they asked the area code for San Francisco and the black man told them “415” so they called a taxi to pick them up at the 22nd Street station.
At Bayshore the black man prepared to leave and bid farewell to his newfound friends and they said they enjoyed speaking with him and smiled and parted ways. The next stop was 22nd Street and the middle-aged white woman noted, “I never get off at 22nd Street. Too dark. That neighborhood is dangerous. I would never get off there and I was born and raised in San Francisco.” The young students mentioned the taxi and that they felt confident they could make it with a group of four.
When we arrived at the station they said goodbye and it was me and the woman who was born and raised in San Francisco sitting catty-corner to each other alone in the bike car of the northbound 9:01 Caltrain to 4th and King. She smiled at me and I smiled back and I yawned and she yawned and we smiled again and then I turned away and looked out the window at the approaching lights of the final station, the last stop.
We pulled in at 9:56 PM and I hitched my bike up onto my shoulder one more time and carefully maneuvered myself down the metal stairs with controlled leg muscles and lowered the bike to the ground, wheeled it out to the sidewalk and pushed away from the curb to feel the cold San Francisco night rush into my nostrils and suck the tears out of my eyes blinding me for a moment in the relative blackness of the deserted street beyond the Caltrain Station.
