Opportunity in Chaos and the New England Patriots

New friends, an unscanned ticket, and a beautiful day at the football stadium highlighted my Sunday afternoon.

This isn’t a story about sports, even though the New England Patriots feature prominently in it.

When I turned up at Boston’s South Station on Sunday to catch the Patriots Game Train to Foxborough Station, I was alone. I had decided fairly last minute to attend the game and, despite offering an extra ticket to each of my Boston-area friends, there were no takers. That’s fine, of course, as I don’t mind watching sports alone!

The universe, it seems, had other plans. When I boarded the train, there was another wheelchair user already onboard — about my age, he was with his dad and a couple of their friends. Although the stereotypical Bostonian is frequently assumed to be unfriendly, that was not the case with this crew! They quickly invited me to join their conversation and, by the end of the one-hour ride, I had made some new friends!

Although their seats were in the club section, and mine in the lower bowl, they weren’t satisfied with sending me on my way to sit alone. “Come with us,” they said, “and we’ll do some ‘wheeling and dealing’ to get you in.”