“You gotta (sic) listen to this,” said an old friend of mine, who knew that in a former life, I would spend close to eight hours a month riding trains and hanging out in train stations. For many of you daily commuters, ten hours a month is kindershpiel, but for me, a 13-year-old boy, barely five feet tall, lugging suitcases, train trips were a life-altering experience. And the memories remain.
So when the fellow played to me the resonant voice of someone announcing in a machine-like, yet human voice, “This is the train to Babylon. Change at Jamaica for Far Rockaway,” a chill went up my spine. I don’t know if it was a recording of the voice I heard in the 1970s, but I sounded awfully familiar. Van Ritshie was an iconic voiceover actor of customer announcements on the Long Island Railroad.
Back in 1970, there were not too many kids from the Rockaways going to yeshiva in Philadelphia, and I certainly was the only one from Woodmere. A trip back then by train was, for some reason, much more dramatic than hopping in a car and making the 2-point-something hour drive to Philly. Going on the Boro Park bus was often not an option so getting back home was a trip on the Paoli local, to Philadelphia 30th Street Station, and then switching at Penn Station to a Long Island Railroad train. If you missed switching trains in Jamaica, indeed you could have ended back in the arms of the Gemara – right back in Babylon. Only this Babylon was not associated with Sura and Pumpadisa, rather it was the end of a route that included Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst and finally… Babylon.
Exhausted on the third train of the long trip home, I smiled inside when the announcer would read off the names of those shtetlach, or hamlets in goyish, as if he were reciting the aseres bnei Haman.
I am not sure if the announcement that came over the loudspeaker was that of Mr. Van Ritshie, he may have entered a decade or so later, but somehow, listening to a recording of that voice reciting those names sent a flash of warm memories through my mind.
There is something moving about re-hearing the sounds of our youth. The good sounds trigger good memories and maybe the bad sounds trigger bad ones.
I once pulled out my Long Island railroad card, perhaps in an impish manner, when I was learning in Ponovezh back in the mid-1970s.
At the time, I did not mean to show off, but the more puckish side of me got the better of me and the arrogance of the two fellows forced me to play vigilante, defender of bnei Torah who they appeared to have thought were all ignoramuses.
It happened on a particularly sweltering day in Bnei Brak. The two American tourists who seemed somewhat neophytes to Jewish observance were perusing titles in a seforim store. It was the type of store that carried a wide array of books and a host of items to cater to Jews of every background. They emerged with their purchases in hand, ready to climb the spiritual mountains that they had set their eyes upon.
I was in the store at the time and watched them talk broken Hebrew to each other. I then saw them in an almost comical position, as they struggled with a Parshas Hamonn, written with calligraphy letters — the portion of the Torah that deals with the miraculous apportioning of the manna. Reading it daily according to many sources is a segulah, or a force to inspire parnossah. Their lack of experience in reading (and perhaps in Yahadus as well) had them believe that this was some sort of rendering of the Purim story and that it was called Parshas Haman after the evil villain of the Purim story.
Being the month of Av, they were a bit shocked that the storekeeper did not rotate his stock properly. I meandered over and explained gently in Ivrit, the language of their choice, how different something could mean when the emphasis is placed on a different syllable.
I did not mean to show them up at all, but realizing the contrast of the two items they felt embarrassed. They retorted as if they had been attacked, that Americans know a lot more than Israelis about other matters. And so, it all evens out.
It was not more than a half hour later when they had their chance to prove their point. I had to go to Yerushalayim that day, and they, by some twist of fate, shared a sherut taxi with me.
In the taxi, I tried to make nice, and in very Israeli Ivrit, I used the one-word contraction that in English means, “Where do you come from?” M’eifo’atah?
They laughed hard. What would a born-and-bred Bnei Braker know about the Long Island town of Babylon, Long Island? And they milked the moment. “Anachnu Mibavel. We are from Babylon.” Snidely they added, “So, you know where that is?” They both laughed.
They expected me to figure that they had a home near the Euphrates or came from a town that may be familiar now because of a war some 25 years in the future. But, I, a Dashing Dan on the Long Island Railroad for close to seven years in my commutes from Woodmere to Philadelphia, knew exactly where they came from. And I knew exactly how to get there by LIRR and the stops the train made along the way: Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst and finally Babylon.
I scrunched my eyes in thought. “Bavel? Behbeelon?” And then, I did something I regretted later but enjoyed at the moment so intensely that I often repeat it in the very heavy accent with which I first presented it. I was back as an Israeli. “Rega. Rega,” I asked for a moment of their time. Then, slowly but clearly, I rattled off, “Leenbruhk, Ruckville Centerr, Friport, Mairrick, Bellmore, Vantaugh, Sifferd, Messepeqva, Messepeqva Park, Ehmityville, Cupiague, Leendinhurst.” Then I smiled and declared… “ehn Behbeelon!”
They looked at each other in shock. How did this Bnei Braker, who probably never left his city more than two or three times a year, know the entire Babylon line of the LIRR?
I answered the question for them, “Lomdim Gemara, yodim et hakol.” (You learn Gemara and you know it all.)
You even know that the iconic voice of Babylon is no longer with us.