On the train home there was a peculiar mood of jubilation: voice were talking below and were merry.

Four girls stood outside the bathroom, giggling and talking unabashedly amongst themselves. Was there someone in there, they wondered?

"A couple of 'em!" said someone from the rows.

The girls giggled some more. When the two who were in there exited, the four went in. The boys on the train made good fun at this, but without malice: "I always heard California was kinky, but I never thought I'd see this." Inexplicably, the conductor, a broad woman, appeared and knocked on the door.

"Is there a couple of people in there?" she asked. To check, she pulled open the bathroom door and several gasps were heard from within.

"Yes!" averred the boys.

"Hey! It's one at a time in there! I don't know if this is what you do regular, but not on my train," insisted the woman, weridly serious amidst all this good cheer.

Continuing inexplicably, she then waited and they exited, "Sorry!" "Sorry, we didn't realize." No more comments from the peanut gallery were heard, while three waited for the one occupant.

Off the train, then, I saw a sign reading "BONDS 679." Unfamiliar with the going rate of financial instruments, I thought nothing of it. I walked past men shouting "$75! $80!" Curious, although laden with a heavy backpack, I stopped into a brewpub under the promise of veggie quesadillas. I procured that much, plus a barleywine, and sat at the bar. When I sat down there were some people playing baseball on television, and the next thing the stands were scrabbling for a long ball; then the screen flashed "BONDS 680 BONDS 680" and replayed the hit several times. "Yeah, that's what he does," murmurred someone. There was a kid in the bullpen who had a huge bubble-gum bubble on his cap and didn't know it. We had great fun laughing at him until, three innings later, someone told him and he swatted it off with an effort to look like he knew it all along. The radio played the likes of U2, Iris Dement, and late-model Dylan. A yuppie couple from the neighborhood laughed about the notion of an 8-track player. It was all very American and I was enjoying a rather good vegetarian quesadilla, two days before the 228th anniversary of the signing of my country's declaration of its independence from an oppressive foreign power. That's all.