Transportation

Adam and I left for his spring vacation to Normandy while Pete stayed in Paris working for our pay check and training for his half marathon.  From the train to the rental car to the our first destination Omaha beach.  We learned all about the liberation of France by the Americans  

Adam's interests are growing and maturing, but  NOT changing, to my dismay. He is still infatuated by transportation -- ships, trains, airplanes, and buses in general -- and by the metro system in particular.  We have long, a bit too long, discussions about the differences between metro lines; between the different cars in each line; the different colors of the lines on the metro map; the names of the stops; the quality of the stations; the difference between the sounds of hydraulic and friction breaks; the lines that emerge above ground; the ones that diverge, the frequency of busy lines and the science of timing the cars' arrivals.  

Lately, he has been focusing on the computerized center that orchestrates the whole system, but of them all, he likes most to intimate information about -- line 14 -- a computerized line that runs without a driver.  

At night, Adam reveals his sweetest dream about line 15 -- a line that does not exist -- yet. He tells me its future design, location and interconnectedness with the other existing lines.

All this requires hard work.  Carrying heavy books from the library, hours spent in the library with encyclopidias that are not to be borrowed, endless google searches, repeated visits to technological museums and manual as well as computer sketches of the system and its expansion.

"Adam, what is it about transportation?" is a constant question I pose to him -- my way of coming up for air -- trying to make this topic more meaningful, significant, and personal.  Most of the time he wears a half obvious half bewildered look and answers with a haste: "because it is interesting".

A few weeks ago to break one of his very technical explanations of how to synchronize lines that go to business centers with less used lines at rush hours -- I asked once more -- "but what is it about the metro..."

To my surprise, Adam began a detailed psychological reflection on the origin of his interest.  He said, "I think it all started at preschool when I put a few chairs in a row pretending like it was an airplane. Kobi and Noam sat behind and I drove the plane and when I looked back they where gone and I cried.

"Adam!" I cried in astonishment -- it is all starting to make sense --