Who's paid for a stranger's free subway ride?

I approached the subway station on the Market Frankford Line yesterday morning on my way to work and, as I always do, pulled out my wallet to pay my fare. I don't have a monthly SEPTAPass and, as we've written about ad infinitum, until SEPTA Key gets brought online (hopefully by summer) credit and debit cards are no good at a subway stop.

I opened my wallet and it was empty. The night before I had put my cash in my pants' pocket, not in my wallet. I was already running late for work, and cursed as I faced having to find an ATM, get exact change and come back, or just walk to work. Thanks to a very generous fare collector, I didn't have to do either.

He heard me muttering and asked what was wrong. I told him, but definitely did not ask if he could let it slide.

"Go ahead," he said, unprompted.

It was really nice. I was so appreciative that this man spared me from having to go on a hunt for cash.

Here's what gave me pause, though. A few weeks earlier I had seen another man at the same station (which I'm not going to name just in case reporting any of this might cause a problem for someone) in a situation similar to mine. He was disheveled and unclean. My guess, he was probably homeless, and he was short a quarter. The man working in the fare booth that day, a different person than the one who gave me a free ride, would not let him through. Eventually another rider who was already on the platform walked back to the booth and volunteered a quarter, allowing the disheveled man to pay his fare. It was a kind thing to do, and it struck me as remarkable. For regular riders of public transportation, "mind your own business" almost becomes an ethos. Faced with beggars, the homeless and the mentally ill, my reaction is usually to look away. One person didn't that day, and all it cost him was 25 cents.

That said, I'm sympathetic to the fare collector. SEPTA officials noted their fare collectors aren't supposed to give anyone a free ride, though they seemed to appreciate that their staff isn't draconian in following that policy. Nevertheless, clearly the system would collapse financially if everyone who asked for a break got one. I also have no idea if the disheveled man was a regular at that particular stop. Maybe he showed up without enough money so often SEPTA staff had grown tired of cutting him slack. I don't know.

There's a stark contrast between my free ride and the difficulty the disheveled man faced over a quarter.  It could be as simple as one fare collector being more generous than another. It could be, as I said, that the man denied passage over a quarter too frequently sought a break. Race wasn't a factor, as we're both white, but the differences in our socioeconomic states were plain, and maybe that matters.

Ultimately I'm not sure how much can be extrapolated from these individual experiences, other than that there are some really nice people both riding the subway and working for SEPTA, but I'd be interested to hear about your encounters with free rides, or times you've helped others get a ride. If you want to share funny stories, moving stories, or even times this kind of encounter made you mad, I'd like to read them.  If I get good responses I'll post a few on here. My email address is jlaughlin@phillynews.com. Hope to hear from you.