Second Hand Music

This morning on the train and the subway to work, I did not have my own iPod, so I listened to second-hand music radiating from the ear buds of a 20-something guy on each train.  The guy on the Amtrak train to Philadelphia was Hispanic.  The guy on the subway was Korean.  Otherwise they were identical.  They both wore sideways baseball caps, the both wore t-shirts and jeans.  The guy on Amtrak wore boots.  The guy on the subway wore hightops.

Both had music pounding their ears at enough volume that I could hear it from five rows away.  They reminded me of my bunkmate during the first week of pre-deployment training.  Then Pvt. 1st Class Eric Ward was 19 and went to sleep listening to metal music loud enough that I could hear it from the top bunk.  He fell asleep before me so I would shut it off when I went to sleep.  He was already snoring.  Eric was the first soldier to leave Iraq.  He hurt his knee playing football.  After that football was banned for Echo soldiers.

Usually, the Amtrak train is completely quiet, but it is a holiday weekend, so different people ride the train than the usual commuters.  The subway is always noisy.  I missed my iPod.

If you were wondering, I listen to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and the "Political Scene" from New Yorker magazine.  I also listen to "Distillations" produced by my coworkers and my current audiobook is "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt.