Actually, I escaped most of it, but thanks to the omnipresent The BlizzardChannel The WeatherChannel, I felt like I was right there with you, watching with amazement as the whole thing unfolded. I actually never saw a real flake fall, and my only inconvenience was when we got home and found that they had plowed the wrong driveway. Kind of interesting walking through knee-deep snow in your Italian loafers. The best-laid plans….
We departed Philly aboard the 2pm train, a good five hours ahead of the storm but the blizzard excitement was building. It was quite full, and sitting together wasn’t an option, so I headed left, and the royal consort headed right. Ha! Heading right led to the dreaded “quiet car,” where you can only whisper and cell phone use is verboten. I ended up in the cafe car, my favorite spot on a train, but the only tables available had “reserved for crew” signs on them. One table was obviously being used by the conductors for business—they weren’t there, but all their conducting stuff was—so I sat down at the other one, across the table from a guy who had an Amtrak badge, but was obviously just a strap-hanger catching a free ride somewhere, not a crew member. I figured that I, as a paying customer, had some rights too, which the conductor confirmed when he returned and sat down at the other table, nodding at me.
I had heard that all trains south of DC had already been canceled, and asked him if this train had started in DC. He said “yes, everything south was canceled, along with the Lynchburg [VA] line. You’ll never get stuck between Philly and Boston, but down there is a different story, there are place where if you get stuck they can’t get to you, so it’s best that they shut it down.” He said the snow had just started to fall as they left DC’s Union Station, about two hours earlier. He had a voice like Morgan Freeman, and kind of looked like him too.
When his partner showed up a while later and the ticket-punching began, I recognized the other guy as the one I’d been talking to on a previous trip. So there I was, sitting in the cafe car with a conductor who looked like Art Carney, and one who looked like Morgan Freeman. Always fun to listen in on the conversations of people who lead a life you know nothing about, like working on the railroad for your whole life. Nothing in particular stands out, just generally interesting and funny stuff. Had a very Arlo Guthrie feel to it.
So anyway, we arrived in New Haven, walked the 2 miles to our new favorite hotel there, had a quick dinner, and then headed over to see the play: “Measure for Measure.” M4M is one Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, but popular with college thespians because of its theme of the hypocritical repression of sexuality. In a nutshell: The Duke of Vienna realizes he has become too lax in enforcing his rigid anti-fornication laws, and authorizes a deputy to implement a Draconian anti-boinking policy (even though the Duke and his deputy themselves secretly lust after a chaste but beautiful novice nun—whose brother has condemned to death by the deputy for impregnating his own [the brother's] fianceé). It has been performed as a tragedy, a farce, and as a tragi-comedy; the version we saw was the latter, with a finger on the scale toward the comic.
I understand that the last time it was performed by Yale students (1999), the Duke’s deputy was trying to stamp out S&M/bondage practices, and the costuming was chosen accordingly; it must have been something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Because Philly and environs had been shut down by the storm, we spent another night, and saw the play again; always fun with any live performance, there are nuances that change, and details that had been missed. We also got to go to dinner with many of the cast members, and some of their parents, which was fun. Except for the food poisoning that showed up about 1am the next morning. Not me….the royal consort.
In view of the circumstances, we decided that training home could get real ugly, so I rented a car and drove. Probably the best time I’ve ever made on I-95 from New Haven to Philly. Just over three hours. Very light traffic, no stateys, probably a result of the storm, the horrific explosion in Middletown, CT (and Super Bowl Sunday). I was listening to traffic reports the whole way, on 1010WNS and its sister station in Philly, KYW1060, and they both were reading news headlines off of the AP. The one that caught my ear was this: “Sarah Palin said that Barack Obama would help himself by ‘playing the war card’ and should declare war on Iran.” That’s what I heard, I’m not mistaken, because they said it every 15 minutes during my three-hour ride home. “Right,” I said to myself, “I’ll bet that’s what she said.” So I went online and googled it when I got home. And that will be the subject of my next post….
