Counting Cars for Charity

Every day, weather permitting, I walk at least to the local Metra station. Depending on the route I take and how I feel any particular day, the walk is anywhere between a mile and a half to three miles round trip.

Usually when I am at the station I count how many cars are in the lot. Imagine the melody of a Paul Simon song. “Counting the cars at my town’s Metra station.”

Usually when I am at the station I count how many cars are in the lot. Imagine the melody of a Paul Simon song. “Counting the cars at my town’s Metra station.”

Before the pandemic hit, the station parking lot was usually full but I didn’t start counting the cars until Covid shut down schools and business and made downtown Chicago a ghost town. On some weekends the cars would number in the single digits at most. A couple of weekends only one lonely car sat on the asphalt.

Over time things have started to pick up. The station master and I have a running conversation about when it might get back to pre pandemic levels in ridership. With more people buying tickets online or through an app, his ticket sales are not an indicator. Vehicles parked in the lot is more indicative.

Some trends are that Tuesday usually sees more cars than Monday. Wednesday usually has the most cars. Thursday is similar to Tuesday. Friday is usually the lowest numbers. Weekends so far are still abysmal, but that might pick up as summer months come and more people want to go to the city, God knows why, to see the Cubs probably lose.

I’m seeing some signs that more people are ready to use the trains again. My guess at normality is when 100 cars or more are consistent filling the spots at the station.

So, if you’re reading this, take a guess on the first day at least 100 cars will be parked in the Grayslake Tooterville Metra Station.

If you’re reading this on Facebook, comment with your guess. If you’re  reading this on Twitter, reply with your guess. 

For the person picking the right date on Facebook, I will donate $50 to the charity of their choice. Same for the person picking the right date on Twitter.

Pick dates May 17, 2022 - July 1, 2022. Please only one pick per person. If it happens, winner is the person who replied or commented first.

If no one picks the right date on either medium or if July 1 comes and the number isn’t reached, I will donate $100 to the Newport Festivals Foundation which is doing good work for music education and the musical arts.

Have some fun. Maybe make a little difference in the world.

On Some Wordsmithing

 

Writers play with words. It’s what writers do.The type of writing doesn’t matter. Poetry, songs, short stories, novels, non-fiction, journalism. I suspect even technical writers who are producing the directions on how to put together that toy you bought for your kid for Christmas.

Sometimes, they come up with perfect descriptions as Christopher Moore does in his novel Noir:

“That’s when the first kiss happened. It was the kind of kiss that he wanted to wake up to and keep refreshing periodically until he got one long last one, salty with tears, in his casket.”

I’m sure there are countless other passages that one could point to that are, at least to the reader, perfect. But, it is the process a writer goes through after getting an idea that makes it perfect. The tinkering, the revision, the tossing into the trash part of the process that sometimes gets ignored.

Supposedly, Ezra Pound started with about eighteen lines of poetry before winnowing it down to the two lines that is “In a Station at the Metro” -- 

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

It’s what writers do. They find the right words to say what they mean and the right words that mean what they say. That’s the tricky part.

Sometimes it’s even the smallest of words. Reportedly, Pound still wanted to get rid of the “a” in the second line.

***

I ran across this in Poetry Magazine years ago. It still captures what a writer struggles with in the process of producing exactly the right wording.

The

The difference between

“the shining” and “shining.”

The difference between 

“fingers of clover” and 

“fingers of the clover.”

The difference between 

“a daisy” and “the daisy.”

The painter steps back from his canvas, 

returns to make 

one bit of sky greener.

The mechanic adjusts a bolt.

Now let’s see how this wheel spins.

A writer is an artist, words are the tool, but the writer is just like the mechanic, always adjusting to see what happens next.

***

Still, it all starts with an idea. One that, as Wislawa Szymborska says, the writer invites in and tries to find out more about it. 

An idea came to me for 

a rhyme? a poem? 

Well, fine -- I say -- stay awhile, we’ll talk.

Tell me a little more about yourself.

***

I taught high school writing for 35 years. I’ve had the pleasure of having a few students who get this, and some are trying to make a career out of it. My advice is to keep writing. Keep playing around with the words. Make love to the words. Accept what they give you. Find the secrets they are hiding.

***

Obviously, I think Moore, Kresh, and Szymborska are good wordsmiths. I could name dozens, maybe hundreds who do equally well. Poets, songwriters, fiction and nonfiction. It’s what they do.