Save the Bar Car!

I heard this morning on NPR that MetroNorth (the train line that connects Grand Central Terminal in New York to the Connecticut pipeline of financiers' homes) did not budget enough money for bar cars. According to the report, there aren't enough seats for the amount of people who board the train so they're going to discontinue the barcar and add another coach. However, riders can still buy beverages and snacks on the platform at GCT and bring them onboard. To which I say: Sigh.

Do you ever get the feeling that we've become a society that lacks culture and refinement? That we have reduced everything down to its barest necessity? Afterall, what is a train for? To transport people. Ergo, why do you need a bar car? Answer: Um, we don't? Get rid of the bar car. Its like we don't understand the human need for an experience. For connection. We have to be on the train to get from point A to point B. Why can't we have something to make that experience -- that forty-five minutes to an hour and a half of our lives, five days a week, twice a day -- nice? Or at the very least, nicer. We've become a society that shuttles people from place to place with no thought to comfort, convenience, or (yes) culture. Take for instance, our airline industry.

While most of you might not know the MTA or, more specifically, MetroNorth, majority of you do know about flying. It's kinda a hell right now, isn't it? Volcano ash aside (I currently have three family members stranded in Ireland), it's not the nicest of experiences to begin with. I have noted in this blog numerous times the mental angst and anguish I've endured with the airline industry, and it only seems to be getting worse. One place is now charging for carry-ons and another wants to charge to use the latrine! And that's only after you get through TSA where you've stripped off most of your clothes and exposed all your toiletries to the world. No secrets here. There was a time when people would have found all this humiliating. Of course, those people were used to a little comfort and luxury, too. Things we've given up in the name of cheap travel and national security.

I used to travel MetroNorth. I went from New Haven, Connecticut to New York, New York and back, every Monday through Friday for four months. And then, I would take it random weekends and every holiday for five years. It's not a pretty train to begin with. It is sparse to say the least and was usually cleaned with some ammonia smelling strigent that always made me slightly sick. (And god help you if you sat near the latrine.) The bar car was basically one car with a bartender who served you nipper sized drinks with cans of Coke or Sprite and a basket of personal sized Lays products. Luxurious? Not exactly. But it was the community that actually sprung up in the bar car. The Wall Streeters and Madison Ave execs on their way home, chatting about something that happened that day. I enjoyed the bar car. It was a loose atmosphere where no one scowled at you if the train lurched and you got thrown into them. While the coach cars were filled with people reading the New York Times or the last Grisham, plugged firmly into their iPods, the bar car actually promoted conversation. Even someone like me, who definitely is not a chit-chatter, enjoyed the jovial atmosphere there than the tense "don't look at me" experience one had anywhere else on the train. On the other hand, I've also been one of those people on the train who didn't get there early enough to get a seat and had to stand for an hour while we were shuttled out of the city like cattle. Inconvenient? Yes. Irritating? Could be.

What's the answer? I don't have a clue. Sometimes I do think the planned community movement has something to it. With more and more people moving all over the country, living in one state while working in another, we are destroying something. Not just the ozone layer either. We're destroying communion, conversation, and community. And by doing that, we're destroying culture. There's nothing to agree upon any longer except to say that none of us are happy, and none of us really know why. We feel disconnected. We feel unheard. We feel impotent. All anyone has to do is read a comment section on any public web site forum and you can see that. The thing about the barcar is that it's there for the people who want to talk and mingle. Exchange ideas. Its there for those extroverts out there who like meeting new people. And even for the introverts who occassionally want to enjoy a glass of wine. Leave a space for socializing. The more we force people into seats and away from each other, the more singular we will become. And that's not very nice at all.