From Party Car to 81MPH in a School Zone: Notes from the Commute

 

I’ve been a commuter my entire life. And I don’t mean twenty minutes down a sleepy road while sipping a latte—I mean real commuting. Mileage. Wear patterns. The slow erosion of the soul. commutes so long that sometimes it had a bathroom break.

It started in upstate New York: Bloomingburg to Kingston. Pine Bush to Poughkeepsie. Then Bloomingburg to Hackensack. There was never an “easy” drive. Just traffic, construction, deer, fog, and that one guy who always drove like he had diplomatic immunity. To make a living you had to travel, I used to joke that every county line equaled another Ten thousand dollars in pay

When I moved to North Carolina, the pattern didn’t break—it just shifted regions. For years, I went from Mt. Gilead to Fayetteville, then Mt. Gilead to Monroe. Long stretches of road, the same faded billboards, the same gas stations, the same little mental tricks to stay awake during that last stretch home. The best part about driving home from FayetteNam is I could occasionally race an Apache helicopter down the  Plank road..

Laminated Permission and the Empty Roads of 2020

When COVID hit, I had a laminated sticker that said I was an essential employee, which meant I was allowed to be on the road for work. That’s a real sentence I just wrote. It wasn’t long ago, but can you believe that was even a thing?

About two weeks in, I was one of the only cars on half of my backroads commute. It was eerie. Familiar routes turned into quiet stretches of empty asphalt, like driving through a movie set after they yelled “cut." Grass actually started to grow in the cracks in the back road sections of my commute

Once I got to Highway 74—normally slammed with what Springsteen called “broken heroes on a last-chance power drive"—it was mostly deserted. No traffic. No cops. Just a few of us left to our own devices.

We became a loose crew of the same seven cars every morning. No waves, no names. Just a mutual understanding: we would ignore speed limits together. There were no school zones to slow for. One morning, I glanced down and realized I was going 81 miles per hour through one anyway.

It wasn’t rebellion. It was momentum.
It wasn’t freedom. It was weird.

A strange little chapter in the long book of commuting—where nothing felt normal, but the roads stayed open.

The Brief, Glorious Days of the Train

There was a short, magical period when I could take the train instead. It took longer—but I didn’t have to be in control, which made all the difference.

You could breathe. Stare out the window. Talk to people. Or not. You could just exist, in a liminal space between home and work, where nobody needed anything from you for 90 blessed minutes.

And for a while, I rode the wild west of the NJ Transit rear car—a rolling social club unofficially known as the party car. It was the last car on the train, and everyone knew what that meant. You’d walk in and instantly hear poker chips clacking, drinks being cracked open, bad jokes being told too loudly. Friendships were made back there. Deals were struck. Weird snacks were shared. once the conductor made his quick once through , you could smoke out the rear cab of the train.( folklore said if you got caught in NJ they sent you to a Turkish prison, but in NY the fine was like 50 dollars)

It wasn’t an official thing—but it had vibes. Culture. Tradition.

And Then... They Made It the Quiet Car

Then one day, NJ Transit in its infinite wisdom decided to designate that rear car—the party car—as the "Quiet Car."

I kid you not. Flyers went up. Official signage was posted. Suddenly there were laminated rules and passive-aggressive reminders that cell phone conversations were not permitted. This was now a sacred zone of silent transit.

The exact same car they had just used in promotional materials showing people laughing, socializing, and playing poker.

You couldn’t script a better example of a management disconnect.

Any of the other cars would have worked. But no. They took the only car where people were actually enjoying the commute—and asked them to whisper. I could write another blog on how people who wanted peace and quiet met with wall street types, and construction  workers drinking beers and scotch.   Just a complete mess for months, with either side willing to cede any territory. The poor quiet car people didn't even know they were entering contested territory and a war they knew nothing about..

A Lifetime on the Road

Commuting, for me, has never been convenient. It’s just been constant.

I’ve spent so much time in the car I can tell you which exits smell like wet leaves, which stretches of highway have terrible radio reception, and which gas stations hide the good coffee behind the jerky racks.

I’ve eaten more fast breakfast sandwiches than a man should admit. I’ve talked to myself. I’ve screamed into the void of morning traffic. I’ve mentally written entire novels between red lights and potholes.

And yet—there’s a weird comfort in it, too. The rhythm. The familiar blur of trees and taillights. The meditative boredom that somehow turns into clarity after mile 27. Watching dirty snowbanks, give way to springs new green, To hearing the peepers on a warm summer night because none of my crapbox commuter specials ever had working, functional AC, to watching the trees explode into oranges reds and yellows..

We All Just Want to Get There

Maybe that’s the real heart of commuting. Nobody wants to do it—but we all want to get somewhere. And for those of us who’ve spent a lifetime going somewhere else to make a life work, the commute becomes its own quiet chapter in the story.

Whether you're behind the wheel on Route 74 or sipping coffee in a stolen moment of peace on a quiet train that used to be loud—you’re still in motion.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

So here’s to the lifers in lane three.
Here’s to the cracked dashboards, the podcast phases, the gas station routines.
Here’s to the sticker that said essential and the train car that forgot what it was.
To the miles we rack up not chasing dreams, but showing up.
Because sometimes, showing up is the dream.
And somewhere between exit signs and parking lots, we built a life out of motion.

Commute on, friends. The road remembers you.