Thanksgiving spirit on the Amtrak Surfline

December 9, 2024

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” is currently on Amazon.

Out of San Luis Obispo at 6:11 a.m. on the Amtrak Surfliner headed south, I savored my window seat and ocean view and relative emptiness of the cars on Thanksgiving Day until we hit Goleta and a stampede of college kids and a scattering of adults jostled for seats. A sort of melee with a deluge of mostly nerds dragging suitcases, most of them engulfed in headphones and holding on tightly to cell phones.

To my left, on the other side of the aisle, one seat up, an obvious female student took an aisle seat instead of a window seat, settled her baggage in the window seat instead of the rack above, pulled down her tray and proceeded to build a sort of blockade to the window seat.

What was on the tray?

Well, first of all, one has to describe her apparel: an enormous parka-like jacket that submerged nearly her entire face, the hood including bunny ears (as if it was Easter instead of Thanksgiving). The parka reached to her knees and seemed suited for the North pole. It was hard to see just exactly what she looked like until she stood to loosen the jacket and it was apparent she was possibly Chinese.

Now, the tray’s contents: A large bottle of water. Bunny gloves. A huge purse. Computer case. Very large cell phone. Unidentifiable cloth objects. Unidentifiable plastic objects. The mountainous blockade reached close to a foot high.

The conductor, moving slowly down the aisle checking tickets, paused as he checked her ticket by her phone, said something to her, but she was soon working her fingers on her phone and didn’t look up to acknowledge him.

In Santa Barbara, a fresh horde swept on. Up front, perhaps ten seats away, two men around 40 in football hoodies stood, waiting for a seat. I felt like waving to them and pointing to the empty seat blockaded by the student, who continued working her fingers, a busy little bee indeed.

We stopped in Ventura. A few passengers departed while many more poured on. The conductor, inching down the aisle, checking more tickets, told the girl she had to move the contents on her tray and allow somebody to use the seat beside her. She ignored him as if he did not exist and the conductor, busy, moved on.

I was starting to almost admire her, if she pulled it off. Currently, a very young student sat beside me in ear phones and worked his cell. He never looked at or acknowledged me. The students from both colleges, with very few exceptions, worked their phones.

We stopped in Oxnard. New people piled on. Some, moving up and down the aisle, paused to size up the mountainous blockade and empty window seat and continued on while the princess continued working her phone, ignoring any stimuli, not once bothering to look at the view or anybody.

The two men up front finally found seats.

We moved on.

The conductor continued intermittent journeys down the aisle and gave up saying anything to the queen. It was getting warm in the train and so she flapped the hood back and it was immediately obvious that she was extremely pretty, blessed with a haughty movie star glamour. Indeed a princess.

By God, she deserved to hog two seats on an overcrowded holiday train, and if nobody—including the busy conductor—had the balls to demand she move her unnecessary shit from her tray, well, fuck them and more power to her!

Then, approximately 45 minutes out of LA’s Union Station, she went into new action. She stuffed some of the contents of the blockade into a purse and a large bag and then moved to the window seat, propped up her tray, placed upon it her cell phone, and shoved her purse and bag in the aisle seat.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving generosity, she was on a mission. Yes, by God, she had allowed at least 20 people to stand around while the train rocked about, or walk up and down the aisles of all cars searching for an open seat, and she had not budged one iota from her strategy, a game plan that filled me with grudging envy.

About 25 minutes out of LA, after a trip probably to the toilet, she plopped back the hood and indeed she was slender and fetching. And once back in her seat, she pulled out a large hand mirror and beauty products and began going to work like a professional make-up artist, closely examining her eyes and lips and placing clips in her hair before packing everything away, then getting back on  the phone.

Not once did she bother to glance at anybody–another admirable trait–and when we pulled into the station, she pulled tight the hood with bunny ears (A perfect subterfuge!), grabbed her bags, and headed for the exit, phone in hand.

As I exited, I wondered if I could pull off such a feat, or had the balls to do so. Nope.