Today, I was headed on a trip to Napa with my friends Kevin and Sarah. A last hurrah before I head back to the east coast. I took the Caltrain to meet up with them in San Francisco for the first leg of my trip.
The Caltrain is quite easy and convenient, but I wouldn't say I'm an expert at it. Today, I went onto the bike car, just because it so happened stop where I was waiting in line.
I was excited because the bike car had an upper deck, which i've never been able to sit at before. I plopped down on one of the empty seats and started to enjoy the view. A couple of stops went by, and naturally, the train became fuller at each stop.
At one stop, there was so many people that a huge crowd of 20's to 30's came onto the bike car. There was no more seats available, so they had to stand in the bike aisle. After hearing their conversations, I found out they were on a scavenger hunt.
The group was joyous and was chit chatting about the items they had to find. A Caltrain employee was even kind enough to help them figure out where to find items on their list. "Do you know where we can find a tattoo if a baby?", one passenger asked. All of a sudden, another passenger on the train yelled out, "I have one!"
The atmosphere of the car was fun for everyone, except for one man, which just so happened to sit right behind me. As the laughter and conversations were in the air, he was venting under his breath, "This is a bike car, get out of here!"
I understood where he was coming from, in the sense that the bike aisle should be reserved for bikes. However, not too many bikes were coming on board at each stop, and if there was, the group would move for them. And even the Caltrain employee on board was ok with the group being there.
The guy kept venting throughout the whole ride. As he was approaching his stop, he went down to get his bike ready. As he was doing so, he started his snide remarks to one of the members of the group, who kept it classy and was smart enough to not add more fuel to the fire.
After that guy finally left, an older gentleman who witnessed everything, slid over and told the kid, "Hey kid, don't sweat the small stuff." The kid smiled and thanked him.
I smiled immediately after witnessing a complete stranger passing on wisdom and encouragement. It gives me hope, that one day more people will have the courage to be a positive influence to others, no matter who they are.
