At The Transit Museum

I sat inside a subway car
From 1961.
The seats were made of wicker
That once made my stockings run.

I also wandered into trains
From years before and after.
The ads were so old-fashioned
There were teens there wracked with laughter.

Some I did remember:
Vote Miss Subways – pick a winner!
Others touted Oysterettes,
To add to soup for dinner.

There were ads for Burma Shave,
Lux, Juicy Fruit, Rinso;
Folks who held those subway straps
Once read them long ago.

It’s fun to travel back in time
And think of how I’d be
Squashed like a sardine
When riding on the IRT.

It got you where you had to go;
And then, what’s really strange
Was, on the bus, the driver
Took your dollar and made change!

These thoughts were triggered by a trip
To Brooklyn, just to see
A great museum, quite the place
To mull some memory.

And when I left, I took the subway
But the spell was broken
Because I used a MetroCard
And not a Y-cut token!