Commuter Dispatch: Look for the Tennis Ball

IT'S FINALLY FRIDAY, and after a long week, we're sure that for many of you out there -- especially those who commute to the end of the line, e.g Shady Grove, Greenbelt and Huntington -- the long trip home can be dreadful. And that last stretch to your destination seems like it takes forever (for Van Dorn Street commuters, it is forever and then some... ). Sometimes you look for those familiar landmarks or sounds in the tunnel that measure how close you are to home. From Yellow Line commuter Jaime Nace, we find out that a tennis ball is that signal that home is near:

My favorite part of the Metro routine, though, is something that I like to consider just my own. Braddock Road is the last stop before mine, and one day last summer, I noticed a bright yellow tennis ball in the grassy area between the train tracks and the school's athletic fields. The tennis ball is still there today, and I find a little smile on my face each time I spot it. It's like my own game of Where's Waldo. The ball never moves, but I search for it in snow piles in the winter and overgrown grass in the spring and summer. Sure, it's faded and harder to see than it was before, but it's there. It's the last part of my routine and the one that signals the end of another day. I see that tennis ball, and I see freedom!