Dan's Papers - January 25, 2008 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Delays: The K line will be delayed two hours on Monday afternoon so that workmen can remove a giant raccoon that has gotten into an air duct and has not been able to get out.

Happy Birthday: Robert J. Wilson, our senior lineman from Hampton Bays who, despite an injury suffered six years ago when he stepped on the third rail, has soldiered on and will retire with full benefits this September, after 28 years with Hampton Subway.

Experts from several different environmental organizations and one from the Bronx Zoo are going to monitor the removal of a giant raccoon stuck in an air duct just three miles east of Hampton Bays. Subway employees noticed three days ago that every once in a while the duct was partially obstructed, leading to an intermittent backup of fumes in the tunnel there. A camera lowered through the duct on a wire has taken pictures of a giant raccoon down there, who is able to move around, occasionally causing the obstruction, but is apparently too big to get back out where he got in. He or she appears to be in excellent health so far.

From the photographs, it is estimated that this raccoon may be the largest of this particular subspecies ever observed in the State of New York, weighing as much as 70 pounds. This has peaked the interest of the environmentalists who will be on hand, and in particular a representative of the Bronx Zoo, which would like to take the raccoon alive for its collection.

Subway employees intend to place a large cage over the top of the subway duct, then remove the duct and send two employees wearing special protective gear down into the duct with a special snare, some dog treats and a large net. Up on the surface, lying face down and peering into the duct hole will be a member of the Hampton Subway police force armed with both a taser and a shotgun, which it is hoped will not have to be used. The intent is to disable the creature with the taser, then snare him and tie him up in the net, and then hoist him up to the street above, which happens to be Canoe Place Road at Peconic Road. It is recommended that residents in the area stay in their homes until the beast is safely in the van.

The half hour weekly show "Voice of the Hampton Subway" has been cancelled after five episodes due to poor ratings. The show came into existence after a competition here in the Hamptons to select the new Voice of the Hampton Subway was held to replace Gladys Gooding, the Hampton Bays resident who had spoken "Please watch the closing doors" and "Next stop Amagansett," etc. etc. for twenty years and who died on November 26 after an enthusiastic fan raced to embrace her on the platform at Southampton, causing the two women to fall onto the tracks in front of the Montauk Local. Both women died.

The competition had been under way for just two weeks here at our Hampton Bays headquarters when Fox expressed an interest in the show and subsequently bought it. The TV show began with a two-week delay in the middle of December on Wednesday evenings just after "Kitchen Nightmares," which has excellent ratings and has been on for almost a year. The plunge in ratings for "Voice of the Hampton Subway" after "Kitchen Nightmares" ended was at first attributed to the newness of the show. But the last place finish at that time slot continued for the next four weeks until yesterday when it was announced that the show would be cancelled. It will be replaced by a so far unnamed show where large men attack one another with clubs for money.

In any case, thirteen of the original sixteen contestants, all of whom live in the Hamptons but were not among the three who were eliminated, remain stranded in Hollywood.

Subway Commissioner Aspinall's daughter Wendy, age 18, the first contestant to be eliminated, is back at home here in Southampton and is not stranded in Hollywood. And at least temporarily, she will now become the "Voice of the Hampton Subway," since her audition tapes made at LTV here in Wainscott remain available and there will apparently be no winner selected from among the other thirteen applicants.

The strike by the underground flagmen who signal the subway cars approaching the stations with either red flags to stop or green flags to proceed, continues unresolved. The flag work is currently being done by token booth employees, working overtime. No change in the hours that tokens are being sold has been necessary.

I want to thank our brave token clerks, who for overtime pay have braved the picket lines at the subway entrances above to take over the work of the striking flagmen. It has been an easy thing for them to do, actually. They stay down below when their shifts in the booth end, and, working at double overtime plus hazard bonus pay, just pick up flags and walk down into the tunnels to the glass booths where the flagmen work, so they actually never have to cross any picket lines. Too bad, you strikers.

I also want to thank the Hampton Jitney, which has partnered with JetBlue to safely bring home the stranded "Voice" aspirants from Los Angeles on Tuesday. We had worried about them. JetBlue flies from Long Beach, not LAX, so there are still arrangements to be made to round them up and get them down there, forty miles away, to the airport. But we are working on it, and we expect to have a volunteer bus company from LA on board before Tuesday. Finally, I want to thank our Board of Directors, who voted 4 to 3 to hire my 18-year-old daughter Wendy to be the new "Voice of the Hampton Subway," at least temporarily for the next year. She was so devastated when she was booed and hissed off the program in its first week, and she will take up her duties with pride and delight. Next September, she expects to be off to the Imperial Secretarial Junior College for Women in Little Rock, Arkansas, so it may be that she resigns her post a bit early. We shall see.