Heads or Tails #33 (Express)

Today, our benevolent blogging mentor, Barb, wants us to focus our cosmic force (and the text of this week's Heads or Tails) to the word "express."

This, surely, is a natural topic for bloggers who are engaged in the ultimate medium of self-expression. Yes! I can see exactly what is intended here -- how we express ourselves through blogging and focus, refine and clarify our thoughts and emotions in this way.

And that's why, today, I will write about... falling asleep on trains.

There are two types of trains that bring commuters into and out of Chicago, the "Metra" commuter trains -- real railroad trains that run to traditional railroad suburbs on real railroad tracks owned by railroad lines that would be, in their component parts, familiar to students of American History -- the Union Pacific, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. I don't take those.

I take the other trains, which are called "light rail" trains by people who never use them. These are the trains that run down the medians of some of our Chicago expressways, or on elevated tracks, or in subways. Chicagoans refer to these trains as the subway or the "el." What confuses the tourists is when we direct them underground to the "el" -- or point at the elevated tracks to send them to the subway.

I often fall asleep going home on the train -- if I can get a seat. I'll open my book, start to read, and before long I have surrendered into the arms of Morpheus. I haven't slept past my stop more than a handful of times.

I'd argue that falling asleep on trains is fairly normal. When I rode the commuter trains, as a law student, everyone in the entire car would nod off. In those days we had afternoon newspapers, kiddies, real newspapers that published in the afternoon instead of the morning. You'd buy the Daily News on the way to the train, read Mike Royko and drift off to dreamland. You just left your ticket out for the conductor.

Falling asleep on the subway may be slightly more problematic... after all, the train stops more frequently, people are always getting on and off, there are panhandlers and pickpockets and other gritty, urban realities. But we don't have to leave our tickets out, do we?

Usually, of course, I have to sleep sitting down... but there was one time, years ago, when I fell asleep standing up.

The train was crowded and we were all lodged in shoulder to shoulder. I had hold of a pole and out I went.

The train was the Evanston Express.