Tweed Encounter

This morning my bus came pretty late, and sometimes when that happens I'll switch to the Green Line at North Station. Even though I dislike riding it, sometimes it makes more sense to take it, because while there are numerous buses that run through Ruggles that can get me to work, they run less frequently after 9 AM. On Wednesdays we have our weekly breakfast at work, so I don't eat breakfast at home, and I didn't want to get stuck waiting for a bus and end up late and hungry.

So this morning I was on the Green Line, sitting in one of those perpendicular seats near the middle of the car, reading the paper and minding my own business. I noticed a really strong cigarette smoke odor, so I glanced around. There was a guy standing directly in front of me, and clearly he was the source of the smell. He took the opportunity of me looking up to get my attention and start talking to me.

"Is that cap a Donegal tweed?"

I was in fact wearing a Donegal tweed cap, so I knew he had to be talking to me. He told me he was from county Donegal in Ireland, and he certainly sounded the part. I hadn't completely disengaged my brain from the paper, I wasn't entirely awake yet, and I was still a little distracted by the smoke stench, so at first I wasn't sure how to respond and I managed only, "I haven't been there, I got it here."

We proceeded to have a conversation about the Irish imports shop in Cambridge where I'd gotten the hat some years ago (in fact, it was so long ago that the store was actually in Quincy Market at the time) and how to get there. Not knowing whether he was familiar with the area, I told him it was on Mass. Ave. between Harvard and Porter, on the northbound side of the street. He allowed that he would just go to Porter and ask someone there where to find it, which seemed fairly sensible to me.

I considered mentioning the Scottish import shop that's also in Porter Square, upstairs above the bagel place, but decided it was too early in the morning to provoke that sort of angst. By that point we were pulling into Park Street, and he abruptly left the train, without saying goodbye or thanks or anything. Maybe he was just a figment of my imagination. Wait, did I meet a nicotine-addicted leprechaun on the T?