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The R6 train, and other atrocities
On renaming my commuter train
I heard the other day that the SEPTA commuter train near my house in East Falls is being stripped of its name: The R6. After August 28 this train will be nameless, except when it's referred to vaguely as "the Norristown line." (The other SEPTA numbered lines will suffer similar fates.)
Here's my question: How can you take away the name of a train? How can you reduce the train's identity to the place-name of the town at one end of its line?
Can you imagine the meeting where some train bureaucrats decided to strip the name from the train? It must have been like something from Vonnegut, or Wallace, or Pynchon, except not funny.
Also not funny: A man from Staten Island has made the news because he has no arms or legs. He lost them in Iraq. His name is Brendan Marrocco. He's got four prosthetic limbs, and he can send text messages now. Soon he'll undergo a risky double-arm-transplant operation.
To mention the text messages is just my snotty way to make fun of this story's press coverage. Many of the reports about Brendan Marrocco also dwell on his resilience, courage and humor in the face of great injury and pain. The bit about the texting is merely a cute journalistic detail, like mentioning the way Marrocco refers to single and double amputees as "papercuts."
This guy is no vegetable; he's already walking on those prosthetic legs. I guess he doesn't give a shit what they call the R6. I guess I don't, either.
Here's my question: How can you take away the name of a train? How can you reduce the train's identity to the place-name of the town at one end of its line?
Can you imagine the meeting where some train bureaucrats decided to strip the name from the train? It must have been like something from Vonnegut, or Wallace, or Pynchon, except not funny.
Also not funny: A man from Staten Island has made the news because he has no arms or legs. He lost them in Iraq. His name is Brendan Marrocco. He's got four prosthetic limbs, and he can send text messages now. Soon he'll undergo a risky double-arm-transplant operation.
To mention the text messages is just my snotty way to make fun of this story's press coverage. Many of the reports about Brendan Marrocco also dwell on his resilience, courage and humor in the face of great injury and pain. The bit about the texting is merely a cute journalistic detail, like mentioning the way Marrocco refers to single and double amputees as "papercuts."
This guy is no vegetable; he's already walking on those prosthetic legs. I guess he doesn't give a shit what they call the R6. I guess I don't, either.
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