Thinking about Amtrak and Irony and Ideology

I had an extraordinary English teacher way back in boarding school. Norris Orchard loved the complexity and the subtlety of the English language and somehow managed to pass that along to those of us fortunate enough to be in his classes.

We played word games over meals at his table in the dining hall. And he had a standing offer of $25 – a helluva lot of money in the early 50s – for any student who could come up with two perfect synonyms. Orchard, you see, maintained that there are no two words in the English language that mean exactly the same thing … and he emphasized exactly.

On one occasion, I came up with “menace” and “threat” and thought I had him. Orchard looked at me pensively for a moment and said, “A rather good effort, Mr. Loomis, but for the fact that one cannot send a menace through the mail.” The he added, “Unless, of course, it were possible to pack and ship a five year old boy.”

On another occasion, Orchard gazed around the table and said, “Who can provide us, using no specific examples, with a definition of irony?” It really can’t be done, but it was sure a fascinating and stimulating lunch hour.

That was more than 50 years ago – a testimony, I guess, to the impact a truly inspired teacher can have on a young mind, however ordinary it might be.

I thought about Norrie Orchard today when I considered how ironic it is that Amtrak is now projecting 30 million riders for the calendar year, which would be an all time record. It’s ironic because Republicans in Congress, led by Rep. John Mica of Florida, are proposing drastic cuts to Amtrak’s already meager subsidy and are seriously talking about privatizing the Northeast Corridor between Washington to Boston, the only profitable route in Amtrak’s system.

Of course, peddling the Northeast Corridor to some private company would mean that the rest of Amtrak’s operations would immediately show much greater losses. And that, in turn, would give John Mica and others of his ideological ilk the excuse they’re looking for to begin calling for a shut-down of America’s national rail passenger system.

And that, in the vernacular of today’s youth, is an irony that really sucks.