Thursday, January 22, 2009 - Was I just part of “history” in the making?

There was an article in this morning’s Daily News about two young men who were going to attempt to break the Guinness world record for the speediest time traveling around the entire subway system in New York City. Under the Guinness rules they must take local trains and stop at every one of the 468 stations inside the system. The record is 24 hours, 54 minutes and 3 seconds.

I had a show scheduled tonight, Thursday, for 9:00pm at a theater down in SoHo so a few minutes after 8:00pm I caught the usual E train at the station at 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue. The car I got on was not crowded. I immediately noticed a large “unattended” backpack and two young men standing near it, one with a small digital camera and the other with a clipboard containing several sheets of paper. The camera guy was taking pictures of the station and the clipboard guy was writing feverishly on the papers.

Man, thought I, this is really strange. I kept my eye on them and when we pulled into the next station at 53rd and 5th Avenue, the camera guy stepped out of the car taking pictures of the station and the clipboard guy was writing feverishly again.

“What the hell is going on? These are two neatly dressed, clean shaven young men - they don’t look like terrorists.” Then it hit me ... my God, they might be the guys who are trying to break the Guinness record, so I got out of my seat and approached them and, yes, it was them. Wow!! How cool!! We started talking, which was interrupted when we pulled into the 7th Avenue station. They took pictures and made notes.

They had started at 1:00pm and were, at this point, an hour ahead of their projected schedule of clocking in at a little under 24 hours. It was obvious to me that they were really pumped and excited. Hell, I felt excited just being with them.

They asked me if I would be willing to sign their “verification” log and I said, of course, so they handed me a sheet of paper that had what I estimated was maybe 15-20 entries. I was asked to enter the time (8:16pm), station (by this time 50th Street at 8th Avenue), car number (which I don’t remember), my name (Bill Norris) and comments (“Go Guys!!”). They took my picture signing the log.

Dammit to hell, I had left my iPhone back in the apartment, something I have done only about 4 or 5 times since I got it over a year ago, so I couldn't take their picture. Dammit!!

They got off the E train at the 42nd Street/Times Square station and raced to transfer to another train but I forget now which one it was to be.

Their names are: Chris Solarz, 28, and Matt Ferrisi, 30, and they both work at the same Manhattan investment firm.

They hope to exit at the Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway station no later than 1:00pm on Friday, thus breaking the record.

Good Luck Guys!!!

Go Gators!!

Billi Pod
wanjr@aol.com

PS: I know I have been remiss in posting. Nothing is wrong. I just haven’t done it. My bad.