Subway

The stations were very space age, gleaming chrome and glass and enamaled colored brick, long escalators rising impossibly high above the street, or descending impossibly low underground. The shiny white cars, built by Rohr - I think they were Germans, legendary for prompt locomotive transportation. Now the cars are brushed stainless steel, I know, I've seen pictures. Back then, you got on at Concord or Richmond or Orinda, purchasing a ticket from the machine, and placing it in the reader slot at the gate - whoosh! - instantly your ticket would pop up out of another slot five feet away, and the gates would slide open, tilting away like a ladies fan, inviting you in. That long damn escalator up to the platform, the chirp of the electronic train whistle as the gleaming electric car rolled quietly, quickly into the station, pushing a wall of breeze before it followed in the wake. Through the East Bay hills, then plunging into the Trans-Bay Tube, under San Franscisco Bay, underwater but dry, emerging on the other side to the smell of busses and steam and fish and Chinese food and saltwater, today overrun by idiots - transplants and busybodies looking for free love or lunch, minding everyone's business - but back then, maybe even now, beautiful.