My bet was on the train...boy was I wrong.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
200000
In December of 1990, my wife and I purchased a brand new 1991 Acura Integra. It was one of the best purchases we ever made.
Yesterday the ol' Acura hit a new milestone and I captured it on my cellphone video camera (it was filmed on a deserted country road.) Please excuse the wind tunnel noise you hear, but the car windows were open since the air conditioning compressor is shot. I thought about playing "Star and Stripes Forever" in the background as the odometer turned (for dramatic effect) but then I remembered that the radio/cassette player got fried last year when I spilled a cup of Diet Coke all over the dashboard. The car also has a cracked windshield and plenty of dents and dings, and my daughters refuse to be seen in it. But hey... it's paid for.
My friend Frank always criticizes me for buying Japanese cars. He calls me "unpatriotic" and "un-American " and he says that I drive a "rice burner." Well Frank, when Detroit starts making cars as reliable as Honda and Toyota...I'll be happy to buy one.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Life on the Waterbury Branch
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Naugatuck River Valley was one of the main manufacturing communities of New England. Brick factories dotted the landscape and straddled the banks of the twisting Naugatuck River. The Waterbury Branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Ra
ilroad weaved the river like a ribbon and supported the area's burgeoning manufacturing base. The 28 mile long line provided raw materials for the brass, plastic, latex and rubber plants that lay between Bridgeport and Waterbury.
Sometime during the 1970's the valley's factories slowly began to disappear. Most relocated overseas or "down south" where labor and operating costs were much cheaper. The final death knell came with the explosion of the Sponge Rubber Products Plant in Shelton in 1975. The fire that ensued is one of the largest arson fires in U.S. history. Thousands of valley residents lost their jobs and much of the valley became a economic wasteland.
The once mighty freight trains that rumbled up and down the Waterbury Branch have now been replaced with sparse commuter service provided by Metro North Railroad. This is where I come in; for the past couple of months I've been working the night shift on the Waterbury line. Here's a portion of my conductor's log:
6/1: A distraught woman boards the train in Seymour wreaking of booze. Her skin is pale white but her eyes are vibrant red and bloodshot. She tells me that her boyfriend just threw her out of the house and she needs to get to her sister's place in Naugatuck. I say "no problem" and tell her that I can bill her for the fare. I hand her the billing pad book and she sits down. She begins sobbing uncontrollably, so much so, she can't fill the billing form out. I take the pad from her shaking hands and I begin filling the form out. I ask for her name and address, but instead she gives me her life story.
She says her name is Penny and she's 46 years old. She has a son and two daughters but they're all crack-heads. The daughters each have two children, but the state has taken the babies away from them. She goes on and on like this for ten minutes until we reach Naugatuck (her stop). As she gets off the train gently touches my hand and thanks me for understanding and the free ride. I look down at the blank pad in my hands and realize that I've been duped.
-
6/2: When we pull into Waterbury Station I notice an older African American gentleman waiting on the platform. I assume he's there to
pick up a passenger, but instead he walks up to me and begins telling me a tale of woe. He says he just got a call from the Torrington police department and they have his son locked up. He says he needs gas money to drive up to Torrington to bail him out.
" I know my son is wrong," he says. "But I have an empty gas tank and I got to get up there ."
I reluctantly reach into my pocket and give him a five dollar bill. He looks down at the bill in disappointment. His face brightens when he sees my engineer climbing down from the locomotive. Screaming over the engine's roar he repeats his well rehearsed story and again pleads for "gas money." My engineer looks him square in the eye... and tells him to "get lost".
Why didn't I think of that?
-
6/3: There's a methadone clinic in Bridgeport and several of their patients travel from Waterbury to Bridgeport to get their daily fix. Later in the day these pale and lethargic patients return to Waterbury. I notice that one of the patients, a woman with Don King hair, is staring at me. It isn't till I collect her ticket that I find out why..
"Baby" says the woman. "You got you-self a cute little mouth."
"My mouth isn't really little" I say. "It's just that I have no lips...I'm lipless."
"Ohh baby...You lucky."
"Well, I guess I do save on Chapstick."
-
6/5: Penny is standing at Seymour Station again. She gives me that "deer caught in the headlights" look, and she cautiously says that she doesn't have any money again. I begin to reject her... but she starts to cry. "Okay," I say, "get on." Once aboard her tears begin to dry and she apologizes for all the drama. She says she suffers from depression, but can't take anti-depressants because they make her suicidal.
"A few months back," she says, "I laid down on the tracks, but someone saw me and called the cops."
I try to counsel and tell her to go see a doctor and find the right meds. She admits that she's a horrible alcoholic and that she'd have to quit booze in order to take anti-depressants. She says her doctor told her that liver is shutting down and if she doesn't stop drinking...she'll soon be dead. It's hard to tell if this news makes her happy or sad.
I tell her it doesn't have to be that way and she should go into rehab.
Penny says that she used to be a crackhead, but she quit cold turkey. It happened after she saw her drug dealer's luxury condo. "My habit paid for that condo" she says. "It really pissed me off....so I quit...just like that."
6/5: I walk to the north end of the train in Waterbury to perform a brake test before departure. It's pitch black out and I use a flashlight to find my way. The path is littered with old brake shoes and railroad ties, so I have to be very careful and watch my step. Suddenly, I hear a loud grumble to my right. I quickly spin and the flashlight beam catches three homeless guys sleeping alongside the track.
The Waterbury Branch is beginning to depress me.
6/8: A young man hands me his prison release papers and asks me to bill him for the $2.25 fare. It seems that most of the males up here are somehow involved with the criminal justice system. They've either just been released from jail, or they're on their way to visit their probation officer. They all seem to be short money, and the fare is only $2.25.
Former Governor John Rowland once said that it would be cheaper to buy all the commuters on the Waterbury Branch their own minivan than to continue funding it's operation. I'm beginning to think he was right.
-
6/9: I've seen a lot of "quick turners" on this line. Young guys travel south to Bridgeport then, 20 minutes later, return to Waterbury. Just long enough to make a transaction with their dealer.
-
6/10: A woman in a motorized wheel chair boards the train in Bridgeport and asks me to plug her chair's battery into the AC outlet. I do this, but find that the electrical outlets are dead in that car. I then check the electrical cabinet and find that someone has broken the circuit breaker that feeds juice to the outlet. I tell the woman about my findings and she begins cursing me out. She says that she has to drive herself home and she "sure ain't gonna push herself up the hills of Waterbury." She tells me that I'd better figure something out. I try to wheel her to another car, but the chair is too wide for the aisle, instead I help lift her out of her chair and place her in a seat. I then disassemble her chair and roll it to another car, reassemble it and plug it into an electrical outlet. Another passenger tries to help me, but she yells at him when he turns the wheel chair seat in the wrong direction. Just another example of "No good deed goes unpunished."
I'm one of the most absent-minded guys around and I'm forever forgetting to charge my cell phone and hand held radio battery, but if my mobility depended on it...I'm pretty sure my wheel chair battery would be charged.
-
6/9: Penny and a younger woman are running for the train in Seymour. Penny is hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably. The younger woman, one of her daughters it turns out, tries to calm her down. Penny's hands are shaking as she takes a prescription tablet from a brown bottle in her purse. She pops an anti-anxiety pill and takes a swig from a water bottle. She says she spent all day in court with her 19 year old son who has been arrested on 3rd degree burglary charges. She spent her last $5 on a Subway sandwich and neither she nor her daughter have the fare.
-
6/10: The methadone patient with the Don King hair is back. We reach Waterbury and she fails to get off the train. She says it's too cold out and asks if she can stay on the train and go back to Bridgeport. I tell her it's the last train of the night and that we don't go back to Bridgeport, unfortunately she has to get off. "But it's cold out there" she says. I tell her that I'm sorry, but we have to yard the train in New Haven.
After she leaves the train I go into the garage at the Waterbury Republican newspaper building and call the rail traffic controller in New York for my train orders. I return to the train some 10 minutes later and find "Don King" sleeping in the dark against the side the building.
On the way back to New Haven I stand in the engineer's cab, looking out the front window at a turbulent Naugatuck River. A hard rain begins to fall and my thoughts turn to Don King huddled against the building. The train's headlight catches a lone fawn in the distance. "Run Bambi..Run!" I shout, but Bambi doesn't hear me, and steps right into the gauge of the rail. I close my eyes and hear the crush of bones beneath my feet...It makes me think of Penny.
ilroad weaved the river like a ribbon and supported the area's burgeoning manufacturing base. The 28 mile long line provided raw materials for the brass, plastic, latex and rubber plants that lay between Bridgeport and Waterbury.Sometime during the 1970's the valley's factories slowly began to disappear. Most relocated overseas or "down south" where labor and operating costs were much cheaper. The final death knell came with the explosion of the Sponge Rubber Products Plant in Shelton in 1975. The fire that ensued is one of the largest arson fires in U.S. history. Thousands of valley residents lost their jobs and much of the valley became a economic wasteland.
The once mighty freight trains that rumbled up and down the Waterbury Branch have now been replaced with sparse commuter service provided by Metro North Railroad. This is where I come in; for the past couple of months I've been working the night shift on the Waterbury line. Here's a portion of my conductor's log:
6/1: A distraught woman boards the train in Seymour wreaking of booze. Her skin is pale white but her eyes are vibrant red and bloodshot. She tells me that her boyfriend just threw her out of the house and she needs to get to her sister's place in Naugatuck. I say "no problem" and tell her that I can bill her for the fare. I hand her the billing pad book and she sits down. She begins sobbing uncontrollably, so much so, she can't fill the billing form out. I take the pad from her shaking hands and I begin filling the form out. I ask for her name and address, but instead she gives me her life story.
She says her name is Penny and she's 46 years old. She has a son and two daughters but they're all crack-heads. The daughters each have two children, but the state has taken the babies away from them. She goes on and on like this for ten minutes until we reach Naugatuck (her stop). As she gets off the train gently touches my hand and thanks me for understanding and the free ride. I look down at the blank pad in my hands and realize that I've been duped.
-
6/2: When we pull into Waterbury Station I notice an older African American gentleman waiting on the platform. I assume he's there to
pick up a passenger, but instead he walks up to me and begins telling me a tale of woe. He says he just got a call from the Torrington police department and they have his son locked up. He says he needs gas money to drive up to Torrington to bail him out." I know my son is wrong," he says. "But I have an empty gas tank and I got to get up there ."
I reluctantly reach into my pocket and give him a five dollar bill. He looks down at the bill in disappointment. His face brightens when he sees my engineer climbing down from the locomotive. Screaming over the engine's roar he repeats his well rehearsed story and again pleads for "gas money." My engineer looks him square in the eye... and tells him to "get lost".
Why didn't I think of that?
-
6/3: There's a methadone clinic in Bridgeport and several of their patients travel from Waterbury to Bridgeport to get their daily fix. Later in the day these pale and lethargic patients return to Waterbury. I notice that one of the patients, a woman with Don King hair, is staring at me. It isn't till I collect her ticket that I find out why..
"Baby" says the woman. "You got you-self a cute little mouth."
"My mouth isn't really little" I say. "It's just that I have no lips...I'm lipless."
"Ohh baby...You lucky."
"Well, I guess I do save on Chapstick."
-
6/5: Penny is standing at Seymour Station again. She gives me that "deer caught in the headlights" look, and she cautiously says that she doesn't have any money again. I begin to reject her... but she starts to cry. "Okay," I say, "get on." Once aboard her tears begin to dry and she apologizes for all the drama. She says she suffers from depression, but can't take anti-depressants because they make her suicidal.
"A few months back," she says, "I laid down on the tracks, but someone saw me and called the cops."
I try to counsel and tell her to go see a doctor and find the right meds. She admits that she's a horrible alcoholic and that she'd have to quit booze in order to take anti-depressants. She says her doctor told her that liver is shutting down and if she doesn't stop drinking...she'll soon be dead. It's hard to tell if this news makes her happy or sad.
I tell her it doesn't have to be that way and she should go into rehab.
Penny says that she used to be a crackhead, but she quit cold turkey. It happened after she saw her drug dealer's luxury condo. "My habit paid for that condo" she says. "It really pissed me off....so I quit...just like that."
6/5: I walk to the north end of the train in Waterbury to perform a brake test before departure. It's pitch black out and I use a flashlight to find my way. The path is littered with old brake shoes and railroad ties, so I have to be very careful and watch my step. Suddenly, I hear a loud grumble to my right. I quickly spin and the flashlight beam catches three homeless guys sleeping alongside the track.
The Waterbury Branch is beginning to depress me.
6/8: A young man hands me his prison release papers and asks me to bill him for the $2.25 fare. It seems that most of the males up here are somehow involved with the criminal justice system. They've either just been released from jail, or they're on their way to visit their probation officer. They all seem to be short money, and the fare is only $2.25.
Former Governor John Rowland once said that it would be cheaper to buy all the commuters on the Waterbury Branch their own minivan than to continue funding it's operation. I'm beginning to think he was right.
-
6/9: I've seen a lot of "quick turners" on this line. Young guys travel south to Bridgeport then, 20 minutes later, return to Waterbury. Just long enough to make a transaction with their dealer.
-
6/10: A woman in a motorized wheel chair boards the train in Bridgeport and asks me to plug her chair's battery into the AC outlet. I do this, but find that the electrical outlets are dead in that car. I then check the electrical cabinet and find that someone has broken the circuit breaker that feeds juice to the outlet. I tell the woman about my findings and she begins cursing me out. She says that she has to drive herself home and she "sure ain't gonna push herself up the hills of Waterbury." She tells me that I'd better figure something out. I try to wheel her to another car, but the chair is too wide for the aisle, instead I help lift her out of her chair and place her in a seat. I then disassemble her chair and roll it to another car, reassemble it and plug it into an electrical outlet. Another passenger tries to help me, but she yells at him when he turns the wheel chair seat in the wrong direction. Just another example of "No good deed goes unpunished."
I'm one of the most absent-minded guys around and I'm forever forgetting to charge my cell phone and hand held radio battery, but if my mobility depended on it...I'm pretty sure my wheel chair battery would be charged.
-
6/9: Penny and a younger woman are running for the train in Seymour. Penny is hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably. The younger woman, one of her daughters it turns out, tries to calm her down. Penny's hands are shaking as she takes a prescription tablet from a brown bottle in her purse. She pops an anti-anxiety pill and takes a swig from a water bottle. She says she spent all day in court with her 19 year old son who has been arrested on 3rd degree burglary charges. She spent her last $5 on a Subway sandwich and neither she nor her daughter have the fare.
-
6/10: The methadone patient with the Don King hair is back. We reach Waterbury and she fails to get off the train. She says it's too cold out and asks if she can stay on the train and go back to Bridgeport. I tell her it's the last train of the night and that we don't go back to Bridgeport, unfortunately she has to get off. "But it's cold out there" she says. I tell her that I'm sorry, but we have to yard the train in New Haven.
After she leaves the train I go into the garage at the Waterbury Republican newspaper building and call the rail traffic controller in New York for my train orders. I return to the train some 10 minutes later and find "Don King" sleeping in the dark against the side the building.
On the way back to New Haven I stand in the engineer's cab, looking out the front window at a turbulent Naugatuck River. A hard rain begins to fall and my thoughts turn to Don King huddled against the building. The train's headlight catches a lone fawn in the distance. "Run Bambi..Run!" I shout, but Bambi doesn't hear me, and steps right into the gauge of the rail. I close my eyes and hear the crush of bones beneath my feet...It makes me think of Penny.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Vote for Dan...again!
Yes folks...it's that time of year again. The time of year when I ask you to go over to the Animation Magazine webpage, and vote for my nephew Dan Contois and his latest animated cartoon pitch idea:
A note from Dan:
So here is where I can use your help. This year my submission is titled "Harold and the Walrus." It is about a boy and his walrus who find themselves in over their heads when they inherit a run-down aquarium and try to return it to its former glory. You can see my submission along with many others by clicking on the web address below. Take a look at it, and if you like what you see I sure would appreciate your vote. Every vote counts!
Voting ends 6/26/09.
Thank you for your time and your vote!
Dan
Somehow...and don't ask me how, Dan did not win last years contest with "ROCKET" (We wuz robbed!!!) but, in partial thanks to you, he did come in second place in the online voting.
I really don't understand why Dan hasn't won this contest yet, and I may be a little partial because he is my nephew... but really, look at his amazing artwork. Read his clever and creative story lines. Wouldn't you want to watch cartoons like these. Just look at this pitch from two years ago:
For all that is right in America...for Mom, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet (okay, skip Chevrolet). I urge you to go over to Animation Magazine and Vote for Dan and "Harold and the Walrus."
May God bless.
P.S. Dan, if you win, I want a piece of the Harold and the Walrus merchandising. Just think of it...Harold and the Walrus action figures. Harold and the Walrus lunch boxes. Harold and the Walrus Happy Meals. Harold and the Walrus bed spreads. etc. etc. etc. Then maybe I can quit the railroad and update this blog on a regular basis.
***Update...Voting results are in and unfortunately Dan did not win this year's "Pitch Party". He did, however, come in third in the online voting poll. Dan plans on pursuing his pitch ideas to the networks. There's always next year.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Glory Days of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
Grab a bag of popcorn, a box of Junior Mints, and step into yesteryear.
My sister Sheila sent me this newsreel video that dates back to the 1940's. Look for New Haven's Union Station in the background.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A cautionary tale of how a teddy bear killed my grandfather...and eventually led to my existence.
A teddy bear killed my grandfather...at least that's the story I was told.
The truth is a little more complicated.
It was an unseasonably cold evening in early October, 1918 when E
mmett McDonough (my grandfather) stood before his orchestra at a Wallingford, Connecticut dance hall for his clarinet solo. He was well known in the area as a musical virtuoso and everyone was eager to hear him play. The crowd was in especially good spirits that night, since newspaper headlines shouted that World War I would soon be at an end.
A group of teen-aged girls began to foxtrot in front of the bandstand and one girl (I'll call her Mary) began tossing a teddy bear to her friends. Teddy bears were all the rage in 1918, so it was no surprise that she'd bring one to a dance. After several tosses, Mary lost her grip and the bear tumbled airborne toward the bandstand. Emmett, now finishing his solo, was hit square in the face. He picked up the teddy bear and handed it back to young Mary.
Just two days after the dance Emmett began to cough and felt a general malaise. By mid-week he was bedridden. Jimmy, his three year old son, was sent to stay with relatives. Emmett's wife Nellie (my grandmother) could do little more than drape him with cold compresses and put Vick's VapoRub on his chest (yes, it was around then). By week's end he'd taken a turn for the worse.
The flu was now wide spread and people were dropping left and right. Young Mary, the teen-aged teddy bear owner, was one such victim. Speculation says that Mary must have sneezed into her teddy bear's fur, leaving droplets of live virus that my grandfather inhaled.
*The Spanish Influenza started as an avian virus which spread from
bird to man, then horribly mutated and spread from human to human. It was an especially virulent strain. The dead included not only the elderly and infants but also robust adults in the prime of life. It's estimated that this pandemic killed 675,000 in the United States and as many as 100 million world-wide.
The country was now in panic mode, and all of the area hospitals were full. Sister Winifred, my grandmother's sister, was a nurse/nun at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford and was able to pull some strings to get Emmett admitted. It was too late though, by now his lungs had filled with fluid and he was essentially drowning. He died from pneumonia on October 10th 1918.
He had just celebrated his 29th birthday.
Nellie never remarried, which left their son Jimmy (my father) an only child. Without any substantial means of support, they shuffled from house to house living with a series of Nellie's sisters and family in Wallingford. My father would later say that it was a lonely existence and that he hated being an only child. That, in part, is why he had nine children. The youngest being me.
So when you think about it, I guess I owe my existence to...a teddy bear.
*New York Times -04/28/09
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Paris Hilton
As all my fellow conductors know, my alter ego is "The Conductor to the Stars"; A near legendary railroad phenom, with an uncanny knack for spotting rail- riding celebrities. Because of this, coworkers are eager to share anecdotal stories of their brushes with fame with me. Mark and Bob, two Danbury Branch conductors, told me a whopper of a story in Grand Central last night:
"Hey Conductor to the Stars" Bob yelled from the platform on track 16. "You're not going to believe who we had on train Friday night."
I've been in a big celebrity sighting drought lately, and I felt an immediate pang of jealousy.
"I assume it was a celebrity?"
"A BIG celebrity," Mark said.
I didn't have time to play 20 questions, so I cut to the chase.
"Okay...Who was it?"
Mark and Bob shouted in unison:
"Paris Hilton!"
"NO WAY!" I yelled back. Now I was really jealous.
"Not only that," Mark said. "But she didn't have any money and I had to bill her,"(now he paused for dramatic effect,) "and then I had the cops take her off the train in Stamford."
"Get out of here," I said incredulously.
"No really," Bob said.
Bob then had Mark show me the "pink slip"(a billing form used when passengers have neither ticket or money). Sure enough, there on the form was written:
Name: Paris Hilton
Address: 200 Main St.
City: Hyannis, Ma 02530
Paris's signature was emblazoned across the bottom in big girlish loops. She'd even placed hearts over the "i" in Paris and Hilton.
"That's HOT!" I said, doing my best Paris Hilton impression.
'Not really," Mark said. He then 'fessed up' saying the story was only partially true. As it turns out, truth was much sadder than fiction:
"I was collecting tickets on my train, when I came across an old white haired lady, who was about 70 years old. I asked for her ticket, but she said she didn't have time to buy one, and that she didn't have any money."
"No problem," Mark said while handing her a pink slip, "Do you have any form of identification?"
The woman reached into her over sized purse and pulled out a clear laminated ID pouch. In the lower right hand corner was a photo of Paris Hilton lounging in a skin tight dress. In the middle of the pouch was an aluminum lid from a Jello pudding container. This lid was in place of an official seal or hologram.
"The woman looked clean," Mark said. "I thought she was putting me on."
When the woman finished filling out the pink slip, she handed it to Mark.
"M'am," Mark questioned patiently. "You're telling me that your name is
Paris Hilton?"
"Yes!" The old woman answered matter of factly.
"THE Paris Hilton?"
"Yes!"
(surrounding passengers began to roll their eyes.)
"And this is your picture on the ID?"
"Yes!" She was starting to get annoyed. "I used to be a model."
There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence then, and Mark and Paris stared at each other down.
"Okay Paris," Mark finally said. "I'm going to have the police talk to you in Stamford."(Mark was concerned about the woman's mental stability and thought that maybe she was suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia.)
"Is it because I'm Jewish?" The woman asked. "Is that what this is all about?"
Mark said that he called the rail traffic controller and asked for police assistance. He explained that he had an old woman on board who claimed to be Paris Hilton and unless the hard partying had finally caught up with her...the last he knew, Paris Hilton didn't look like a 70 year old woman.
When the train arrived in Stamford, two MTA police officers were waiting.
"Is there a problem officers?" Paris asked.
"We'd just like to speak with you m'am. Maybe get your name and address."
"I already told the conductor...My name is Paris....Paris Hilton."
"Okay m'am...Can you please come with us?"
The officers each grabbed an arm and escorted Paris off the train.
Before stepping on the platform, Paris turned around and addressed the
entire car:
"See ya later...bitches!"
(Okay, I made that last part up...but wouldn't that have been a great exit line?)
"Hey Conductor to the Stars" Bob yelled from the platform on track 16. "You're not going to believe who we had on train Friday night."
I've been in a big celebrity sighting drought lately, and I felt an immediate pang of jealousy.
"I assume it was a celebrity?"
"A BIG celebrity," Mark said.
I didn't have time to play 20 questions, so I cut to the chase.
"Okay...Who was it?"
Mark and Bob shouted in unison:
"Paris Hilton!"
"NO WAY!" I yelled back. Now I was really jealous.
"Not only that," Mark said. "But she didn't have any money and I had to bill her,"(now he paused for dramatic effect,) "and then I had the cops take her off the train in Stamford."
"Get out of here," I said incredulously.
"No really," Bob said.
Bob then had Mark show me the "pink slip"(a billing form used when passengers have neither ticket or money). Sure enough, there on the form was written:
Name: Paris Hilton
Address: 200 Main St.
City: Hyannis, Ma 02530
Paris's signature was emblazoned across the bottom in big girlish loops. She'd even placed hearts over the "i" in Paris and Hilton.
"That's HOT!" I said, doing my best Paris Hilton impression.
'Not really," Mark said. He then 'fessed up' saying the story was only partially true. As it turns out, truth was much sadder than fiction:
"I was collecting tickets on my train, when I came across an old white haired lady, who was about 70 years old. I asked for her ticket, but she said she didn't have time to buy one, and that she didn't have any money."
"No problem," Mark said while handing her a pink slip, "Do you have any form of identification?"
The woman reached into her over sized purse and pulled out a clear laminated ID pouch. In the lower right hand corner was a photo of Paris Hilton lounging in a skin tight dress. In the middle of the pouch was an aluminum lid from a Jello pudding container. This lid was in place of an official seal or hologram.
"The woman looked clean," Mark said. "I thought she was putting me on."
When the woman finished filling out the pink slip, she handed it to Mark.
"M'am," Mark questioned patiently. "You're telling me that your name is
Paris Hilton?"
"Yes!" The old woman answered matter of factly.
"THE Paris Hilton?"
"Yes!"
(surrounding passengers began to roll their eyes.)
"And this is your picture on the ID?"
"Yes!" She was starting to get annoyed. "I used to be a model."
There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence then, and Mark and Paris stared at each other down.
"Okay Paris," Mark finally said. "I'm going to have the police talk to you in Stamford."(Mark was concerned about the woman's mental stability and thought that maybe she was suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia.)
"Is it because I'm Jewish?" The woman asked. "Is that what this is all about?"
Mark said that he called the rail traffic controller and asked for police assistance. He explained that he had an old woman on board who claimed to be Paris Hilton and unless the hard partying had finally caught up with her...the last he knew, Paris Hilton didn't look like a 70 year old woman.
When the train arrived in Stamford, two MTA police officers were waiting.
"Is there a problem officers?" Paris asked.
"We'd just like to speak with you m'am. Maybe get your name and address."
"I already told the conductor...My name is Paris....Paris Hilton."
"Okay m'am...Can you please come with us?"
The officers each grabbed an arm and escorted Paris off the train.
Before stepping on the platform, Paris turned around and addressed the
entire car:
"See ya later...bitches!"
(Okay, I made that last part up...but wouldn't that have been a great exit line?)
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