Travels With TonooseArchives of Traveling BlogsBy Anthony Buccino |
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THE STRANGEST THING I saw the strangest thing at the Branch Brook Park Newark Light Rail station.There was a policeman there. Yes, that's strange and most unusual - but that's not the strangest thing I saw at the Branch Brook Park Newark Light Rail station. A woman was smoking a cigarette in the part of the light rail station where the outbound trains leave off their passengers before heading to the last two stops. The woman was sitting in one of the benches where, I suppose, passengers are supposed to wait for the train to Belleville or Bloomfield. No, seeing someone smoke a cigarette in the light rail station isn't so unusual. In fact, it happens all the time. (Don't you just hate the guy who takes one last huge drag on his butt before getting on the departing bus ... and exhales as he steps past the bus driver!) But the woman smoking a cigarette at the Branch Brook Park Newark Light Rail station wasn't the strangest thing I saw that day. Heck, we've seen the dangling, burning cigarette in the outstretched hand extended by NJ Transit people who sit in the booth in the island. Yeah. It's an art form, that is, to keep your body inside the booth and the burning cigarette outside. When NJ Transit spent millions of dollars to upgrade from a subway to a light rail, a goodly portion of those funds was wasted in redesigning the waiting area of at the Branch Brook Park Newark Light Rail station. However, even before Gov. Codey implemented the no smoking in New Jersey law, NJ Transit used a portion of the funds allotted to the transportation upgrade to include signs that say No Smoking. Really. The No Smoking signs are there. They're not too obtrusive, but if you look for them (You're getting hot ... cool ... cooler ... cold ... warmer ... warmer ... Hot ...) you're bound to find one of those No Smoking signs eventually. So, to near the end of this big disposition, wait til you hear what comes next! The policeman, (remember him from the second paragraph?) actually wrote a ticket to the lady who smoked a cigarette on the platform. In fact, she had to walk across the street to his squad car to take final possession of the ticket. (While she was over there, she smoked another cigarette.) The brief incident, which occurred one evening while I was waiting for my bus to come in, reminded me of the speeder who was pulled over by the highway patrol. The speeder says to the highway patrol, "But everybody was speeding! Why do I get a ticket?" The highway patrol asks, "You ever go fishing?" And the speeder nods yes. "Well," asks the patrolman, "do you catch ALL the fish?" Oddly, that parable can be related to the light rail smoker. Giving one speeder on the highway a ticket for going too fast gets, what, a cursory glance from the rest of the drivers speeding by. The other speeders, like the other light rail station smokers, don't change their ways because of a sign nobody ever reads. Now, a $100 ticket, that talks! -- Happy Trails, ----- Anthony
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