BUS STORY # 345 (Daddy's Girl)

"Untitled," © All Rights Reserved, a photo by Caitlin Gibson, on Flickr. 

When we stop for a wheelchair, the guy in front, sitting in the bench seat behind the driver with a stroller and a kid, heads to the back.

He’s a young guy, long blond hair and a dark blond beard. The child is somewhere between two and three, I’d say; a blondie like her daddy, with very red, round cheeks.

He takes the bench seat by the back door, where I am sitting.

From the moment he sits down until he gets off, he is talking to Crissy* pretty much non-stop, and most of it is a variation on “Don’t!”

Don’t put your hands in my pocket.

Don’t throw that on the floor. I’m gonna take it away from you if you keep doing that.

Don’t bounce on daddy, Crissy. Can’t you please sit down and be quiet?

It’s a southern voice. Tennessee is what I’d guess.

His daughter is a non-stop handful.

Cris, don’t be pulling daddy’s hair. I gotta look good in court today or the judge isn’t gonna be happy with me. Crissy!

The woman across the aisle from us turns in her seat to get a look at him. Her eyes radiate disapproval. And then I see she’s got Bette Davis eyes. Not the eyes of the song; the mature Bette Davis which, I now understand, is why they radiate disapproval.

After a long look, she turns and faces forward again.

Daddy is telling Crissy it’s not polite to put your hands in other people’s pockets. She must have been listening because she puts them somewhere else.

Cris! I told you don’t be pulling on my hair.

He grabs her under her arms and lifts her up in the air.

Why can’t you be a good girl?

She’s laughing and having a good ol’ time.

He brings her down so she’s standing in his lap, and then he starts tickling her. She is laughing and twisting every which way.

You want me to stop, Crissy? Huh? You want daddy to stop tickling you? You don’t like being tickled? Well that’s how daddy feels when you won’t do what he asks you to do. How do you like that, huh?

He tickles her a little more, then stops. Bette Davis has once again turned in her seat and her eyes are bearing down on dad. If looks could kill...

The little girl is hugging her daddy. Her right hand goes to his shirt pocket.

Crissy!

When they get off, he wheels the carriage to the door with his left hand. He’s carrying Crissy in his right arm. He stops and looks toward the driver.

“Thank you very much driver. You have a good day.”

Bette Davis turns toward the window and follows him until we’ve pulled away from the curb and down the street to where he is out of sight.

There are two stories in here I’d love to have had, and I spend the time until my own stop imagining what they might be, and how they have intertwined here on the bus.

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*Real name changed.

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The photo at the top of this story is titled “Untitled,” © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the permission of Caitlin Gibson. You can see all Caitlin Gibson’s photos on Flickr here.

BUS STORY # 344 (Stroller)

Downloaded from the January 8, 2013, YMC post, “Stroller Mom Lodges Complaint Against Bus Driver.”

I watch a couple with a large stroller board this morning.  The father puts the stroller in front of the empty bench seats across from the driver.  It takes up the space in front of all three seats.  He pulls the child out of the stroller and sits on the bench seats across the aisle, with the child on his lap.

His wife has also taken one of the bench seats, and placed a large bag in the middle seat between her and her husband.

The driver tells them they won’t be able to block access to the bench seats, and that they’ll have to fold the stroller up and out of the way.

It’s a refreshing surprise, but neither of them argues with the driver.  Dad hands his wife the baby, then gets up and moves the stroller down the aisle – it’s a tight fit – to the space in front of the rear doors.

He begins unloading the stroller.  I watch him pull bags and a small backpack and sacks from the stroller and place them under the seats in front of the back doors.  After a while, I think of that stroller as the tiny circus car that a hundred clowns get out of, one at a time.  He removes a bunch of smaller things and finds places in the larger bags to store them.  He is diligent and patient.

The process lasts through several stops, and riders are all moving to the front doors to exit.

Finally, the stroller is empty, the space under the seats is stuffed full, and he folds the stroller up and leans it against the pole in front of the rear door.  He has to stand behind it to keep it upright, which effectively obstructs about half the exit space.

I exit before they do (through the front door), and so miss watching them go through the process of getting off the bus.  After watching him unload and fold, just imagining that process reminds me of something my mother used to say: “God knew what He was doing when He gave children to young people.”

BUS STORY # 343 (Safety First)

*Explored* Run for the bus!!, © All Rights Reserved, a photo by minardiforever on Flickr.

“This guy ran out in front of my bus this morning.”

This out of the blue from our driver. He goes on to tell us how it was still dark. He was approaching the intersection at Candelaria when he saw this guy running through the sweep of his lights -- dark clothes, no reflectors -- he could’ve been hit by a car -- and signaling the bus to stop for him.

Our driver didn’t stop. No way was he gonna slam on the brakes and try making the stop before the intersection. That was just crazy. He had riders who would have been thrown forward, maybe out of their seats and injured. There could have been a car right behind him that could have rear-ended him. He might have ended up sticking partway into the intersection.

The guy’s probably mad at him for not stopping. He’d like to see that guy behind the wheel when another rider did that to him. Then maybe he’d understand.

I’m thinking I’m not sure even that would change the guy’s feelings that the bus should have stopped for him. These days, we seem to want what we want, and that’s about as far as we take it.

And then I’m thinking Busboy is an old man thinking grumpy old man thoughts.

When I shift my attention back to the driver, he’s explaining the drivers are only supposed to pick riders up at the designated stops. He knows there are times drivers exercise discretion and he’s good with that.

I’m thinking there isn’t a rider who doesn’t know he’s right and isn’t grateful for those discretions.

But, he goes on, the rider has a responsibility, too. He needs to get up a few minutes earlier to get out the door to be at that stop on time.

I’m thinking our driver was at my stop eight minutes early this morning. Although now that I think about it, he waited at the stop a couple of minutes before pulling back out into traffic.

There is no rule I know of that defines when a bus is “on time.” Each of us probably has his own definition against which we judge a bus to be early, on time, or late. I use five minutes as a parameter, but that is arbitrary.

And there’s the not-small matter of knowing your driver’s habits. Whenever the drivers all change routes, you can count on hearing stories from the regulars all that first week about how they missed or almost missed their bus or their connection because of the new driver.

There’s where you are along the route. No big surprise that the closer you get to the end of the route, the more wobble in the schedule. Traffic, wheelchair boardings, passenger incidents, drivers’ plans for the rest stop at the turnaround...

Finally, there is your time vs ABQ RIDE time. All experienced riders have at least one time piece synchronized with the time on the bus. Otherwise, your five-minute parameter may have you running across the street waving at the driver rather than standing at the stop when your bus comes.

There is no way to know whether the guy who ran in front of the bus this morning was “on time” or not. All we know for sure is that he was not at the stop when the bus came.

Our driver says he’s learned he can’t make everyone happy, and that his job is to deliver his riders to their destinations as safely as possible. Safety first, he says, underlining his primary standard.

I’m good with that.

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The photo at the top of this story is titled “*Explored* Run for the bus!!,” © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the permission of minardiforever. You can see all minardiforever’s photos on Flickr here.

BUS STORY # 342 (Catching Up)

Waiting for the Bus..., a photo by Moliniano on Flickr.

The driver is lowering the wheelchair lift on one of the old 300s. I didn’t see anyone in a wheelchair at the stop, but when the lift delivers an old man with a walker, I understand.

He’s surely in his 70s. He’s wearing shorts that display swollen knock knees. He moves slowly to the bench seat, turns around, and starts to lower himself to the seat.

His knees won’t really bend, so he is sliding down the back of the seat until his knees just give out, and he drops into the seat with a quiet “Oof!” He pulls his walker close and settles in.

Across the aisle and three rows back, another rider calls out.

“Charlie,* is that you?”

“Hey, how you doin’, man?”

They talk a bit. Charlie tells him about his knees.

“Gonna have an operation in October, and then I’ll be all right.”

The other guy asks about Trey.*

“Oh, he’s still in. You know he went in the same time I got out.”

The other rider asks Charlie how long he’s been out now.

“Six months.”

He goes on to explain he put on 20 pounds this last time, and it’s been hard trying to take it back off.

“How’s Henrietta?”*

“She’s on her own, now.”

“You by yourself, then?”

“Yeah. She just wouldn’t give up her addiction.”

There is more conversation. The rider asks about someone else, and Charlie says he hasn’t seen him.

“Been some changes. You know Clifford’s* gone. And Tom’s* in a nursing home now. But he’s doin’ good, doin’ good.”

They remember some other folks from “back in the day.”

They are still catching up when I get off at Central.

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*Real name changed.

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Thanks to Rachel in San Francisco for this week’s Holy Cow! featured link.

BUS STORY # 341 (Albuquerque Bus Stops: A New Blog)

Detail from the cover photo for Michael Jerome Wolff’s blog, Albuquerque Bus Stops.

Albuquerque has a new bus blog. Or, rather, a bus stop blog. It’s called Albuquerque Bus Stops. Melissa Ewer posted the link on the ABQ Bus Riders Discussions page of Duke City Fix. I was so taken by the photograph that it took me a while to move on to the top post. But when I started reading, I didn’t stop until I’d read all eight posts. The first was posted on May 4.

The blog is concerned not so much with the bus stops themselves, but with the homeless of Albuquerque who, as every bus rider knows, can be readily found congregating at various bus stops around the city, and who use the bus when they need to go somewhere. It is a demographic that is hard to miss and easy to overlook. Michael Jerome Wolff has chosen not to overlook.

Michael and I have spent time at a couple of the same bus stops. I can vouch for the accuracy of the scenes. But we are different bus riders and writers after that.

Michael actively solicits his stories; I passively observe, or interact only when approached. It is clear he is comfortable among some of the most discomforting characters around; I am not -- until an unsolicited one-on-one happens, and the story of a human being emerges.

Michael is young, and it’s not hard to see an adventurous, even fearless, streak in the lines of his stories. I am long past young, and apprehension tends to temper my curiosity.

I sense a much more uninhibited compassion, and perhaps romanticism, in Michael’s stories. He also takes better pictures than I do. Lots better.

Michael has taken some compelling photographs of the people he writes about. There is a curious coincidence about my finding these photos this week; I just finished writing a possible bus story about why I don’t take pictures of people I see on the bus or at the bus stops, even though I sometimes would like to.

We do have this in common: we sometimes are fortunate enough to have a beautiful woman by our side when we travel the bus.

I highly recommend starting with the About page. I’ve posted the link to the home page to the right of my stories, under all Albuquerque links.

This is a promising start. I look forward to more posts, more photographs, and maybe recognizing some of Michael’s subjects on the bus -- or at the bus stops.

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Thanks to BB in Marshfield, MA, for this week’s featured link: This Week In: Boston.

BUS STORY # 340 (Shorts 30)

Pluralism, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

I’m on the already-crowded 7:05 a.m. when a guy gets on, walks down the aisle and finds a seat up on the benches on the rear platform.  He sits down, then says in a loud voice, “Good morning!” No one answers. “Good morning, everyone,” he repeats.  “Good morning.  Good morning.” His voice booms.  No response.  No one even looks up.  He sits back in his seat, says “Tough crowd,” and pulls a book out of his bag.  I laugh, but not out loud.

***

He’s an old guy, mussed up gray hair, faded denim shirt and some hard-worked bluejeans, beat-up boots. His cell rings and this is what I hear: “Yeah...I’m on the bus. I’m goin’ back to work. I got off at three-thirty this morning...Yeah...Call me tomorrow around noon...Yeah.” It is 8:16 a.m.

***

T-shirt seen this morning on a kid on his way to high school:

Haters Target, downloaded from the website for Metal Mouth Apparel

***

Overheard: a rider greeting a co-rider who’s just boarded the bus the morning after a record Powerball jackpot drawing: “I guess you didn’t win the lottery, either.”

BUS STORY # 339 (Train Story # 4: The Gambler)

Seen from the westbound 11 crossing over I-40., a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

This story is tied to two preceding stories which you can read here, and here.


My wife finally did find a Rail Runner employee who explained to her there was no way of knowing ahead of time which set of tracks the train would come in on because they sometimes had to switch tracks depending on other traffic. She told me she asked him how the passengers would know, and he answered, they’d know. (He was right.)

She came back to where Edward* was holding forth, and for a few minutes, when he was talking about musicals, something she knows a lot about, she joined in. Pretty soon, the two of them were riffing on an idea for “Lincoln: The Musical.” Edward knocked out some pretty funny lyrics for the Ford Theatre scene, while my wife recognized the tune he was using and suggested they give it a happy ending.

Unfortunately, the breeze and shadow drove her away to a sunny spot against a wind-breaking wall next to a bench. Shortly afterwards, I noticed a Native American-looking fellow take a seat on the bench, and begin a conversation with her.

Later, when we were on the train, my wife told me Nate* had just begun working his way up the casinos along the track. He’d just finished with Isleta where he’d done pretty well at Black Jack. He’d gotten a room, gambled, eaten well, partied a little, slept, then went back and gambled some more.

He did have a little trouble at Isleta. He invited some friends to join him in his room. Later on, he went down to gamble, and when he came back upstairs, the hotel security and tribal police were in his room. His friends had apparently gotten a little rowdy.

Now, he was on his way to Sandia. But he was going all the way to Bernalillo first to meet his mother. She was driving in from Cuba to meet him. The two of them would drive down to Sandia together and gamble. HIs mother got a pretty hefty social security check, and it had just come in this week.

Nate also told my wife he had a house in Bernalillo that was worth three hundred thousand. She had the impression he was wondering if she might be interested. Later on, he would tell me someone had offered him two hundred and forty for it, and he was thinking he might just have to jump on that.

I’m not sure whether my wife had decided to try and get away from Nate or was just missing me, but she came over to where Edward and I were. Nate followed.

There were introductions all around, and that is when Edward and I discovered we shared the same first name. It’s also when I saw Edward’s vision deficit. When Nate extended his hand, Edward simply did not see it. He recovered, but I think he actually sensed it rather than saw it. When he did reach out his hand, he let Nate make the connection.

Nate had been divorced for a couple of years now. “Divorce is really expensive!” he told us. They had five children, but they’re all grown with families of their own. I asked him if they were all close by. They are, but “I leave them alone. It’s their world now.”

Nate, in turn, asked us where we were from. That is when Edward learned I, too, was born in southern California, and into a (considerably smaller) family who’d also moved there from Indiana. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but somewhere in the discussion Edward mentioned being Irish. I shared that I, too, had an Irish ancestry, only three generations back on my mother’s side.

Nate momentarily confused ancestry with nativity, and Edward popped into a remarkably credible Irish brogue to help things along. There was laughter all around. Nate, for all his seeming wildness, was as gentle and considerate in his conversation as he was unabashedly open in his story telling. I liked him. He left us when the train was approaching the station. We looked for him at the Bernalillo stop, but didn’t see him.

Edward got serious -- just a little, and for just a minute -- when he noted the similarities between us. “What are the odds...” He hoped we would run into each other again, and assured us he wouldn’t forget us. And he extended his hand. I made the connection. We wished him well, and we all headed for the train.

Later on, during the ride, my wife said, “You got a bus story out of all this, didn’t you?” I told her I was pretty sure I had, and I credited the happy accident of leaving a half hour too early because I didn’t check my carefully constructed itinerary. Which, my wife pointed out, left her literally out in the cold for half an hour... but she added she was really glad to see first-hand how I came by my bus stories.

How sweet is that?

We then went on to have a wonderful day together in Santa Fe, which you can read about here if you haven’t already.


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*Real name changed.