Travel Buddies

An eleven hour train ride is a long one, and it is amazing how much time it gives you to learn a lot about the other passengers even if you don’t say a word to them. The couple next to me is British, but they moved to Canada 42 years ago. They have a 39 year old son* (their oldest) who lives in Brooklyn in a new condo with his wife and their first grandchild. The gentleman talks louder when he has his earphones in (she apologizes for him but he doesn’t notice) and she looks forward to crossing the St. Lawrence River for the first nine hours of the trip. Albany’s pretty, but not that pretty.
The woman in front of the couple for the first half of the trip is loud, and a TMIer who does surprisingly well with the customs agent. She is an American, but has an apartment in Canada and has residency there where her Jack Russell terrier is being watched by her best friend. Her favorite movie is The Queen, which she alerts surrounding passengers to several times. Perhaps I am bitter – she is headed to New York to work in an internship capacity for The New Yorker. I considered several times stealing her passport and adopting her identity, but I’m not sure how I feel about British royalty. The man in front¬ of me was reading “Stop Being So Nice To Your Coworker,” an article printed out on Yahoo tip guide written by either Kublai Khan or Gordon Brown. He has been caught (by me) several times, checking out the fashion designer headed to the big city. The couple next to me discusses the cost of petrol. The wife is sharp with numbers.
“$3.21 a gallon. My, my. Only .80 per litre. (Canadians are paying 1.10) Wow.”
“What are you paying?” asks the American with a penchant for tiny interns with annoying non-accents. After telling him, they then talked a bit about the cost of petrol in France. She complained about how high Canadian gas taxes and car taxes were, and, smelling an ally he asked the question I wanted to ask, and have asked several people, all with similar responses.
“How do you like nationalized health care?”
“Oh, I quite like it.”
“You just said that you felt like you were being taxed a lot and not seeing anything for it?”
“Well yes, for roads and things. If I pay taxes on cars I want to see road improvements, and our roads are horrible. That’s what I’m paying for after all. If we didn’t have health care, I know we’d be alright. We’d pay for insurance and all of that and take care of ourselves, but what of the people who can’t afford it? That doesn’t seem fair to make someone choose between health care and feeding their families. My first child was born before socialized medicine and I quite preferred the system when my second was born.”
“Yes. I suppose so,” he said, “I’ll pay something like $10,000 more in taxes a year if we adopt it.”
“Well, if you will have to pay that much more, then you obviously make a lot more money. I suppose I’m a socialist at heart really. I think this is the way the system is supposed to work even if I get frustrated with it from time to time.”
He swivels back in his chair. And wipes the conversation from his memory. He’ll keep hunting for a Canadian who will tell him its okay to vote with his wallet.


*The son is a graphic designer. He started a company when he was in university in Montreal and went to Holland after winning a competition held by a bank in search of a new logo. He won, they brought him over and he worked with them for a year. They wanted him to move to London, but seeing as it was so expensive and he was so heavily recruited by a designer in Chicago, he moved and worked for the same company for a decade and then bought out the fonts segment of it and moved to Brooklyn. His wife graduated from Yale with a masters in design and they now work from home together. He just finished the new logo for the San Diego Chargers.


I am back in New York at Jennie's dad's house. Her room has a fantastic view of the Hudson river in Tarrytown NY. I'm visiting her farm today and head back to Portland this afternoon. Yes, yes I'm bicoastal.