It’s like I’ve always chosen to ride the R train. While teaching at Parsons at night more than 30 years ago, I took the R instead of the F down to 8th Street which would have gotten me there faster. People seemed nicer on the R.

And while the kids were with me at the Whitehall Street Station on the R, eight-year-old Jenny suggested that I leave BBM Architects and work for The Transit Authority, where she thought that I was needed more. So down I went on the R a few weeks later for my appointment at NYCT where they did everything possible to say no. But I persisted, got their okay, and then took the R home with a satisfied feeling and stayed for 21 years.

Having virtually permanent employment each day was a comfort, but not for the faint of heart, being imprisoned in a place where the walls have ears. I would leave the apartment at 5:15 a.m. each day and arrive at home at 10:15 p.m. because of side work for most of my adult life, riding around on the R train.
The R46’s had orange seats that were arranged in L-shaped configurations, meant for conversation. I always claimed my seat as so many of us did. Each day for years, there were the same people going to work in their same seats who smiled “Hello”.

There was the old yenta who approached me one day as she was leaving and said, “You know you have flyaway hair!” Another time, I had worn a full beard for a few months and when I finally got bored and shaved it off she wagged her finger at me and said, “See how much better you look? So handsome…”

There was Mrs. Gonsalvez who sat next to me one day as I finished my Charity Drive stuff. She asked me what I was doing and I told her about running the NYCT Employee Charity Drive with the “Undesignated Fund” and she asked me if she could have a form so I gave her one. A few days later the form came back in the mail with a $100 check from her.

And there was the postal worker who rode with me for years wearing shorts in the coldest of days. A few weeks ago I saw him, still in his shorts, on Queens Boulevard when I was retired for over 15 years and we remembered each other from the R. He said, “Hey, it’s the guitar man!”