DB Wanderer

I  would like to recount an experience I had travelling many, many years ago*. I was travelling from Wuerzburg to Erlangen (just outside of Nuremberg). This is one of the many experiences that I've had with the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB, national railway), which made me a great fan of this company. I just came off a Zen sesshin, or week’s retreat, at a Benedictine monastery situated in the hills of Wuerzburg (a wine-making region of Germany). The sesshin ends with an early breakfast on Easter Sunday. I walk down to the train station with my head in a fuzzy state of mind and my rather  ragged  backpack full of dirty laundry . Once at the station, without checking the train schedule, I step onto the first train heading south. Ten minutes out of the station, the conductor comes and asks for my train ticket. This fellow is a stereotype Bavarian: wide-of-girth, grumpy disposition, and speaks loudly in a broad Bavarian dialect. Something only the Bavarian employees of the DB dare to do; al

Who hasn't been an unwitting listener to a fellow passenger's phone conversation? I am quite a prude when overhearing private phone conversations or seeing someone behave inappropriately (e.g. talking on the phone in a quiet zone department). I really don't feel comfortable, and often I am annoyed. There is a quote from Phyllis Bottome that goes... "There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself meeting them." Since it is impossible to make passengers talking loudly on phones disappear, I devised a mindfulness exercise to use in those situations. Here it goes: Acknowledge how the person is annoying me.  Figure out more clearly what it is I am feeling. Is it anger because this is a quiet zone, embarrassment because the information being conveyed is too personal, or righteousness because I judge the person as being stupid? Tap into my sense of humour and imagine three Goldilocks scenarios (wrong, okay, and good) that wo

(This is a true story.) I go to the train station to buy some tickets for two up-and-coming trips to Berlin. Late Friday afternoon. Crowded. One DB employee is trying to issue an elder woman her ticket for her grandson’s visit over Christmas.  The woman explains to the DB employee that she insists on paying one way for her grandson  to come up to visit her, while his parents insist on paying for their son's return trip. The elder woman knows her grandson had a DB card (discount card), but she doesn’t know if the discount is 25% or 50%. The DB employee patiently suggests that the woman should go home, call her daughter and find out whether it is 25% or 50%, and then come back to purchase the ticket another time. The woman is obviously distraught at the prospect of having to come back again. The DB employee sees the elder woman’s disappointment and offers to let her call her daughter. She asks the woman for the telephone number. She doesn’t remember. Then... how about the name and ad

Short Stories @shortshortstori · May 7, 2019… Sunny dawn, I decide to walk to the train station instead of taking the bus. On the way, a young woman is stranded, trying unsuccessfully to get her bicycle chain back on. I hesitate... come on! I go over, and together, we get the chain back on. She drives off with a wave, and I jump on to the train. 

Short Stories @shortshortstori · Nov 9, 2017… Old school: grey-headed man on a commuter train opens his well-worn brown leather briefcase. It is empty, but for a series of folded articles torn out of medical journals; his analog "read later" folder. He methodically reads one after another. Everyone else swipes their news away. 

Short Stories @shortshortstori · Sep 14, 2017… Who needs coffee? 6 am, watching one commuter after another rush down the stairs racing to train's closing doors. Guaranteed adrenaline rush.