Friday Night Video

Tonight, we continue with what is now becoming a semi-annual event- this being our highly acclaimed, Friday Night Video series!

Like usual, we have a clip that will be meaningless to just about everybody- everybody except me and whoever took this video. This is a clip of the commuter train that runs through my old home town. It brings back memories for two main reasons.

The first reason is because Dad took this train line into Boston and back everyday for work. This particular station happens to be in the center of town, while the one Dad got on and off at was at the other end of town- about a mile or so from where we lived. In the good weather, Dad would often walk home from the station and sometimes, during summer vacation, I might meet him part way. Other times, I might go along with Mom when she would pick him up in the Jeepster.

Once a year or so, Dad would take me into Boston with him. When Dad would take my brother into Boston, it would be to see a baseball game. But when it came to me and sports, Dad knew he might as well just set his money on fire. Except for getting hot dogs, it would accomplish the same thing.

Instead, I got to go to work with him. I don’t remember a whole lot about his work, other than I would get a lovely selection of lollipops from his secretary and we would visit a toy store- but all of it made me feel pretty important.

I especially remember riding the train, and it felt like a huge adventure. I’m not quite sure why that was. It really wasn’t a whole lot different than riding along in the car with him. Maybe it was because I didn’t have to do it everyday, or maybe it reminded me of our trips to North Carolina. Whatever the reason, trains still hold a lot of fondness for me.

The other thing about this video is that it goes by the place where I had one of my all time worst summer jobs. It’s over on the left-hand side in this video- coincidentally about where all the newspaper machines are. I’m not sure what it is today, but when I was in high school, it was the newspaper distributor for the town. My job was twofold.

The first part of my job took place on Saturdays. My friend and I had task of putting together the Sunday papers for the entire town. I’m not sure how big the town was back then, but judging from the amount of newspapers, I’m guessing it was around a million people or so- give or take.

The way this job worked was that the Sunday papers would come in in two different halves. The first half would arrive in the middle of the week, the second half would arrive on Saturday. The first half  consisted of anything that wasn’t “news” related- things like the Living section, the Garden section, the funnies and, most importantly, the advertisements.

I was told that I was in no way to look at these ads ahead of time. Apparently this would give me some unfair advantage over the rest of civilization. I couldn’t have cared less, but the two guys that worked there full-time (i.e.: "lifers") treated this like it would be a capital crime.

Anyway, the news sections would be printed later in the week- to stay as current as possible. The News half of the paper would arrive about midday on Saturday and it was me and my friend’s job to put these two halves together- for each and every Sunday paper in town. This was a multi-step process that only the sharpest of minds could grasp. It consisted of standing at a bench and taking a Non-News newspaper section, unfolding it, sliding in a News newspaper section, closing it, and then stacking it between some large wire racks on top of the bench. That was it. Open. Insert. Close. Stack. Open. Insert. Close. Stack. Over and over, all day long. All. Day. Long. Thousands of papers. When I was was done, the stacks were taller than me. What made this job even worse was that half the time my friend would leave early and the other half of the time, he wouldn’t show up at all.

This was only Part One of my summer career. Part Two took place every weekday- starting at about 4:30 AM. I was one of a select crew of top notch talent whose job it was to deliver bundles of newspapers to the kids who had morning paper routes. I would arrive at the distributor and load up my car (technically Mom and Dad’s car), with bundles of newspapers, squeeze myself in as best I could, and drop these bundles off at various street corners around town, where the newspaper boys (and presumably, girls) would pick them up, bundle them individually and deliver them. This sounds sweet enough, but wait- there's more! Due to the fact that it was summertime, some of these newspaper boys (or girls... no letters, please) felt they deserved a vacation and therefore, it was left to me to cover for these slackers. This was in addition to my bundle deliveries.

The thing about these individual paper deliveries is that you would always come in the next morning and hear about complaints from certain whining customers. “I couldn’t find my paper.”, they’d say. Or they would complain that it was too close to the road, or that it wasn’t on their porch, or the ink wasn’t dry, or it had mud on it. I had one customer who made it their summer long goal to torment me. No matter where I left their paper, they wanted it somewhere else. For most customers, I could wing their newspaper out my car window as I sped along. Not this person. Every morning, I had to stop, get out of the car, and put it somewhere different. And the following day, I would always come in to be greeted by yet another complaint from them.

Getting out of the car and figuring out where to leave this person's paper every morning was made even more fun by their neighborhood German shepherd that had taken a liking to chasing both me and my car- every single morning.

As summer came to an end, I had had just about enough of this job- and of this customer. On the last day of my route, I stuffed some dog biscuits into my pockets before leaving home. Then, I picked up and delivered all of my bundles and papers- saving their paper for last. When I got to their house, I got out of the car, plied the snarling German shepherd with dog biscuits and I put the newspaper under my rear tire. Then I peeled out on it.

The result was even more effective because the street was all dug up from road work, so it was nothing but rocks and dirt... and now, shards of newspaper. I took what was left of the mangled wad and stuffed in between the front door and their storm door- just as they had requested.

I never went back to get my last paycheck. It wasn’t worth it. The money wasn't worth ruining my fantasy.

The camera slowly makes it's way up toward the front steps of the long forgotten house. On either side of the walkway we see the unattended yard is overgrown with waist-high weeds. We knock at the door, but no one answers. Our knock pushes the door slightly ajar. Carefully, the camera makes it’s way through the old decaying front entrance. Nothing but darkness. As the camera pans through the darkened abyss, we make out vague shapes of cobwebs that drape the room like fauna in some nightmare jungle. Dust hangs in the thick, musty air. An occasional glint of light barely flickers through moth eaten curtains that were drawn long ago. Over in the corner we see what appears to be a small table and next to it, what might be an overstuffed chair. As the camera slowly moves forward, we make out the shape of an old telephone sitting on the table, and inches away... something else. We draw closer. As our eyes strain to focus, we realize that the shape next to the telephone is an atrophied hand- fingers outstretched, reaching in vain for a phone that sits undisturbed. For a moment, the camera pauses- then it gradually pans across the blackened hand, following the skeletal arm up until, barely visible in the thin beam of grey light that filters through the dust, it reveals the face of a mummified corpse. The camera lingers on a face twisted with years old rage. Several seconds pass. Finally, the camera slowly pulls back into the darkness and as it pans down to the hollowed out remains of a lap, there, among the decayed remnants of ragged clothing, lay scattered teeth that long ago dropped out of the corpse's gaping maw. Between the sprinkling of molars we see the other hand- still tightly clenching... an Old. Tattered. Newspaper.

That, at least, is how I choose to imagine it. And for me, that’s pretty much worth that last paycheck.

So, there you have it. When you look at this video, you probably see a train leaving a station. I, on the other hand, see the good, the bad, and the sweet, sweet revenge.

Enjoy.

P.S. I have no idea why the video starts off with a jet overhead. Ignore it.