The Port Jefferson trains have always been diesel powered, the fruit of someone�s stupid decision in the 1970�s not to electrify the tracks past Huntington. The old diesel cars had limited air conditioning and windows that opened. Their doors rarely shut all of the way, inevitably rolling back and forth on their tracks as the train car pitched, blasting whatever the unfavorable temperature was into the car. The trains consistently smelled like spilled beer and stale smoke and I always, no matter what the hour, took a shower as soon as I returned home.

When I rode back to Port Jefferson last weekend, I realized that all of the old cars, both electric and diesel, had been retired. This began some time in the late 1990�s, wherein the stinky old cars began to be replaced with new plastic double-decker trains, equipped with an automated voice announcing stops. In these trains, the a/c is always blasting. There is only one bar car during rush hour and no one is allowed to smoke. Businessmen still tote double bags of Fosters onto the train, but for reason, the beer rarely makes it to the floor. One still feels dirty when disembarking, but it is more the result of two and a half hours of travel, not grime.

I sat with this realization for a bit, shifting in my ergonomic seat, and watched the suburban landscape fly by. In my memories of the commute, the further east we flew the more dense the green, the more lush and empty, the spaces between stops and towns widening until finally, after passing Stony Brook, I was home. As the automated woman called out the stations one step behind, I stared out at the town sequence that I knew by heart�Kings Park, Smithtown, St. James, Stony Brook�and watched gargantuan houses burst forth from the earth. The space between things has lessened. The green is there, but swaths of identical mansions break it up. There is not much to gaze at anymore except for memories.

On the way back to Brooklyn, I transferred to the electric train at Hicksville. It was a Saturday night in the summer and the car was packed with college-aged and older Long Islanders, heading to The City for a night on the town. Many were already drunk, passing around Pepsis whose contents made the drinker gulp and wince, or water bottles filled with anything but water. People were loud and sloppy, shouting across seats, standing over one another in the aisles and taking cell phone photographs of already irritated passengers.

I slid down into my seat, cranking the volume on my music, and seethed. I closed my eyes and felt the rhythm of the train. I smelled the faint but distinguishable scent of beer and vodka in the distance. Someone was smoking between the cars. Trees were gone and things were cleaner, but the essence of the Long Island commute was still there, for better or for worse.

I guess some things never change.