Slave to the summer SEPTA grind

It's sad but true -- I have been a summer-school SEPTA slave, and lived to tell. But before you drown me in your pity, let me tell you a tale of triumph. In the summer of 1995, I lived in Swarthmore Borough and took summer classes at Penn. I stayed in a first-floor studio apartment with a view of the Swarthmore train station, about 150 yards away. Unfortunately, my proximity to the station meant I became complacent about making the train on time. About a minute or two before the train's scheduled arrival, I would dash out my door, sprinting toward the "safety bush." The safety bush was a shrub next to the road. If I reached this marker before my train appeared from around the bend, I knew I was close enough to make it and would slow to a walk. The safety bush was important; since the train ran only once an hour, I would miss class if I didn't clear it before my train appeared. I tried to give myself a greater margin of error for important classes. For my economics final I took the extraordinary step of taking the train arriving two hours before the test began -- leaving myself an insurance train. As usual, I nearly missed this train. Dashing through the apartment door, I found myself trapped: The front walk -- and the only opening in the ring of hedges surrounding the apartment -- was blocked by a rented trailer. Damn movers! Two-minutes till the train. Instinctively, I charged the ring of hedges like a bull at Pamplona. Head down, I bulldozed into my apartment's landscaping at full speed. Everything went? green. D'oh! I had made it only halfway through. I ingloriously wormed my way forward until I fell onto the sidewalk, jumped up, and sprinted for the all-important safety bush. I crossed into the safe area just as my train appeared in the distance. Catching my breath on the train, I thought the ordeal was finished. It was just beginning. After two-and-a-half stations the train abruptly stopped. No big deal, I thought -- probably just a signal problem. Five minutes passed. Fifteen. Thirty. The conductor announced that a live power line was covering the tracks, and a PECO crew would have to fix it before the train could move. Great. Now both of Philadelphia's legal monopolies were imperiling my grade in -- of all things -- economics. Forty-five minutes since we had stopped and still no progress. I had wanted to walk to a pay phone and call a cab, but I was told it is illegal to exit a train between stations. After a delay of sixty minutes, the train finally began to roll -- backward. We stopped at the nearest station and were allowed to exit while the train waited. I started to panic. I called a cab, but only one taxi company serves that part of Delaware County. Its drivers are famous for taking their own sweet time arriving -- if they stoop to respond at all. The conductor announced the train was reboarding, though he wasn't sure if the wire had been fixed. The exam was 45 minutes away. I made a quick decision and boarded the train, trusting SEPTA more than the cab company. Presuming we traveled on schedule, I figured I would make it to the exam with a few minutes to spare. But we stopped again; the wire was still down. I started to hyperventilate. I paced up and down the isle, receiving dismissive glances from the jaded passengers. "What'sa matter, son?" the conductor finally asked. "You got to go to the bathroom or something?" I told him my plight, and he said he'd see what he could do. The exam was in thirty minutes. Twenty-five minutes. I lost hope and started to sulk. At T-minus twenty minutes, we moved forward. But I was indifferent. Without a miracle, I would be late. "This is now an express train!" the conductor bellowed, parting the waters between me and the Promised Land. "Next stop -- University City." I was saved. A few minutes later the train glided into University City Station. I was sprinting down Spruce Street even before the train had stopped. I dashed in front of cars, thinking only, "Williams Hall, Williams Hall, Williams Hall." I arrived just as the instructor began to hand out exam booklets. In retrospect, the conductor probably was not the savior I took him to be. Given the trains backed up behind us, he probably would have made the train an express one anyway. But I like to think he took pity on a small, powerless summer-school student and SEPTA slave. Blessed are the meek.

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