NEWSPAPER LONGEVITY RAMBLE

This morning on the train I realized - because of the guy sitting next to me irritatedly rattling his precious newspaper - that his irritability, hence his rattling and reading routine, had something to do with his age, which was near my own (68) but, being of the old Japan school, he was much more regimented, which can make you grumpy, ask any Marine in basic training.

His paper had to be just so before he could even begin to read the article he had finally managed to topographically isolate, whereas I, who was reading a book (so simple to manage, so long lasting, so quiet!), am by intention a much less regimented individual, owing not only to my innate love of the eclectic, but also to my hyper-regimentative experience in Catholic school and the military, so have been spending the rest of my certifiably graduated and honorably discharged life pretty much relaxing, figuratively chewing on a hayweed as I stroll along life’s expressways in my trusty highway shoes, musing on modern life as it races by...

Anyway, at the long rattle I looked up from my book and got to thinking, did a quick little social analysis using the demographic sample at hand, and noted that newspaper reading is becoming entirely an enterprise of elder males. They were the only newspaper readers; elder males who were not reading a newspaper were asleep. In contrast, younger males who were awake were smiling or scowling into cell phones for whatever news was there, as were the younger women; the very few elder women were all asleep; they don’t usually read newspapers on the train anyway, that’s always been more of a male thing (and no longer much of a younger male thing). Fewer elder women also stare into cell phones, though they have them.

No one was reading a book except me, morning train oddball in many regards. For example, I’m one of the last commuters in Japan who doesn’t have a cell phone, which nowadays is like saying I don’t have a liver. Anyhow, it appears that newspaper reading is going to die out when these elder fellows retire, if not sooner. Cell phones are so much easier to hold with one hand when straphanging, and you don’t have to - as with a newspaper - fold them overandoverandover with geometric precision so as not to cause offense to neighbors, other than with that insufferable racket right in the ear of the guy sitting next to you trying to concentrate on his book.

I’m also one of the few elder guys who isn't grumpy on the morning train without good reason.

THE RATTLER

I have previously chronicled the two main genuses of the Japanese train-commuting species, Weasels and Turtles, and have touched upon some of the families thereof that I've encountered in my years on trains here in this nation of delicate politeness and consideration everywhere other than on trains.

I've mentioned the Snuffler, the Bricklayer, the Cosmetic, the Scarfer and the Thumper, among others, but today I will address a new family of commuter I've encountered before but until my commute this morning had somehow overlooked as a true taxonomic family that can sit or stand on its own: the Rattler.

This morning I first had a Thumper sitting next to me (Thumpers are almost always men), the kind who treats the newspaper like an enemy, folds it in half lengthwise, then crosswise, then down to the size of the article he wishes to read, at each fold thumping the paper like a catcher's mitt, then having read the article he unfolds and rethumps his way to the next article, all the loooong way through the paper. The worst part is when he hits the sports section and all the pent-up wannabe kicks in.

I can't read or doze off when one of this family is sitting next to or looming over me, for obvious reasons. To any smart aleck who would say well why don't you just tune it out, I would respond by saying why should I have to? If such people attended zen meditation at a temple they'd be tossed out on their ears. Peace and quiet are public property, after all.

When the Thumper had mangled the silence for several stops he got off and was replaced by the Rattler. The conventional rattler is an upper middle-aged or older woman, who boards the train carrying at least three plastic shopping bags (less than three is a lower order: the Rustler), plops them all on her lap (after sitting next to me; seats next to foreigners are usually the last to fill) and at once begins to rearrange all the contents of all the bags into some cryptic order. The sound is that of a large polyvinyl waterfall of random flow volume. It is difficult to remain inattentive to a plastic Niagara beside you.

This morning though, it was not a woman, it was a man, the first male Rattler in my experience. Not quite elderly yet, but already manifesting the all-alone-in-the-universe quality that is the special province of those who have aged long enough. Anyway, he had at least four bags (beyond three, they tend to blend together), one of which was filled with bottled drinks and one with convenience-store onigiri. The other bags held other stuff, Rattler accessories perhaps.

As soon as he sat next to me he began rearranging the contents of the bags, as per the taxonomic rules, taking out each cellophane-wrapped onigiri, squeezing, turning and rattling it to see what kind it was - as soon as he dug out his glasses from one of the other stuff bags - then finally chose which onigiri he wanted to eat first, put all the others back with an extended rattling flourish, then tried to figure out how to open the onigiri (each one opened the same complex way, but to him they were all different).

He opened each one in turn, after peering again at the others, as before, then wrestled for 5 minutes or so with the one he had selected, emanating a sound that put me in mind of a cat scrambling around in a dumpster full of potato chip bags. He then ate each onigiri with publicly shared oral satisfaction, now and then stopping to clear his teeth by sucking or blowing air through them, bursts of sibilance that went interestingly with the rattling overtone.

Though he was a small man, about my age but probably half my size, he ate onigiri all the way from Kyoto to Osaka, four of them (I can never eat more than two), all in the same manner, then crunched down all the wrappers in a trash bag he whipped out from a bagful of bags among the other bags. A Rattler of the first order.

I look forward morosely to discovering new orders on our commuting family tree.