Bus Stories

2012-02-12T05:00:00.010-07:00

BUS STORY # 275 (Portrait # 16: The Couple)

Mestizo Series: Los Novios, by Amada Pena, a photo downloaded from the website AVANCE’s 10th Annual Toma Mi Corazon by busboy4 on Flickr.

They look like a couple out of an Amado Pena portrait.

I’d put him in his 40s. He’s not skinny, but he doesn’t carry any extra weight, either. Intense black eyes in a face that looks hard, but not mean. He’s not what you’d call handsome, but he’s definitely arresting.

She looks ten years younger. And while she gives me the impression she’s lived through exactly the same things that have made him look so hard (and very probably right there at his side then, too), her features are softer. She’s not beautiful or pretty, and certainly not cute. She is handsome.

Together, they look strong. I find it difficult to keep my eyes off them.

Sometimes there is conversation of a sort. He is the initiator. He leans in, and looking straight ahead, says a very few words in a very quiet voice. She responds in the same manner. They rarely need more than the single exchange.

My sense is that he is asking her about something that requires a decision or direction, or perhaps a confirmation. He defers to her without giving anything up. She knows how to accept that deferral without taking anything away.

This interaction doesn’t happen every time, and when it does, it only happens once on the ride. Still, I’ve seen it often enough that I’ve come to view it as ritualized, each word and gesture freighted with a world of shared understanding.

I’ve seen her on occasion by herself, and she is something less than when she is with him. I’ve never seen him by himself, but I feel sure it would be the same.

My wife would think of them as “soul mates.” I think of them as two halves, a male half and a female half, of a whole. The whole, of course, being greater than the sum of its parts.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is of a painting titled “Mestizo Series: Los Novios” by Amado Pena, and is taken from the website AVANCE’s 10th Annual Toma Mi Corazon.

2012-02-05T05:00:00.004-07:00

BUS STORY # 274 (The Case Of The Purloined Bus Stop Sign)

The Case Of The Purloined Bus Stop Sign, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

I leave work late this evening, but my compensation is running into Vikram* on the ride home. I haven’t seen him in since he’s started his new job working at the university.

We’re having a good time catching up, and we are both amused that, for once, the layover by the Sunshine Apartments** is a good thing because we have a lot of catching up to do.

Our driver is a new guy, a young guy. Vikram nods at our driver and tells me one of his co-riders who also works at the university has another driver to train to stop at his stop.

I’m confused.

Well, his regular stop is just north of Marquette. Do I know that stop?

Sure I do.

Well, did I ever notice there’s no bus stop sign there?

As a matter of fact, I have not. I do know there’s a stop there because I’ve seen folks get off there. But I couldn’t tell you if it had a sign or a bench or both or neither.

Well, it used to have a sign, Vikram explains. But every time the city puts one up, it disappears shortly afterwards.

You’re kidding! Who’d steal a bus stop sign?

Somebody who doesn’t like the buses coming up this way.

Last Seen Right Here, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

Vikram asked if I remembered when ABQ RIDE cut off our route at Tramway. Yes I did. I wrote several posts about the experience between December, 2006, and the final restoration of the route the following April. I remember hearing at the time several variations on the theme that some folks -- or some one folk with clout -- didn’t like the bus in our neighborhood.

It is Vikram’s suspicion that a disgruntled neighbor is taking the signs down as his personal protest.

It can’t be the noise anymore, Vikram points out. Back then, they were running the 300s. But they use only the new 700s and 900s on the route now, and they’re significantly quieter.

I smile. I smile because this is a pretty good little bus story, and because I like how Vikram, despite his many years of living among us native-born Americans, continues to look for the rational in our behaviors.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

** The layover was returned to the original layover on Chelwood Park on December 31.

2012-01-29T05:00:00.006-07:00

BUS STORY # 273 (The Ruckus)

It's The Law, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

It’d been a couple of years since I’d last seen Pete,* and here he was, struggling aboard the bus with a walker, a shadow of his former vigorous old man self. (You can read about Pete here.)

The driver had put the bus in the kneeling position. Pete maneuvered, somewhat unsteadily, past the till, and found the bench seats reserved for the elderly and infirm full on both sides.

On the passenger side was an overweight white guy in his late 50s, and an overweight white woman in her early 40s.

On the driver’s side was a trim black school kid, maybe 5th grade or so. Next to him was an overweight black woman -- his mother, as it would turn out -- and next to her, another overweight black woman who, as it would also turn out, was unrelated to mom and son by anything other than chance seating.

At first, none of the five made any move at all. Then a sixth person, an older student sitting in the aisle seat of the first pair of seats facing forward, got up and headed for the back.

I didn’t hear what Pete said.

I saw the kid start to get up, then stop and turn and look at his mother.

I recognized that look -- remembered that look from when I was his age. Someone tells you to do something. You start to do what you’ve been told because you’ve been raised to be obedient and respectful of your elders, but you pause because something about what is being asked, or maybe in the asking itself, isn’t right. You are momentarily paralyzed by your inability to sort out what is happening that isn’t right, and not always fortunate enough to have one of your parents right there to look to for help.

Everyone heard what mom said. “You can’t talk to my child like that!”

The woman across the aisle interjected that those seats were for the elderly, as if her seat wasn’t one of “those seats.”

Mom told her she knew that, and that was not the point. The point was how Pete said whatever it was he said to the boy. “He can’t talk to people like that!”

The Pete I’d encountered a couple of years ago would have lit into the ruckus. But now, he was leaning against the partition behind the driver, looking like he would slide on down to the floor when his strength gave out, and saying nothing.

The kid looked like he wanted to be invisible.

The other black woman got up and took the seat vacated by the student.

Mom and the boy moved down one seat, and Pete settled into the vacated seat behind the driver.

Mom continued to give Pete a piece of her mind.

Pete twisted away from her in his seat and fixed his face toward the windshield.

The woman across the aisle rolled her eyes and looked back at the rest of us.

Mom and son exited a few stops later, and Pete got his tongue back. But his voice was too feeble for me to make out most of what he was saying. I did hear something to the effect that kids aren’t being raised right anymore. And I could see the woman across the aisle nodding vigorously with everything he was saying.

Later on, I watched Pete labor to get off at his stop. Out on the sidewalk, he paused, leaned on his walker, and looked into the sun. He looked befuddled. The bus pulled away and left me with that last image of him on the other side of the window.

Now, I don’t know what Pete said to the boy, and I don’t know how he said it. So I am once removed from the incident.

Like most everyone else, I don’t let not having all the facts stop me from drawing conclusions.

I do have previous experiences with Pete which suggest he has been provocative and cantankerous with other riders in the past.

And there is something I feel certain did not escape this black woman: Pete had decided the “black” row rather than the “white” row needed to accommodate him.

Perhaps even more provocative to a mother of any color, he bypassed the four adults and went for the child. Her child.

Still, I’m wary of the conclusions I’m drawing here. We have simple explanations for why people do what they do to console us for the fact that we cannot possibly know all the circumstances and their influences, nor understand all the algorithms, that go into the making of any human decision, our own included.

One of the best things about riding the bus is that you can take in what you see and let your mind wander wherever it takes a notion to go.

Mine wanders into “What if?” territory.

What if Pete hadn’t always been the thin guy we saw on the bus this morning? What if he’d been overweight himself sometime in his younger years? He’d know something about the extra effort it takes to gather up all your stuff, get up out of your seat, and move down the aisle to another seat.

What if Pete saw it would be a whole lot easier for the kid to give up his seat than for any of those other folks of all colors and genders in the designated seats?

And what if that effort is part of why all four overweight adults elected to make an equally poor choice to not surrender their seats -- seats which by law were more Pete’s than theirs -- to this decrepit old man, setting the stage for the ruckus to happen?

We all have our accounts, and sometimes, some of us even have hold of the tail-is-like-a-rope or the trunk-is-like-a-snake or the ear-is-like-a-fan of that vast elephant of the truth. We just have a hard time believing we don’t have the elephant itself -- the whole elephant, and nothing but the elephant.
__________

*Real name changed.

2012-01-22T05:00:00.017-07:00

BUS STORY # 272 (Score!)

During the school year, we begin accumulating students bound for Jefferson Middle School somewhere around San Mateo. Pretty soon, all the seats are taken and the aisles fill up.

A lot of them are still what I’d call “kid cute.”

That cute quality is more than physical. There’s a still not-yet-fully-tamped-down exuberance and spontaneity that animates their expressions, and their mannerisms and behaviors. I know many of them are destined to evolve into what fellow bus blogger Richard Isherman calls the “Sullen Teens,” but right now, they’re bright-eyed and fresh-faced and fun to watch.

One morning, I watch two of them nab a pair of bench seats at the front when two adults get up for their stop.

One is a boy, probably a sixth grader, with long black hair, a black sweatshirt, and a skateboard. The other, sitting to his right, is a girl, with long black hair pulled back, a striped sweater, and a purse. She is obviously older, certainly taller, probably an eight grader.

They sit side by side and look straight ahead or away from each other or at their stuff.

Then I see the boy move his eyes to the right without turning his head, then up at another boy his size in the aisle, and the look he gives his friend takes me back a few decades.

It’s the “Lookit me sitting next to this hot eight-grade chick!” look.

I keep watching his face. It’s easy to see he’s trying to figure out how to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity -- what to say or do, and when to say or do it.

His opportunity comes when the bus brakes suddenly and she lurches sideways and up against him. He turns his face halfway to her and says something.

She turns to look at him, smiles, and says something back.

Score!

She goes back to looking straight ahead, and after a few minutes, I can see the look of pure triumph in his face give way to figuring out how to up the ante on that first success. He knows better than to look at her, and I’m guessing the next move is to turn that smile into a laugh.

But that second chance never comes. The bus arrives at the corner of Lomas and Girard and empties out.

I watch the girl go first, turn left, and quickly fall in with a group of girlfriends. She doesn’t look back.

The boy steps out, turns right, and joins up with his aisle buddy. He doesn’t look back.

Me, I’m thinking back to when I was his age, when all my brilliant strategies always came to me well past the window of opportunity. And even if they’d been timely, I would likely have experienced a failure of nerve. I’d’ve been sitting on that bench spinning my skateboard wheels and going nowhere.

But when I’d’ve gotten off the bus, I would have looked back. Looked back and sighed deeply, because I would have been watching another the love of my young life walk away oblivious to my existence.

But it all worked out for the best: I was available when my wife came along.

Score!
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled "Deviousness Disguised with Freckles," © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of Beth Crawford 65. You can see all Beth Crawford 65’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22896082@N06/

2012-01-15T05:00:00.009-07:00

BUS STORY # 271 (Shorts 23)

Untitled, a photo by chuckbiscuito on Flickr.

She looks like she oughta be a cheerleader: tall, slim, long blonde hair, conventional California-girl pretty face. But I know she’s not. It’s not just the custom, well-worn skateboard she’s carrying, either. That pretty face is also pretty cool. She’s got faded jeans (not tight), a gray tank top (neck and arm holes tight), and a leather band around her wrist. Before she sits down, she acknowledges someone in the back of the bus with a nod. Just a nod; no smile, no wave, no “Hi, there.” Kill Bill’s Uma Thurman comes to mind, followed by the image of some poor quarterback whose season ends early when he tries to move on this chick. Definitely not a cheerleader.

***

Standing room only, and the woman who’s just boarded and ends up just ahead of me is strikingly tall. And rising from the top of her head another good six inches is an assembly of beaded corn row extensions that lift up, then go cascading down over her shoulders. The next person who boards is a little girl. She walks up to the woman, stops, looks at the woman’s belt, then tilts her head back and looks up and up, until she reaches the top. She stands there staring, open-mouthed, like a kid who’s never seen a skyscraper before.

***

A woman boards the bus with two older children and begins haggling over the fare with the driver. The driver says he doesn’t cut deals with the riders. She gets angry and tells him what she thinks about that. He tells her to stop cussing him. She says she’s cussing the fare business, not him. She lectures him on the difference. He tells her to either pay the fare or get off the bus. She grabs a purse from one of her daughters, pulls out some change, and starts feeding it to the till, still carrying on the whole time. He tells her if she doesn’t like it, she can get off the bus. She says, you know what? She doesn’t like it, and she herds her kids off the bus and her right behind. When the bus pulls away, the guy sitting in the seat by the door tells the driver this same woman pulled the exact same stunt right here on the same bus about a month ago. Go figure, he says.

***

A rider pulls the cord. There is plenty of time between the pull and the stop, but the driver sails right past the stop. “Hey, driver! Stop!” The driver realizes his mistake and immediately pulls over. The rider heads to the front door from the back. We all know he’s got something to say to the driver. So does the driver, who apologizes for missing the stop. The rider replies he knows the driver is really busy and has a lot on his mind, and he appreciates his pulling over for him now. And then he says thank you, and steps off the bus.

__________

The photo at the top of this story is unititled and is posted with the kind permission of
chuckbiscuito. You can see this and all chuckbiscuito’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuckbiscuito/.

__________

Thanks to JM in Brooklyn for this week's featured link: One Year Ago In: Birmingham, Alabama

2012-01-08T05:00:00.018-07:00

BUS STORY # 270 (Bus Songs)

RoundTuit, a photo downloaded from Wictionary by busboy4 on Flickr.

Some time ago, one of my Bus Stories-reading nieces sent me an email asking if I’d heard the song “Bus Driver” by Caedmon’s Call. I had not. So I went looking for it.

In the process of looking for it, I discovered there were several other bus driver songs out there, and beyond that, a whole world of bus and subway and light rail songs.

Some of them are famous, some are obscure. Some are old, some are new. They run the gamut of musical genres -- pretty much everything except classical and opera.

It occurred to me at the time that I could add a new link to my blog: “This Week’s Featured Bus Song” to go with “This Week’s Featured Link.” And I decided I would do so just as soon as I got around to it.

And now I have.

I’m going to try matching the songs with the stories, either by content or by tone. Or else by tying the songs to the calendar (“Sister Rosa” by The Neville Brothers for Martin Luther King Day, for example). I realize a good match won’t always be possible, but the challenge interests me.

Sure enough, there's a perfect bus song for this post: the children's song, "The Wheels On The Bus (Go Round And Round)." But I’m initiating the new feature today with a link to “Bus Driver” by Caedmon’s Call. This by way of thanking my niece, Mer, for giving me both a new song and a new idea.

Please feel free to send your suggestions to busboy4@yahoo.com.

This should be fun.
__________

This public domain photo is taken from Wictionary:
File:RoundTuit.jpg
__________

Thanks to MD in Brooklyn for this week's featured link: This Week In: NYC

2012-01-01T05:00:00.006-07:00

BUS STORY # 269 (New Job: Update)

Corner Of Central And Pizza Hut, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

Back in July, I posted a story about a co-rider who shared his excitement at finally getting a job in a fast-food restaurant. He also shared the rest of a remarkable turned-my-life-around story. You can read it here:

Bus Story # 244 (New Job)

I confess I had my doubts about just how rosy his future really was, and about how long his excitement and optimism would last.

Several months after that encounter, I ran into him, and his wife and his baby son, on a bus on the way home. We both recognized one another, and he immediately introduced me to his wife, Brenda.*

“And this,” he said, lifting the baby off his lap and holding him up, “is our son, Mitchell.”*

He was beaming. Mitchell smiled. Mom smiled when Mitchell smiled.

He told me what a happy baby he was all the time. And such a good sleeper. Well, most of the time, anyway -- and here he lifted Mitchell back up off his lap and brought him in for a kiss.

He was wearing the same work uniform I’d seen him in after that first day at work.

Yes, he confirmed, he’s still working there. He’s been there five months now, and he’s about to become a manager. He is as enthusiastic about this as he was five months ago after his first day on the job.

And still going to school?

Yes -- well, taking this semester off...

When they leave, I watch them manage Mitchell and the stroller. There is a mutual warmth and respect in their interactions that I find remarkable and touching.

Given everything he’s told me before, and everything I’ve just seen on this encounter, I’m surprised by the one word impression that comes to mind: Innocence.

Later, I decide it’s more likely they have a deep appreciation for just how much better life is for them now than it was before they met one another.

In this day and age, appreciation is almost as unusual as innocence.
__________

*Real name changed.

2011-12-25T05:00:00.020-07:00

BUS STORY # 268 (Mer’s Bus Story # 2: “Neither Snow Nor Rain...”)

Winter Storm Coming In, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

We haven’t been whacked by a bad winter storm since back in January of 2007. So we’ve been overdue for the pair that bracketed this past week.

Since my employer directed us to stay home during the worst of it, I really don’t have much to complain about. But the memory of that 2007 bus ride in the snow and ice reminds me of a second Macedonian bus story my niece shared with us when she was visiting us in September.

Mer was returning to her village with a number of other local teachers.

Her village had the same name as the village she was teaching in except hers was gorno (“upper”) and where the teachers taught was dolno (“lower”).

This is because the two communities are separated by a mountain road. The teachers take the bus down the road to school in the morning, and up the road back home at the end of the school day.

One day during school, a winter storm moved into the area. Lots of snow, and the roads became icy. The teachers headed for the bus home.

As they moved up the mountain road, it became obvious the bus was struggling. Mer could feel the occasional slippage on the ice.

When the going became slower and the slippage became more frequent, the teachers, all locals, began suggesting maybe they ought to stop where they were and just walk home from there.

Mer was of the same mind. She figured if the locals were concerned, her own concerns were not misplaced.

The driver, however, persisted.

The road became more treacherous as more snow and ice accumulated.

The teachers became more agitated. They began demanding the driver stop and let them out.

Incredibly, the driver began turning the bus around on the iced-over mountain road.

The teachers were not impressed by the daring maneuver. And they certainly didn’t want to go back down to the lower village. They just wanted to get out where they were.

Mer knew the walk up would be bitter cold and she would probably be soaking wet with snow by the time she got home. But she was sure she would live to tell the tale. She wasn’t sure this would be the case if she stayed on this bus.

But the driver wasn’t intending to return to the lower village. Once he was turned around, he began backing up the road!

The teachers were not appreciative of his genius in turning the bus into a front wheel drive vehicle. They were, however, deeply appreciative of going backwards up an icy mountain road. They began shouting at the driver to let them out now.

The driver capitulated to his riders, and, just as Mer had envisioned, she and the others had a long, blustery cold, wet walk home. And, yes, lived to tell the tale.

__________

You can read Mer’s first Macedonian bus story here.

__________

It’s become something of a tradition to post a Christmas-themed bus story Christmas Week. This Christmas, I don’t have one to tell, but I did find this wonderful Christmas bus photo on Flickr:

Rudolph, a photo by mag3737 on Flickr.

"Rudolph” is posted with the kind permission of mag3737. You can see this and all mag3737’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/2055067783/.

2011-12-18T05:00:00.004-07:00

BUS STORY # 267 (“Because I’m Brown”)

Papers please, a photo by Zervas on Flickr.

The bus is jammed. The driver asks everyone to step to the back, please. I move back to the seat by the rear door, and set my bag down. The guy in the aisle seat moves over and invites me to sit. I thank him and take the seat.

I comment how crowded the bus is.

He tells me it’s because the one ahead of it was running early, and this one is picking up the riders for it and this bus both.

Ah, I say. So that’s why I was almost 30 minutes at my stop.

He tells me he’s getting off at Eubank.

I promise I’ll let him out.

He laughs and asks me where I’m from.

He’s from northern New Mexico. He says his family is part Spanish, part Indian, part French. His grandmother used to tell him this combination of blood lines worked to produce a remarkably worthless generation of drunks and lazy bums. He laughs.

I’m wondering if he’s including himself in this indictment.

He doesn’t look lazy or like an alcoholic. In fact, he has a somewhat academic air about him. Neatly cut hair. Neatly trimmed, graying beard. Rimless glasses. He’s got on a sage gray T-shirt and jeans.

He’s got an accent. It’s an accent I heard a lot more of thirty years ago when I was new here. I think of it as New Mexican, and especially northern New Mexican. To my ears, it is quite distinct from a Mexican accent. His kids probably don’t have it. They’re more likely to have a television accent, like everyone else their age.

He lives in the South Valley now, but he works in the Northeast Heights. I miss the opportunity to find out what he does because we’re stopped, and he’s become intensely focused on someone unloading a bike from the front rack.

He tells me you have to be careful if you have a bike on the rack. They’ll steal them right in front of you.

I tell him I’ve heard of this happening in big cities like San Francisco, but not here.

“Two,” he tells me. He’s had two of them stolen off the bus rack.

“It still hurts,” he adds.

Then he talks about how high the crime rate is here in Albuquerque. Burglary, murder...and the cops are abusive.

I ask him what he means. He tells me the city and county hire a lot of cops from Michigan, Ohio, and northern California, who lost their jobs there for brutalizing minorities.

I ask him if he’s ever seen any of this first-hand.

Eight times. All eight times when he was waiting for the bus in the South Valley. They made him wait while they went through his bag. He says he finally filed a complaint, told them to either arrest him or leave him alone. Since then, they’ve left him alone. But he says he’s still scared of retaliation.

I ask him if they’re looking for drugs.

He replies they’re not looking for anything. They’re just messing with him.

Why?

“Because I’m brown.”

Then he tells me we’re approaching his stop. I get up and step into the aisle. He gathers his things, steps past me, and goes to the back doors.

He tells me he’s glad to have met me, and thanks me for the conversation.

I tell him it’s mutual and wish him luck. And then I sit back down and think about what he’s told me.

I don’t think of being repeatedly detained and searched as being brutalized. Bullied, demeaned, and frightened, maybe, but not brutalized.

But this assumes two things: one: my co-rider really has had some ongoing interactions with the local cops, and two: his perception of these interactions is in line with the facts.

I fall back on this invaluable rule of thumb: There are at least three sides to every story: his, hers, and God’s. And God’s not talking.

Still, I wish I hadn’t heard this story because I don’t want to think about the possibility that anything about it might be true.

__________

The photo at the top of this story is “Papers please,” and is posted with the kind permission of Zervas. You can see this and all Zervas’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zervas/2035890000/.

2011-12-11T05:00:00.010-07:00

BUS STORY # 266 (Collision)

DSC_2320, a photo by helifino on Flickr.

The Red Line has just shut the door at the Louisiana-Central bus stop. The driver starts forward.

I am on the driver’s side, looking straight out the front windshield, when I see a car go cutting straight across the front of the bus.

I’ve seen this maneuver before. Mostly, it’s been at intersections. The bus will be sitting at a red light in the outside lane. When the light turns green, the car waiting in the lane next to the bus guns its engine and blasts a right turn in front of the bus.

Once it was in moving traffic. (You can read that story here.)

This time, it’s a driver who thought he -- or she, as it turns out -- could make the parking lot of the CVS pharmacy faster than the bus could get going.

I feel the bus shudder hard to a stop. I can’t tell if we hit the car or the curb or it was just the hard braking we were feeling.

The car pulls into the parking lot and stops.

Nobody gets out of the car at first.

The driver is already on the phone.

He seems pretty calm. At least, his voice is quiet,

While he’s making the call, a figure emerges from the driver’s side. It’s getting dark, and our bus is wrapped, but I can make out a large woman in a white shirt. She comes around the front of her car and slowly walks past the passenger side, bent over in inspection mode. She stops at the right back wheel and spends some stooped-over time there.

Then she straightens up, gets back in the car, and drives off!

Now the driver’s voice goes up a few decibels.

A couple of riders get up and move tentatively to the front door. They look like they’re more interested in getting off the bus than in listening in to the conversation.

After a while, the driver gets off the phone, grabs two red caution triangles, and heads out to the back of the bus. We get off and wander to the front of the bus to check out the damage.

Damage looks minor. The bus rack has taken a hit. A couple of pieces of it are lying in the street in front of the bus. One of our riders is lucky. Unlike the bike in the photo at the top of this story, his bike was in the row closest to the bus and looks OK.

The driver heads for the drug store. We can see from the bus stop arrival signage that the next Red Line is nine minutes away.

One of our riders takes off north up Louisiana. The rest of us are still milling around by the front door.

It isn’t long before we see the driver walking rapidly back to the bus.

“She’s right here, in the parking lot,” he calls to us. “I got her license plate number.”

He calls in the information. When he’s done, he tells us the next Red Line should be here shortly, as well as the 157.

I ask him if he needs a witness.

Well, sure, if that’s what I really want to do.

He pulls out a notebook and I write my name and phone number.

I am remembering the last time I did this as I am writing in the notebook. It was in New York City, and I could tell by the reactions of every single person around me that I had just hung a big neon sign on myself that blinked out alternating messages: “TOURIST!” Then, “FROM THE STICKS!”

As I did then, I tell myself I’m doing the right thing, and I hope this is not another one of those good deeds that doesn’t go unpunished.

One of the riders spots the 157. We all head over to the bus stop and board there.

I get off at Louisiana and savor the treat of being able to get off on the southeast corner rather than the northeast where the Rapid stops. I don’t have to cross back over the intersection to get to my bus stop.

I’m sitting on the bench wondering if I’ve just missed my connection, and if it’s late enough that the schedule has switched from every 20 minutes to every 40 minutes, and how much longer I’ll be out here.

A few minutes later, the rider who’d headed north up Louisiana rounds the corner, sees me, and starts laughing.

“You beat me.”

We talk about what happened, and a few minutes later, we see the Lomas bus coming.

It occurs to me that, since we haven’t seen the Red Line yet, and they run 20 minutes apart, this may very well be the same bus we would have caught if our bus hadn’t been in a collision.

As I write this, it’s too early to tell if I’m gonna get a call from anyone. Stay tuned.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is “DSC_2320,” © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of helifino. You can see this and all helifino’s photos on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/helifino/2596945576/

2011-12-04T05:00:00.011-07:00

BUS STORY # 265 (Portrait # 15: In Country)

Hank Grant: Bible & A Bus Ticket Home, downloaded from the CD Baby website by busboy4 on Flickr.

He’s young, college young, and he’s got a country boy’s face, open, but looking slightly perplexed, or maybe anxious, at being in the city.

Black T-shirt, blue jeans, black athletic shoes. He’s got a small tattoo inside his left forearm which I can’t make out. He’s got a black notebook and a larger, soft cover book with gold-edged pages and a red ribbon page marker showing near the spine.

I’m thinking Bible.

He opens the notebook and looks at the page. There’s handwriting top to bottom, and a heavily-outlined box near the top of the page with more handwriting inside.

He bends over the page, as if studying. Then he closes the notebook, sets it on top of the book, closes his eyes, and starts moving his lips.

At first, I think he’s trying to memorize something from the notebook. I associate this with school.

His lips are half-parted and moving slowly, deliberately. It goes on long enough that I switch my guess from memorizing to praying. Now I’m associating with the book.

After a while, he quits mouthing and opens his eyes. He doesn’t look any less perplexed or anxious than he did before.

After a while, he leans forward and asks the guy across from him how far it is to the airport.

That voice sounds straight out of Texas, or maybe from the southeast part of New Mexico, the place known locally as “Little Texas.”

The guy across the aisle tells the kid not far, it’s at the end of the line. Then he asks the kid if he knows the airport.

“No, sir. I’ve never been to New Mexico before.”

While the man explains how the road will start curving around to the left and bring him to the edge of the terminal, I think about the fact that the only things he’s carrying are the notebook and Bible.

He politely thanks the man.

Before I get off, I see him looking out the window on the opposite side of the bus, eyes wide open, lips moving.

Here’s a bus story I wish I had.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is the album cover for Hank Grant’s CD, Bible And A Bus Ticket Home, taken from the CD Baby website, http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hankgrant. You can hear the title song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v19rL9_j2M.

2011-11-27T05:00:00.015-07:00

BUS STORY # 264 (Helping Hand)

Series: Toronto through my lens, a photo by askinimages on Flickr.

From the way they’re talking, the guy sitting across from the driver is either a co-worker or a friend. I think maybe a co-worker because, when we get to his stop, he heads for the back exit rather than the close-by front door, where there are people waiting to board.

“Have a good day, bro!” he calls down the aisle just before exiting.

A couple of new riders climb aboard, and the bus starts into the intersection.

We all hear the siren about the same time.

The bus lurches to a stop. We’re most of the way into the outside northbound lane and still not sure where the siren is coming from.

A couple of seconds later, and we see an ambulance across the street, heading south.

By the time it gets through the intersection, the light has turned red and we’re now blocking that outside lane.

The driver can’t back up because neither he nor the rest of us have any idea what’s behind the bus.

Then we see the guy who just got off the bus signaling to the driver to back up. He keeps signaling while keeping his eyes on whatever is behind us. When he signals to stop, we’ve backed all the way out of the lane.

The traffic goes streaming by.

The guy waves, then heads north up the sidewalk.

Co-worker. Gotta be.

__________

The photo at the top of this story is "Series: Toronto through my lens," © Dean Askin, AskinImages Photography. All rights reserved. Used with permission. You can see this and other photos by AskinImages on Flickr .

2011-11-20T05:00:00.012-07:00

BUS STORY # 263 (Mer’s Bus Story # 1: “Bus Go. I Here.”)

Our bus in Macedonia, a photo by Dave Proffer on Flickr.

One of my nieces spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. During a recent visit, she shared a couple of her own bus stories from her time in Macedonia.

Mer had taken the bus into Skopje, the capitol, for a day trip. It was a cold winter day. The bus to her town, Debar, was more like a shuttle van, holding about 20 people, max. The buses run approximately every couple of hours, and she was in the habit of catching the second-to-last bus home. That gave her a one-bus cushion just in case. This bus left the Skopje station at 2:00 in the afternoon.

The ride back to her village took about three hours, much of which was taken up by stops at the villages and smaller towns along the way.

About halfway to Debar, the final destination, the driver would stop for a break so the passengers could use the restroom, stop for a snack, have a quick smoke. In the wintertime, it was pretty dark by the time the bus took the break. There was no prescribed time for the break. Everybody just seemed to know when it was time to return to the bus. This town was also one of the stops along the way, so some passengers would leave the bus for good.

Mer had developed a taste for a certain kind of candy bar with a soft, brownie-like center. She went into a nearby shop to buy one, but the shop didn’t have one. She went on to the next shop. Again, no luck.

She decided against looking any further and headed out toward the bus, only to see it pulling out into the roadway. She ran shouting and waving after it, to no avail. When she saw the taillights turning the corner, she knew she really had missed the bus.

Her first thought was that even though her overnight bag was still on the bus, thank goodness she had her purse, cell phone and coat. Her second thought was that at least she could catch the last bus from Skopje as it came through for its break. However, that wouldn't happen for another two and a half hours.

Across the street, another bus from the same company was parked, facing the opposite direction. Several of the bus drivers knew Mer, as she had been living in her home village for about a year. This driver saw her running after her bus shouting and waving, and called her over. Mer explained that, in the emotional shock of the moment, her command of the language disintegrated. She described her response to the driver as her pointing down the empty road and saying the Macedonian equivalent of “Bus go,” then at herself, and saying, “I here.”

The driver understood. Since he belonged to the same transportation company, he had the other bus drivers' cell phone numbers. He made a call and told the driver he had to turn around and come back -- he’d “left the American behind.” He then gave Mer a card with all of the bus drivers' numbers, in case something like this ever happened to her again.

After a few minutes, Mer's bus reappeared.

Her bus driver apologized profusely when he did, explaining he’d been careful to ask if everyone was on board (and, as Mer pointed out, after all, she hadn’t say “no...”).

Mer also apologized profusely, realizing everyone else had been delayed on her account. But no one seemed upset. Once again, as she had experienced so many times before in so many other situations, she was among a generous people who truly practiced caring for the strangers among them.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is “Our bus in Macedonia,” and is posted with the kind permission of Dave Proffer. You can see this and all Dave Proffer’s photos on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/deepphoto/

2011-11-13T05:00:00.009-07:00

BUS STORY # 262 (David Ortega Is Looking For Work)

Painter, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

I met David on (where else?) the bus.

He’d just had the greatest luck with a connection -- off one bus, around the corner, and here comes the other bus -- and it has just started raining.

He’s laughing at his good luck as I’m folding up my umbrella to board.

We end up in the back, sitting across from one other, and get to talking.

He’s a painter.

House?

House, inside and out, garage, fences, you name it. He also does stucco work, and he’s not a half-bad carpenter, but painting is what he does best.

Who does he work for?

Himself! And not only is he good, he’s fair. He’ll match his bid against anyone’s.

He recently finished a job for $400. The other two bids were $1500 and $2000. Those bids might have included the paint. But he doesn’t include the paint. He lets the customer buy whatever paint he wants. He provides the rest -- brushes. rollers, ladders, drop cloths, edgers.

Four rooms in one day. He knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t mess around.

How’s work these days?

He makes a face. Not so good. Times are hard.

So how does he advertise?

Word of mouth. People who know his work spread the word. And he’s got cards at all the paint stores in town.

He pulls out his wallet, takes a card from it, and hands it to me.

Has he gotten jobs this way?

He sure has. The people at the store know him, know his work.

He’s also got a couple of newspaper articles he doesn’t have with him, and he needs to get them laminated before they start tearing.

From here in Albuquerque?

No, one is from Liberal, Kansas. He went up there to help paint a museum. One day, everybody had gone home, but he was still working. A photographer took his picture, then talked to him about his work. Next thing he knew, he was in the paper.

And people recognized him. Hey, aren’t you that guy in the paper? He got job offers because of that article.

Where was the other article from?

California. Another museum job. He was dismantling a scaffold when he heard someone yell, “Hey!” He turned around and this guy snapped his picture. It was in the paper the next day.

While he’s been telling me his stories, I’ve been looking at his business card.

The first thing I notice is the bottom right corner. It’s been cut off. Above the shear is a hand-written local phone number.

The second thing I notice is the middle of the card. Where one might expect to see the name of the person or the business, I see “SNOW WHITE.” And beneath that, “Salinas, Cal.”

At the top of the card, the word “Painter” has been hand-written.

The upper left corner has something blacked out.

The lower left corner has the name “David Ortega.”

I’m pretty sure I’m looking at a paint chip for the color Snow White with the paint brand name sheared off the lower left corner, and which has been made into a business card for one David Ortega.

I’m guessing David must have recently moved here from Salinas and hasn’t had time to update his card.

“So how long have you been here in Albuquerque?”

Twenty years.

Twenty years!

Well, except for that six-year stint in Kansas and the shorter one in California.

So why does he have Salinas, California, on his card?

Because that’s where he’s from. He’s proud of where he came from.

You gotta love an answer like that.

And regardless of how he came by those paint chips, you gotta love the ingenuity.

He asks me to spread the word.

I tell him I will.

2011-11-06T05:00:00.001-07:00

BUS STORY # 261 (No Good Samaritan)

NO SVC, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

We’ve just gotten off the Red Line and are waiting to cross Lomas when he asks me where the bus stop is. I point to the bench across the street, to the left of the intersection.

“Figures,” he says. It’s in the full sun, and it is a hot July afternoon.

“And they wonder why public transportation doesn’t work around here.”

He’s got wraparound sunglasses and a black push broom of a mustache. I’d taken him for a Latino native son until he opened his mouth. The accent is down home Southern white.

We cross the street. I slow a bit so he can keep up. He looks to be in his early 40s, but he’s got a cane, and he walks with a pronounced limp.

On the other side, we skip the bench and head for the shade of a nearby tree.

He didn’t like our bus driver.

“I ask him if this bus goes to Coronado, and he asks me if I’m plannin’ to git off the bus. I tell him I will if he’ll open the ______’ door.”

"I will" sounds like "Ah wheel." It is a lazy drawl, and it would be understandable if someone who didn’t know the language mistook it for calm.

It is not calm.

I tell him I’m surprised. The drivers are usually pretty helpful.

He tells me if he’d’ve been somewhere else, he’d’ve just shot him.

“Vet” flashes through my mind. I ask him where “somewhere else” might be.

“‘Fganistan.” Pause. “Eye-rack.”

He says he shot some people over there, and it was all for the best. But the service didn’t see it that way.

I said they probably figured it wasn’t the best way to go about winning the hearts and minds.

He said he wasn’t trying to win any hearts and minds. He finally figured out the only way to get home was to “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”

He’s pretty sure it was his attitude on this matter, and not his 20 years or his knee full of shrapnel that led to his being turned down for another tour in Afghanistan.

“I told ‘em I could go another ten years, but they said ‘we don’t think so.’”

They told him he had mental problems. After two tours in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, why would they think anybody would have mental problems, he asks. It’s sarcastic, but he has a fine way of making it sound understated, as if he’s no longer invested in the anger.

He says he joined in time to go to Granada. Then Panama. Then Iraq. Then Afghanistan. Then Iraq. Then Afghanistan two more times. He’s been out three years.

I’m thinking Granada was sometime during Reagan’s first term. That would have put him in the service somewhere between 1980 and 1984. Which in turn would make him a 20-plus year veteran.

(Later, I will google Granada. The invasion was on October 25, 1983. With his “three years” ago retirement, that would give him at least 25 years.)

I ask him if the cane has anything to do with the shrapnel in his knee.

"Yes, sir.”

He says they told him the VA would fix him right up. He’s been on a list for three years now.

He answers “Yes, sir” again when I ask if he has any family here in town. Then he adds, “in a manner of speakin’.”

There is a pause.

“Haven’t seen much of ‘em.”

Another pause.

They would have preferred he’d re-enlisted, “for the pension.”

I don’t get this, but I do get the same lazy drawl, and that if it weren’t for the words, someone just listening to the sound of his voice could miss the bitterness.

He says he’s been out of work ever since he retired. Who’s gonna hire a person with mental problems, he asks me.

It’s the first time he’s looked at me. The rest of the time, he’s kept his face due west, where the bus will be coming.

I answer I don’t know. I’m halfway preoccupied with wondering what kind of disability benefits he might be eligible for, and with whether any of what he’s telling me is true.

He says if they’d fix his knee, he could get a job as a mercenary.

I say that doesn’t sound like much of a retirement.

“It’s perfect,” he replies. “Every day, you either win or die.”

Then he tells me the bus is coming.

And it is, and eventually does.

He boards first and takes a seat up front. I head for the back, and touch his shoulder and wish him good luck.

Truth is, I’m glad to be separating. I’ve been uncomfortable most of our time together. Not scared, just uncomfortable.

I think about this exchange the whole ride home, and I come to this conclusion: I don’t know how much, if any at all, his story is factual. But there’s no doubt in my mind he’s told me the truth.

He’s told me he’s feeling near the end of his rope, estranged from family and society, prematurely used up, physically impaired, slapped with a label that makes him impotent and dependent, bedeviled by bureaucracies and minor authorities, and the reason his anger sounds enervated is because it is turning to rage.

I’m thinking this is a guy who could go off one of these days and let God sort it all out.

I’m thinking he could use some help, or at least a friend.

But I’m not qualified to know, never mind offer, whatever kind of help he might need. And I am wary of inviting some sort of personal relationship.

The simple truth is I don’t want to get involved.

I don’t want to be the Good Samaritan.

And he’s still out there, doing a slow burn.

All of these make me uncomfortable.

2011-10-30T05:00:00.004-06:00

BUS STORY # 260 (Shorts 22)

Dry Heat, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

I’m sitting in the bench seat by the front door, across from the driver. We pull over at a stop, the door opens, and I hear this guy ask, “Can I bring this on?” The driver pauses, then says, “As long as you don’t block the aisle.” A kid boards with a salvage-looking automobile wheel, complete with worn tire. He finds a pair of empty seats and they sit together, side by side.

***

Ralph* and I are on the 50 watching a large stream of boarders crossing the street from Project Share to the bus stop. The line is about fully boarded when a lone guy hobbling on a crutch starts across the road. We’re wondering if the driver is gonna wait for him. The guy must have started worrying about that, too, because he suddenly picks up his crutch and runs over to the bus before the doors close.

***

This reminds Ralph of another story -- same bus, same stop. There’s a woman in a wheelchair waiting with the others. The lift goes down, she gets lifted on board, wheeled into place, and her chair locked down by the driver. Then everybody else starts to board. One of the boarders looks over at her, addresses her by name, and asks her what she’s doing in the wheelchair. She answers she just didn’t feel like walking today.

***

For reasons unknown, we change buses at the Yale Transit Facility. The new bus pulls back out in the street, and a rider calls out to the driver, “Hey, there’s water dripping from the ceiling.” The driver explains they just finished washing the bus. “But it’s getting the seat wet,” the rider persists. “Yeah,” replies the driver, “but this is New Mexico. It’s a dry wet.”
__________

*Real name changed.

2011-10-23T05:00:00.011-06:00

BUS STORY # 259 (Melissa’s Bus Story # 1: “Wanna See My Hernia?”)

2000 MARYLAND, a photo by lindsaybridge on Flickr.

Recently, my brother’s two daughters spent a weekend with us here in Albuquerque. Among our adventures together was a trip to the New Mexico State Fair. And, as you might have guessed, we took the bus. In return, they shared some bus stories of their own with us. Here is the first of three.

Melissa is on the Baltimore light rail on her way to the airport.

The car she’s in is almost empty. There’s one other rider, an older guy, sitting on a side bench. And even though she’s reading a magazine, she knows this guy is looking at her.

When he starts talking to her, she doesn’t hear what he is saying at first. Instead, she is thinking to herself, is he talking to me? Well, he must be, of course. There’s only the two of us in the car here. Who else would he be talking to?

He could be talking to himself, of course. But she already knows he’s been looking at her. And so she knows he isn’t talking to himself, he’s talking to her, even though she’s not looking at him, and is instead continuing to look at her magazine which is universal sign language for “I’m not interested in talking to you.”

Either he doesn’t understand universal sign language, or else he subscribes to the American dispensation that signs are for everyone else.

Melissa begins hearing what he is saying when she hears “hernia” and “Johns Hopkins” and “lawsuit.”

Specifically, she hears him when he asks her if she wants to see his hernia.

She declines.

He goes on to explain how Johns Hopkins really messed him up, and how he called Johnny Cochran and told him he had to get them to straighten things out.

The next thing he knows, he wakes up in the Presidential Suite -- “You know, where they put the President when he’s in town.”

He explains he filed a suit and won, and he’ll be picking up his check tomorrow. That’s why he’s on the light rail today.

Later on, he tells Melissa he’s got five cars: an Avalanche, a Hummer, and three other cars Melissa doesn’t remember. Melissa doesn’t ask him how he’s managed to accumulate five cars before the check has come in.

When they get to the airport, he offers to help her with her bag.

She insists she’ll be just fine, thank you. He needs to take care of that hernia.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is “2000 MARYLAND,” © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of lindsaybridge You can see this and all lindsaybridge’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/intervene/5705146033/

2011-10-16T05:00:00.015-06:00

BUS STORY # 258 (Rory’s Bus Story # 2)

790 Blue Line, a photo by wastemanagementdude on Flickr.

I’m telling my co-workers about how my bus ran out of gas.

When I’ve finished, Rory* asks, “Did you know the Rapid Ride can’t go if the back door isn’t shut tight?”

He proceeds to tell us how he learned this particular fact.

He’s on the Blue Line, sitting in the back near the rear doors.

After the first stop, when the doors close, this guy gets up and goes over to the rear doors, grabs the handles of both doors, puts his left foot up beside the door to brace himself, and pulls hard. Then he sits down.

Rory is watching this and wondering “What the...”

He is also acting out the maneuver right here in the hallway, using the wall as a substitute for the side of the bus. I notice a couple of folks at the far end of the hallway, and I’m pretty sure that, if they’re watching, they’re wondering “What the...”

At the next stop, the same thing happens. Rory demonstrates again.

A couple of stops later, the guy exits.

The bus doesn’t leave after the doors shut.

Rory is sitting there wondering what the problem is.

Then he notices the driver looking back at him. There’s nobody else but Rory back there.

It comes to Rory what the driver wants. He gets up, goes to the back door, and executes the maneuver.

The bus goes.

Rory does this for every stop all the way to Coors, by which time, he’s worn out.

When he exits, he goes out the front so he can tell the driver, “You gotta get that door fixed, man.”
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

You can read Rory's Bus Story # 1 here.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “790 Blue Line” and is posted with the kind permission of wastemanagementdude. You can see this and all wastemanagementdude’s’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wastemanagementdude/2761397986/

2011-10-09T05:00:00.006-06:00

BUS STORY # 257 (Out Of Gas)

Yale Transit Facility, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

I’ve just boarded the first bus home. It goes about 80 yards, then dies.

The driver gets on the phone. She has to call someone else to get her to the dispatcher. When she gets in, she reports her route, her location, then says, “I’m out of gas.”

There are five of us hanging on her every word. But the only other thing we hear is “OK.” Then she hangs up.

We sit there for a minute.

A rider at the front asks, “They gonna come rescue us?”

She says yes.

Another minute goes by.

“How long that gonna be?”

She replies “The Transit Center’s just down the road.”

Another minute goes by.

The guy asking the questions gets up and asks if she’ll open the door for him.

When she does, I get up, too, and head for the front.

I touch her on the shoulder and say, “I’ll race you to Central.”

She laughs, but she still looks troubled about what’s happened.

It’s two miles to Central.

The schedule suggests the bus can travel this route in 11 minutes. But that doesn’t take into account the huge group that boards near the community center this time of day, or the Lead/Coal street repair project. That 11 minutes is gonna be more like 20 minutes.

And that’s after the bus gets here.

And the bus isn’t gonna get here until after it leaves the terminal, assuming ABQ RIDE is really gonna send another bus rather than just wait another 30 minutes till the next bus comes around.

I can walk from here to Central in 30 minutes.

So I’m pretty sure I’m gonna win that race with my driver.

I think about how it is a bus can run out of gas. Seems like maybe somebody didn’t check something before this bus went out this morning.

It’s a 300, which means it uses compressed natural gas. Maybe it’s more difficult to gauge the fuel with CNS.

Or maybe they can’t “top off” the tank, and it’s cheaper to run it till it’s empty. That’s pretty much how my wife and I run our gas-fired grill. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometime every summer, we end up with raw hamburger patties on the grill instead of those green chile cheeseburgers we had our mouths set for.

Maybe today, me and the other four riders are raw hamburger.

It takes me about 20 minutes to get to the Transit Facility. In that time, I haven’t seen any southbound buses. At the center, all the terminal doors are open, and I see three buses in their respective lanes ready to go...for in the morning. No lights, no drivers.

Uh huh, I think to myself. Nobody wants to send out a bus that’s already been prepped for the next day. The next one out on the route will have to do. It’s just 30 minutes...

I snap a picture of the terminal.

As soon as I finish, I see a 300 entering a fourth lane from the back. But it doesn’t stop at the front with the other three buses. It pulls out and turns south. The route signage in the front is out, and when it turns into the street, there’s no route number light in the back.

I believe I’m gonna have to eat some crow here.

But the race is still no contest. When I get to Central and look back, all I see is a long line of cars and trucks and a couple of red and white UNM school buses.

I call my wife and let her know I’ll be late for dinner.

2011-10-02T05:00:00.001-06:00

BUS STORY # 256 (Polite)

Bus Etiquette, a photo by Mr Hyde on Flickr.

Bus etiquette poster on London buses featuring five ways riders can be polite written on their shirts. From left to right:
“I’ll offer that person my seat.”
“I’ll keep my temper down.”
“I won’t drop litter.”
“I won’t play my music out loud.”
And my favorite:
“And I’ll remember what it was like being 14.”

The ride home is crowded this afternoon. We stop, and one of the boarders is an older guy. He reminds me of one of my brothers-in-law except for the short haircut. He’s wearing jeans and an old-fashioned football jacket without a letter.

He moves down the aisle and stands by the rear door.

The three-seater bench facing the back door is occupied by two women, a purse, and a backpack. One of the women grabs the stuff off the seat, moves the backpack down by her feet, and asks the man if he’d like to sit.

He tells her he’s fine, he doesn’t have far to go.

A few stops later, the woman gets up to exit. The man turns to address her, looks her directly in the eye, and says in a warm and gentle voice, “Thank you for offering me a seat.”

After she exits, he takes her seat.

A little while later, he gets back up and stands by the rear door. Then he reaches up for the cord, but there is no cord over the door. He looks around. One of the guys on the platform tells him he’ll get it for him and pulls the cord.

Before the man exits, he turns to face the rider on the platform and, looking him straight in the eye, says in that same voice, “Thank you for pulling that cord for me.”

He steps out onto the sidewalk, then breaks into a trot toward the front of the bus. He stops by the still-open front door. I can see him lean his head in toward the opening. I don’t hear everything, but I do hear “Thank you.”
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Bus Etiquette” and is posted with the kind permission of Mr Hyde. You can see this and all Mr Hyde’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hydepodcorner/2610105682/

2011-09-25T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 255 (Portrait # 14: Adolescent)

For several weeks, I couldn’t tell if she was 14 or 24.

I know, I know: there are several universes between 14 and 24. You would think it shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out.

She has that androgynous, Twiggy look: boy figure and all girl face. No makeup, though, and none needed. Her hair is cut in that same short, mod style, parted on the left. But it’s no-additives-black, not blonde. Sometimes her hair looks wet, as if she’s gone straight from the shower to the bus stop.

She wears skinny jeans, some with small holes that are not at the expected stress points and that were likely put there by the manufacturer. Her tops are modest, unisex T-shirts or sweaters in muted colors and with long sleeves. No frou-frou, and none of that bare midriff stuff. Not a tattoo in sight.

All of this says 14.

On the other hand, I’ve never seen her with books or a backpack or an iPod or a cell phone.

That says out of high school.

When she boards the bus, she looks for an empty aisle seat. Never a window seat, even if the pair of seats is empty. There is an initial tentativeness – you can see a barely perceptible pause during which she will decide whether she is going to sit down beside that person in the window seat or go stand by the back door. Once she decides, her movements are cat quick.

If she sits, she keeps herself skewed away from her seat mate, so that at least one foot is in the aisle. If she takes a seat on the bench in the back of the bus, she sits forward, one foot in front of the other, and keeps one hand on the pole. Wherever she sits, she looks ready to bolt.

This is more complicated. It could be nothing more than adolescent estrangement. Or it could be a conditioned wariness. And if the latter, having no books or backpack keeps her hands free; having no iPod and no cell keep her undistracted from what is going on around her.

I’m hoping for ordinary adolescence. Even the worst of ordinary adolescence – parent trouble, boyfriend trouble, sexual identity trouble, something-in-my-life-just-isn’t-right trouble – is better than the much darker alternatives.

I learned she is on the 14 side of the spread the day I saw her sitting straight in her aisle seat, with both feet on the floor in front of her. I saw her seat mate, a small, slightly overweight, nerdy-looking kid with glasses who looked like a seventh-grader. Ah, a safe seat mate, I concluded.

He began talking to her, and I leaned forward in my seat to hear what she would say. I’d never seen her talk to anyone, and everything I’ve seen of her signals she’s not looking to talk with anyone.

I saw her incline her head toward his, and then I heard her complain about the grade one of her teachers had given her on a report she’d turned in the previous week.

Wouldn’t it be great if grades are all it is? Is that even possible in this day and age?

Who am I kidding? Was it ever that simple at that age?
__________

The photo at the top of this story is untitled, © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of kate flood. You can see this and all kate flood’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaateflood/2617160278/

2011-09-18T05:00:00.016-06:00

BUS STORY # 254 (The Race)

New layover stop for the 11 Lomas, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

As noted in last week's post, several schedule changes went into effect at the end of August, and the Lomas bus did not get away unscathed.

One of the more dispiriting changes is the location of the layover -- the place where the driver pulls over, gets out and stretches, looks over the outside of the bus, maybe has a smoke if he’s so inclined and there’s time.

The schedule for my bus allows eight minutes. If it’s late, that’s going to be eight minutes less however many minutes it’s late.

The new location is not necessarily dispiriting to the drivers.

There’s a Circle K across the street. The old stop, over on Chelwood Park, didn’t have any place the drivers could get something to eat or drink, or use the bathroom. They’d had to wait until they got back downtown to the Alvarado Transportation Center. The full loop takes about an hour and a half, so it isn’t cruel and unusual punishment. Still, it’s nice to have the option at the halfway point.

It is dispiriting to those riders on their way home, and whose homes lie along the box formed by the distal end of the route: Lomas-east-of-Tramway, Turner, Copper, and Chelwood Park.

On the first Monday of the schedule change, there were six of us in that situation.

Three of us were old guys sitting in the front of the bus. Three were young guys sitting in the back.

We three old guys got to talking about how many stops away we were. We were all within the next eight stops.

We decided we could probably beat the bus by walking.

The driver laughed and said no way.

Well, there was a challenge we weren’t gonna let pass.

So we told him goodbye and we’d see him tomorrow.

He told us he’d pick us up when he came around Turner.

We took a shortcut through Hupmobile and along the arroyo. The first guy peeled off at his stop.

We kept walking. It was hot, and it was uphill.

We weren't even to Marquette when the bus pulled up beside us. The driver popped open the front door.

We climbed aboard, and noticed how effective the bus air conditioning had become since the layover.

The driver was cool, too. He just grinned at us and didn’t say a word.

But the three young guys in the back had a good time giving us grief.

Win some, lose some.

2011-09-11T05:00:00.003-06:00

BUS STORY # 253 (Waves)

11 Lomas, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

It’s Monday, August 27, and we’re riding the Lomas bus on the first day of a schedule change.

I’m sitting with one of the regulars, and we’re both taking in the fact that the bus is almost full before we even get back to Lomas going west.

It’s crowded for three reasons: One, it’s commuter time. Two, school’s back in session. Three, the new schedule has caused a lot of folks to shift their bus-riding schedules so they won’t miss their connections and be late for work.

I explain to my seat mate how I’ve lost 20 minutes of my morning to the new schedule, and how that 20 minutes has cost me my usual second cup of coffee. I tell her I could get always up 20 minutes earlier...and we laugh.

Several other folks around us weigh in with the impact of the new schedule on their mornings. One of them is now missing a Juan Tabo connection which is costing her an hour. She’s needing to get her not-yet-toddler to day care before going on to work. To do that, she’s gonna have to get an earlier bus, plus trade the old three-minute wait for the Juan Tabo for a new 20 minute wait, with the child.

My second cup of coffee isn’ t looking like such a big deal anymore.

While we’re having this conversation, I’m also watching a co-rider across the aisle and one row up.

She’s a student, and she’s wearing what looks like the summer blues of a Navy ROTC uniform. It’s gotta be a junior ROTC. She looks like a kid. Short blonde hair, and what would probably be a cute face if it wasn’t so drawn with distress.

I first noticed her when she got on. The seat had just opened up. She looked at it, balked for a minute, looked over the rest of the bus, then took it. There was a student with a Monzano football jersey sitting in the window seat. She sat on the edge of the seat, one foot out in the aisle, and arranged her satchel and back pack on the floor.

Now, she sits perched on the edge, mostly looking out the front, but looking over the rest of us on occasion with an almost desperate expression on her face.

When the Monzano jersey kid wants up, she struggles with her baggage, gets it rearranged after he’s out, and then is obviously distressed when a new boarder indicates she’d like to get into that window seat.

When she gets off the bus, I mention her to my seat mate. Turns out she’s been watching her, too -- for the same reasons.

Our first impression is that she was overwhelmed by whatever bad fortune dealt her the you-have-to-ride-the-bus card. We took her distressed looking around as a kind of reality check. OMG-am-I-really-here?!

We took her being perched on the seat, face fixed forward out the front window, as an I-can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-here pose.

And we’d both watched her exit and walk past our window with an expression that prompted an image of Scarlet O’Hara raising a fist to the heavens and vowing “I’ll never go carless again!”

Later, I wonder if we’d misdiagnosed the whole scene.

Maybe she was one of us, someone whose world also got turned upside down with the schedule change. Maybe that distressed expression was more an OMG-I-am-so-late-and-I-am-going- to-be-in-so-much-trouble expression.

Maybe her anxious looking around was really her registering all the people who were boarding at every single stop there was and making her even later than she already was.

And maybe her being perched on the edge of her seat looking out the window was more an internal willing the bus to C’mon!-C’mon!-Get-there!

Another bus story that got away.

This time next week, most of us will have figured out which bus we need to be catching to make our connections and not be late to school or work. And we’ll not only have a better sense of what our losses are, but we’ll have already begun learning to live with the new reality.

And surely there are people out there for whom the schedule change is actually a good thing, or at least an inconsequential one.

Surely.

2011-09-04T05:00:00.020-06:00

BUS STORY # 252 (ABQ RIDE Roulette)

Well, fudge., a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

The 50, which left the airport at 5:30 p.m., is caught in traffic. I’m not gonna get to UNM in time to catch the 6:00 No. 11 by UNMH. That means I’m not gonna get home until around 6:50 -- 20 minutes later.

Unless...

I can walk down to The Frontier and take the Red Line. If it comes early enough, I might snag the 6:00 No. 11 up at the intersection with Louisiana. That would get me home at 6:30.

If it doesn’t come early enough, I’m where I am now: getting home at 6:50.

I get off the 50 at Central and hike to The Frontier.

Down at The Frontier, the electronic Next Bus sign says the Green Line is arriving in one minute. There is no announcement for the Red Line. This can’t be good.

I’m standing next to a young guy wearing a camo boonie who’s smoking a pipe. I haven’t seen a pipe smoker in a while, and I haven’t seen anybody this young smoking a pipe in decades. It’s an aromatic tobacco.

The Green Line arrives, people exit and board, and it takes off. It’s just me and the pipe smoker left at the stop.

He tells me he was waiting for the Green Line, but the sign said the next Green Line was 14 minutes out, so he fired up his pipe. It pulled up a few minutes later. He let this one go by so he wouldn’t waste the bowl.

I check the sign again. Next Red Line in 22 minutes. Well, fudge.

I figure the one that was supposed to be due next must have broken down, and that’s why there was no signal.

22 minutes. It’s just after six now. There’s a good chance I’ll now miss the 6:30 11 up at Louisiana and be left another 20 minutes out. That means I’d be getting home after 7:00.

Unless...

I could quick-step up to Girard, then up to Lomas, and catch the 6:20 there at the intersection. That would get me home at 6:50. I take off for Girard.

I’m halfway between The Frontier and Girard when the Red Line goes roaring by.

Well, fudge.

So much for the wonders of modern technology. I should’ve known from the pipe smoker’s story the signs were all screwed up. There went my shot at being home by 6:30. Now I gotta get to Lomas in time to catch the 11 to salvage the chance of getting home at 6:50.

I get to the intersection just in time to see a bus coming right up the street. But the stop is on the other side of Girard! I hustle over and reach the stop just as the bus pulls up and the doors pop open.

“Whew!” I say to the driver as I swipe my card. She says something back, but I can’t make her out. I just smile and nod and grab a seat.

The bus pulls out, then pulls into the far left lane. Well, fudge. Sure enough, the bus pulls into the turn lane on Carlisle, heading north. I pull the cord. It now occurs to me the driver was asking me if I was sure I had the right bus.

It’s not a long walk back to Lomas, and when I get there, I see another bus coming my way. I get across the street just in time to catch it. This time, I check the front of the bus to make sure it’s the right one. Yes, it’s the 11 Lomas. I’ve lucked out. I’ll be home by 6:50 after all.

Two guys sitting in front of me turn and ask me if I wasn’t on the Montgomery/Carlisle bus just now. Turns out they got off just before Carlisle to catch the 11. Um, well, yes I was. And I start to explain what happened, but they’re way ahead of me. There is no end to their amusement.

I get home at 6:50. There are two places at the table, but it’s clear my wife has already eaten.

“I thought you’d be home earlier,” she explains. She says she figured I got delayed at work again, and so she went ahead and ate.

I know I shouldn’t, but I know how she feels about the time it takes to get home on the bus. And I know I didn’t think to call her to let her know what had happened. So I cut my losses and let work take the blame.

Dinner is terrific.

__________

As of posting time, it’s been three weeks now, and the Rapid Ride arrival signage is still completely dissociated from what the buses are actually doing. At least, at The Frontier.

2011-08-28T05:00:00.026-06:00

BUS STORY # 251 (I Remember)

She looks older than she is. Not uncommon among pre-teen/early teen girls these days. She wears her black hair long and straight, but skewed to one side so it covers the left side of her face.

I can’t tell you what color top or what kind of shoes she was wearing. I never got past the orange, ruffly, short short skirt and the long, long legs.

It’s the legs that give her away. They’re still coltish, not quite to wherever they’re going yet. I think back to my own coltish days when I would have found those legs disturbingly perfect. It’s probably to the benefit of my grade point average the skirts were considerably longer those days.

A few stops later, I watch a young guy and an older guy do the you-first dance. Age goes before beauty. The older guy has a pass he’s holding out to the driver. When he doesn’t move, I know something isn’t right with the pass.

He’s standing there listening to the driver, pass still thrust out. Longish gray hair, neatly combed back, trim gray beard. Neatly pressed blue oxford cloth shirt, tails out, over blue jeans. And something I haven’t seen in a long time: a fanny pack. It’s oversized, and he wears it in front. It’s in his way when he goes looking for his wallet.

Behind him the kid is waiting. He has a Harry Potter look about him which I suspect is no longer considered cool among kids his age. He looks to the back of the bus and smiles. I realize he is smiling at the girl in the short, short skirt who’s sitting in the back row. She’s smiling back. Ah, so...

The older guy is now fishing in his fanny pack. The younger guy looks mildly frustrated by this unexpected delay. No good deed goes unpunished. He gives her a “what-can-I-do” look. He’s too cool to shrug.

Eventually, the older guy finds his wallet, puts in his money, gets his pass, and heads for a seat. The kid is through in a flash. I love how he comes down the aisle: trying not to look like the hurry he’s in.

He gets to the back, spins, and drops into the seat next to her. They laugh, lean in towards one another, but they don’t touch. He starts talking a mile a minute about some video game, and I just laugh to myself and remember.
__________

  The photo at the top of this story is titled “Girl on tram - Hiroshima,” © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of Byron Edwards. You can see this and all Bryron Edward’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/byronedwards/2843388530/

2011-08-21T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 250 (Shorts 21)

Discover A Book, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

A few blocks after picking up the first motorized wheelchair rider, we stop for a second. First time I’ve seen two at the same time. The driver asks the folks on the bench seat and first row behind the driver’s seat to move back so he can make room for the wheelchair. One of the displaced is an older woman in a quilted lavender jacket. She makes her way to the back platform, sits down, looks at the rest of us, then asks, “Is this the Lomas bus?”

***

Little guy, second or third grade, gets on the bus with his mother. He’s got a Lakers coat on and the hood is up. They climb up to the rear platform and sit next to one another. He sits forward and keeps his eye on the front windshield. Several blocks into the ride, he jumps up, pulls the cord, and shoots down to the back door. “Not yet!” his mother shouts. “Next one, driver.” The driver waves an OK. Mom adds, “He just can’t wait to get to school.”

***

When we stop at the Circle K, the driver leaves the bus and goes inside the store. While he’s inside, a high school kid wanders over to the bus and boards through the rear door. He takes the last seat in the last row on the driver’s side. Maybe a minute later, the driver comes back outside and heads for the bus. About halfway there, he veers to his left, toward the rear door. Uh oh. He walks in through the rear door, looks at the kid, and says “You don’t board through the rear door. Understand? Now come up front and take care of your fare.” The kid is quiet. He goes up front and has some trouble getting his money into the fare box.

***

It’s quiet this morning. I look up from my magazine and see a guy looking at what appears to be a child’s picture book. He’s maybe in his 40s. Long hair and beard streaked with gray. He’s wearing roughout work boots, blue jeans, a black sweatshirt, and on top of the long gray hair is an outrageously garish Iron Man baseball cap. The book is a big one. He’s got it opened wide and balanced on his thighs, and he’s examining the pictures with care and interest. I will catch the title later --The Loathsome Dragon -- when he puts it back in the Discover-A-Book bin before he gets off the bus. But right now, there’s a fascinated kid in his face.

2011-08-14T05:00:00.007-06:00

BUS STORY # 249 (Vikram’s Story)

ABQ RIDE System Map, originally uploaded by busboy4.

Vikram* is maybe 10 years younger than me, though it’s hard to tell. He’s got a head of just-beginning-to-thin gray hair and supple, light-complected skin. He’s short and slight -- really, he’s more like a slightly miniaturized, remarkably trim older guy.

He has a serious, almost intent, mien, but he is quick to smile. My favorite thing about him is his eyes. Even with his veddy British-like reserve, they are large and bright and liquid and -- well, they are windows to not just the soul, but to his whole alert, curious, receptive persona.

The hardest thing about him is his accent. His English is impeccable, as is his articulation. But the Indian accent can throw me, and I often find myself having to reconstruct the sounds to get the sense.

I consider this a defect on my part. I’ve noticed that Spanish-speaking folks seem to have no difficulty understanding Anglos speaking Spanish with an Anglo accent -- never mind the mangling of grammar and gender agreement and verb tense. But I digress.

Vikram was already a regular when I began riding five years ago. We went from being aware of one another in the morning, to nodding to one another when we sometimes rode the same bus home, to talking after our bus was hit from behind.

After that, we occasionally sat together and exchanged our stories.

Vikram moved from India to the east coast where he acquired an advanced degree in engineering and a command of the programming language, Fortran. These got him a job with IBM in Austin.

He was still in Austin when he sensed that the economic good times were coming to an end. He decided a graduate degree in counseling would give him some diversity.

It turned out to be a smart move. There came the time when having an engineering degree and a buck would get you a cup of coffee.

His new career brought him to Albuquerque where he worked in a number of venues -- CYFD, UNMH, the VA.

I asked him which he preferred: engineering or social work. While he never really answered that question, he did make an interesting observation. Counseling was harder -- both because of the work effort required and because of the stress of having a real impact on people’s lives. Engineering was more like playing. So he thought it curious that playing was so much better paid. I thought about professional athletes and school teachers, and decided Vikram hadn’t yet fully assimilated our American values.

He was assimilating the stress of his work, however. He told me he’d begun having health issues, and that he was back in school to expand his skill sets.

What now, I asked him.

He’s combining updating his computer skills with GIS programming.

GIS?

Geographic Information System. He explains there are all kinds of specific GIS systems depending on what it is you want to do. But what they all have in common is combining maps with database technology for map analysis and development.

When I ask him what he plans to do with all this new education, he tells me these skill sets are in demand by companies in the utilities and communications businesses, urban municipalities, and pretty much any business looking at large scale real estate development.

Turns out, Vikram has been fascinated by maps from childhood. These days, what maps can do are equally fascinating to him, especially the analyses of satellite topographical mapping. His eyes really light up when he’s explaining how to decipher old maps when comparing them with current maps.

Maps are not his only fascination.

Ever since his time in India, he’s been fascinated by train and bus timetables. He knows the names and numbers of all the ABQ RIDE routes, and he’s ridden most of them. Even more interesting, he knows the schedules -- where bus x goes, and when it arrives at intersection a, and when bus y connects.

So this is why he takes the bus.

Well, this and the fact that someone talking on a cell phone ran a red light and T-boned him. His car was totaled. He had already been taking the bus to work, and after the accident, he decided not to replace the car and to make ABQ RIDE his primary means of transportation.

There’s a twinkle in his eye when he suggests that maybe when he’s finished his courses, he’ll take a job as a driver with ABQ RIDE.

I’m pretty sure he’s only halfway kidding.
__________

*Real name changed.

2011-08-07T05:00:00.007-06:00

BUS STORY # 248 (“It’s Either The Bus Or Hoof It”)

5 Montgomery/Carlisle, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

He asks me if the Montgomery/Carlisle bus stops here. I tell him it does.

Then he asks me if it still runs every 20 minutes. I tell him I don’t know.

He tells me it used to, but he’s heard there’ve been a lot of schedule changes since he last rode the bus. Now his car’s broken, and “It’s either the bus or hoof it.”

He’s interesting looking. Dress slacks with a nice drape, nice short sleeve shirt, untucked, and meant to be. Dress shoes, in excellent condition. He’s got an open weave straw hat, with gray hair curling at the back of his neck. And sunglasses. Wayfarers. I think “Florida.” And then, “in the ‘80s.”

He’s also missing his four front teeth.

He’s articulate and fast-talking. The missing teeth don’t hamper his speech any, and it is pouring out non-stop.

His car is an ‘86 Chevy Nova which he says is also a Corolla. This is news to me. But then, there is very little about cars that wouldn’t be news to me.

He says he bought it for $350, but this past winter, he tried to muscle it through a snowdrift in his driveway. He thinks he may have strained the transmission then.

Last week, it sounded pretty bad. His boss told him he better get it fixed or he’d find himself stuck somewhere and unable to get to work.

But then his boss fired him. He knew it was coming, so he put off getting the car fixed. He’s glad he did. Otherwise there he’d be, no job and a big bill he couldn’t pay.

His first car was a beauty. He told me what kind, and for the life of me, I do not recall what it was. I pictured something electric blue with lots of chrome, even though he didn’t tell me what color it was.

I do know it was a front-wheel drive.

I know this because he told me he’d fallen behind a couple of payments when it got stolen right out of his driveway by some repo men.

He says they don’t leave a note or anything, so you don’t know if someone has stolen your car for real, or what. Took him three days to track it down. They’d ruined it during the repossession.

He says he parked it right up close to the garage, and had it locked in gear. They hooked the back end to their truck, lifted it up, and dragged it away. He asks me if I know what that does to a front-wheel drive transmission.

He says the repo business is outright thievery. They give you an option: go into default and lose your car and your credit, or pay the balance plus all the charges they pile on right now. How’s someone who couldn’t make a monthly payment gonna pay the whole thing plus all the jacked up charges?

By taking out a second and high-interest loan, that’s how. That’s what he had to do to protect his credit.

But the car died a few months later. That transmission never was the same after the repo. And they’re not responsible for the damages. It’s your word against theirs, anyway.

He starts telling me how he came to own the Nova -- some guy he knew who was leaving town and wanted to sell it but couldn’t find a buyer -- when the Montgomery/Carlisle pulls up.

“There’s my bus,” he breaks off, and off he goes. I see him still standing by the driver when the bus pulls away.

2011-07-31T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 247 (Baggage)

She’s a little bitty thing. Hard to say how old -- could be in her 60’s or 70s.

She boards with a bag in each hand which she sets down in front of the bench seats across from the driver. Then she goes back out the front door.

When she boards again, she has two plastic grocery bags in one hand and a cloth shopping bag in the other. She lays them along the floor next to her first two bags.

Then she goes back out the door.

She makes two more trips for a total of nine bags, the last two a pair of small but pretty hefty-looking duffel bags. These last two she places in front of the bench seats on the driver’s side since she’s run out of room on the opposite side. She occupies the one bench seat that isn’t blocked by the bags.

After settling in, she rummages through her purse and pulls out a turquoise handkerchief. She unfolds it, then begins to shake it violently over her purse. She pauses, looks at her purse, then starts again.

After a second pause, she starts scrubbing the top of the purse except there is no contact between the handkerchief and the purse.

After several more "scrubbings," she puts the handkerchief back in her purse, then pulls out a tube of lipstick. She holds the tube up to the light and gives it a good look. Then she moves it to her right ear and proceeds to have a phone conversation.

I can’t make out any of the words, but she has the tone down pat. It really sounds like she’s part of a two-way phone conversation.

Now that I think about it, she probably is.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Kicked Out” ⓒ All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of camera1. You can see this and all camera1’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameraobscure/113548928

2011-07-24T05:00:00.000-06:00

BUS STORY # 246 (Gabriela’s Bus Story #1)

Bus stop at Cedar and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, originally uploaded by busboy4.

This is one of those “Heard it from a friend who/Heard it from a friend who...” stories. But with a difference: I ultimately got to see a copy of the email train first-hand.

Gabriela* told her bus-riding coworkers she’d been thinking about taking the bus to work. But she didn’t think there was a practical route or schedule for where she lived.

Her coworkers told her to try the online Trip Planner. And so she did. That is where she discovered a route she could use which called for catching the 92 at Cedar and Martin Luther King.

She put in for a monthly bus pass from her employer, and when she got it, she went to try it out.

She was standing at the bus stop near the corner when she realized the 92 wasn’t going to stop for her. She tried waving the bus down. The driver did stop, did let her on, but was not happy about it. He said this was not a stop on his route. And, in truth, the bus stop only listed routes 9, 12, and 50. When Gabriela explained about the Trip Planner, he told her he didn’t care what the website said, he had his instructions.

Gabriela added that the driver was shouting all this at her, and she felt intimidated. Then she felt angry. At the encouragement of the other riders who had witnessed the exchange, she decided to report what had happened. And so she sent an email relating all this, and asking for an apology from the driver, to Rebecca Torres (no official title on the website, but I believe she functions as the Customer Service “point” person); Bruce Rizzieri (Director of ABQ RIDE), and Richard Berry (the mayor of Albuquerque).

She got a quick response from none of the above. Nota* thanked her for reporting what had happened, and apologized that things had not gone well. He told her he had reported the Trip Planner discrepancy to the appropriate departments, and added ABQ RIDE would look into putting a stop where the Trip Planner had said there was one. He said the driver’s supervisor was notified of the driver’s behavior, and that this would be addressed.

He was doing all right until he recommended she buy a one-day bus pass which would save her $2.00 each round trip...

Gabriela responded. Since she had already explained she had a bus pass from her employer, his recommendation for a one-day pass turned his personal response into a pro forma blah-blah-blah. She felt he hadn’t really read her email.

She went on to explain why the stop at Cedar and MLK was ideal, and how otherwise, she would have to walk under an interstate underpass often frequented by the homeless -- not something any reasonable woman would risk. And she repeated her request for an apology from the driver.

In less than a week, when driving by the corner of Cedar and MLK, she saw the 92 had been added to the current bus stop list. She wrote Nota to report what she had seen and thanking him for the quick turnaround. She promised to let all her friends know how quickly ABQ RIDE had responded to her request.

I’m told she didn’t get an apology from the driver, but she prefers the bus stop she did get.

Bus stop for the 92 at Cedar and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, originally uploaded by busboy4.

__________

*Real name changed.

2011-07-17T05:00:00.003-06:00

BUS STORY # 245 (Portrait # 13: Wild Bill)

Wild Bill Hickok, a public domain photo from Wikipedia Commons, uploaded to this blog by busboy4 on Flickr.

She’s a big woman, and she has to be in her 70s. She’s out there most afternoons waiting for the bus, hunched over a four-wheeled walker loaded with groceries.

This particular afternoon, it’s somewhere between 95 and 100, but she’s wearing a brown duster. And red pants. And a straw cowboy hat with a turquoise hatband. A wild spray of long white hair comes streaming out from under that hat in all directions.

I remember the first afternoon it hit me: Wild Bill Hickok! She doesn’t need the moustache. It’s the hat and the hair.

Sometimes the driver puts down the wheelchair ramp. Sometimes the bus is pulled flush with the sidewalk and the ramp isn’t needed. She boards slowly, looking around the piled up groceries and maneuvering the walker through the door and the left turn past the till.

She is always smiling, and she thanks the driver for having patience with her. The folks sitting on the bench seat bail and head for the back. It takes her a while to move herself into a seat, then pull her walker as close to her as she can. The folks on the bench seat opposite her sometimes give her a hand. The driver always waits until she is settled in before pulling back into traffic.

The walker doesn’t quite block the aisle, but it’s an obstruction – which everyone accommodates without complaint. I suspect we’re all thinking the same thing: Here she is, at her age and in her condition, out there taking care of business. And she radiates nothing but a pleasant, positive attitude despite the fact that this can’t be easy. And we, by God, are gonna cut her all the slack she needs.

During the ride to where she gets off, she engages in conversation with the folks across the aisle. Many of these are also regulars, and have gotten to know her.

A mile or so later, we reach her stop. She gathers herself and her walker and groceries together and exits, slowly, patiently, with a kind word of thanks to the driver. I watch her from the window as she hunches over the walker and starts guiding it slowly down the sidewalk. Still smiling.

You bet we’ll wait for you, Wild Bill.

__________

This public domain photo is taken from Wikipedia Commons: File:Wild-Bill-5.jpg

2011-07-10T05:00:00.001-06:00

BUS STORY # 244 (New Job)

KFC Bus Stop, originally uploaded by busboy4.

We’re waiting for the bus when he asks me if I have a cigarette.

I don’t.

Man! he exclaims. Nobody smokes these days. Or else they’re just saying they don’t.

He’s tired. He started a new job today. First job he’s been able to find in almost two years. He got a job as a fry cook at a fast food franchise.

He wasn’t able to find a job in two years?

Everywhere he applied, they told him he was overqualified. He’s had eight years of fast food experience, but he knew the reason he was being turned down was because the managers were afraid with all his experience he was after their jobs.

Was this here in Albuquerque he couldn’t find work?

Not the whole two years. He moved to Albuquerque to stay with his cousin after his ex-wife tried to kill him. But his cousin and his cousin’s friends were a bunch of drunks who didn’t care about anything except partying, and they kicked him out.

He ended up staying at Joy Junction for six months. That’s where he met Brenda.* They’ve just had a baby five weeks ago.

They bounced around from Joy Junction back to his cousin’s to a friend’s, and finally to an apartment of their own after he started business school at CNM and got a student aid check.

Now he’s in his second semester. He’s thought about transferring to UNM, but he isn’t sure if the student aid would increase accordingly or not. If it didn’t, he’d never be able to afford the tuition.

But he’s excited about having a job. Even after being off for two years, everyone was amazed at how quickly he caught on to everything. He said he worked like a mad man. But he was gonna feel it in the morning! He’s not in the shape he was in back when he was working at Dairy Queen.

He works from two to seven five days a week. No insurance, but that’s OK. His wife and baby have Medicaid. He says wife, but they aren’t really married yet. He’s waiting to finish the semester.

His workplace is way out on the West Side, near the end of the Blue Line. He catches the 11 between Wyoming and Louisiana, rides to UNMH and catches the Blue Line to the West Side. And the reverse coming home.

That’s clear across town and then some, I say. That’s a long ride.

He’s so happy to be working again he doesn’t care. With the baby, there’s baby food and diapers and stuff. And he smokes... What with the baby and school and a new job, this is no time to try and quit smoking.

He’s happier now than he’s ever been. Not just because of the job, but because he’s met Brenda and he’s in school and now he’s working.

Brenda is the best thing ever happened to him. She’s an amazing woman -- she tells him she’ll take care of the baby so he can concentrate on school and work. And she always has a meal ready for him for supper. Not that she’s the greatest cook in the world, but still... And he’s got a bad back and she’ll massage it when it acts up. She has other wonderful attributes he goes into as well. He knows he is one lucky man. He just wishes his ex-wife had been even a little like Brenda.

Only problem is her parents. They really don’t like him at all. It’s because of the time his ex-wife tried to kill him. He defended himself and beat the crap out of her. Even the cops were on his side. They told him to get to the hospital and have that wound stitched up, and then they cuffed her and put her in the squad car.

She was out in a couple of days, though, and the charges were dropped. But somebody decided both of them were too dangerous to keep their two kids, so the kids got taken away from both of them. He can’t see them until they turn 18.

He explained all this to Brenda’s parents. He wanted to be straight with them. Everybody else he tells the story to understands. Even his own mother, who does not approve of men beating up on women, said he should’ve killed her. That wouldn’t have done him any good, he told her. He’d’ve gone to jail for sure. You gotta practice restraint.

But Brenda’s parents didn’t understand. They really hate him. They have him pegged as a wife beater and a child beater. He just doesn’t understand how they can jump to that kind of conclusion from defending himself against a crazy woman.

Another guy arrives at the stop, and he interrupts his story to ask the guy if he has a cigarette. He sure doesn’t. Dang. Nobody smokes anymore. Or else they’re just saying they don’t. Then he tells the guy how tired he is, and how this is his first day of work in almost two years.
__________

*Real name changed.

2011-07-03T05:00:00.000-06:00

BUS STORY # 243 (Darlene’s Tucson Bus story)

I was having dinner with friends recently, and one of these friends said she had a bus story for me.

Darlene lived in Tucson from the mid-’80’s to the mid-‘90s. One of the things she did while she was there was arrange and lead Elderhostel tours.

It seems they had a contract with a private bus service that wasn’t always as dependable as she would have liked.

I asked if they were the only game in town.

She replied they were the cheapest game in town.

So, in the vein of “you get what you pay for,” one evening, when she and fifty elders had finished a tour of a local planetarium, the bus didn’t show.

She tried calling the service without success. After a half hour or so, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

She called Sun Tran, the local transit company, and told them how she and fifty elders came to be stranded at the planetarium. She said she had no money, and asked what they could do to help.

They had her take her elders a couple of blocks to a stop on Speedway where the last bus of the evening would be coming. She said the elders were wonderful about the whole thing and treated it like a great adventure.

Turns out Sun Tran and the driver were also wonderful about the whole thing.

When the bus arrived, the driver had already been notified of the situation by the dispatcher. He opened the doors and let everyone in, no fare needed. Darlene said they filled up the almost empty bus.

The driver was an exceptionally good-natured fellow, and instead of dropping them at the stop nearest their hotel, he left the route and drove them right to the hotel itself.

Darlene wrote the Sun Tran folks a thank you letter praising their help and the spirit with which it was given. She said the seniors were so impressed they were still talking about it the next morning. Of course, Darlene must have been impressed, too, because, after all these years, she’s still talking about it.

I’m impressed, too. And that’s why, after all these years, I’m telling the story again, right here, right now.
__________

Long time Albuquerque riders will remember that our public transit system was also called Sun Tran before changing to ABQ RIDE back in 2004. Anyone who’s spent time in both cities knows we have a lot of other things in common with Tucson. I’d like to think that includes how our system and our drivers would have handled Darlene’s situation.

__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “La Estrella de Tucson” ⓒ All Rights Reserved and is posted with the kind permission of So Cal Metro. You can see this and all So Cal Metro’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/southerncalifornian/2224928955/

2011-06-26T05:00:00.001-06:00

BUS STORY # 242 (They’re Gonna Put Me In The Movies)

Iron Man on the bus, a photo by dabasse on Flickr.

He’s coming from the airport. He’s got a huge, black, rolling suitcase pulled up next to him by the front bench seats.

He starts off with the fire in Arizona, and we talk about how big it is and how it’s supposed to be crossing into New Mexico today and how the horizon is whited out past the volcanoes.

He’s been here since ’99, and he’s never seen anything like this.

I ask him where he’s from.

Denver. He was a partner in an aluminum siding and window business when his other partner offered to buy him out.

“Thirty-six long ones,” he said. “Lotta money.”

He ended up having a good time and getting married before the money ran out. His wife was from here -- “a Highland High girl” -- and she persuaded him to come home with her. They’re divorced now.

He’s been taking classes at CNM, and he’s looking to become a film tech. He tells me there’s a lot of movies and TV being shot here in New Mexico, and he knows the pay is good. His dream is to be a director. He’s a big fan of Quentin Tarantino.

He tells me he ran into Robert Downey, Jr., the other day, coming out of a store on Central. He did a double-take, then yelled out, “Hey, Robert, how ya doin’?” Robert called back he was doing great, a real friendly guy. They got into a little conversation and Robert told him to come on down on this particular day to this place they were scheduled to shoot, and he’d get him a job as an extra. Said Robert had to reassure him he wasn’t putting him on. So he’s gonna do that.

He says they’re shooting this movie with all the superheroes in it -- Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman -- that’s why he’s here in town.

He says he’s pretty sure this is gonna pan out. But, he says, Albuquerque is full of con men. Or maybe it’s just that he seems to attract them. But he’s going to the shoot. He thinks he can take this one to the bank.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Iron Man on the bus” and is posted with the kind permission of dabasse. You can see this and all dabasse’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dabasse/2463883409/in/photostream/

2011-06-19T05:00:00.008-06:00

BUS STORY # 241 (Shorts 20: Father’s Day)

Coming home from work, a photo by posterboy2007 on Flickr.

On the Rapid Ride, I’m sitting behind a father and daughter. He’s young, skinny. She must be five or six. She’s a blondie, with a pale yellow shirt. He’s a blondie, too, what we used to call “dirty blond.” He’s got a long, thin ponytail hanging out from beneath a yellow and green plaid driving cap which he’s wearing front-to-back. The sides of his head are shaved. He’s got a faded black sleeveless T-shirt, and on the back it says “One time at the fight club . . . ” He’s got the window seat, but he’s leaning his head toward his daughter and talking to her. “And you gotta say ‘please’ when you want something, and you say ‘thank you’ when somebody gives you something. It’s nice. You gotta be nice, OK? And ‘excuse me,’ when you bang into people like you did running down the aisle – hey, you listening to me?” She grabs his upper arm with both hands and pulls her head against him.

***

There are four of us at the bus stop. In front of me are two young guys, one in a parka with the hood up, the other with a baseball cap fitted backwards over a blue bandanna headscarf. The cap says “Native.” A thick black braid drops out of the cap and disappears into a black jacket. They’re smoking and talking. Beside them is a stroller, and inside the stroller, behind a pink ruffled windbreaker device, is a curious toddler. I think it’s a girl. She is looking all around, and spends some time taking me in. Then she starts to vocalize. The kid in the cap squats down in front of her and says, “Hello. Hello there.” He talks with her and doesn’t quit till she’s done. Then he goes back to his other conversation.

***

The kid’s gotta be pre-school. Way too big gray hoodie, way too big Carolina Panthers baseball cap. His dad is wearing a black nylon warmup suit. He’s listening to the guy across the aisle tell him if he doesn’t get the job he’s on his way to see about, to come and see him. He runs a bunch of those ice cream pushcarts and can always use reliable help. The kid is looking at a picture book. He puts his finger on one place in the picture and calls, “Dad!” Dad is explaining he’s already got a job but he needs a second one -- “Dad!” -- so he can move his son and him out of his grandmother’s house. The kid quits trying. He gives a little, croupy cough. Dad immediately leans over, touches his face to the top of the baseball cap, puts his hand on his son’s chest. “You OK? You OK?” The kid says he’s OK. Dad explains to the guy across the aisle that his son’s had a little virus going on. “You gotta watch those things, you know?”

***

The bus is packed. Standing in the back are a dad and his son. Dad’s a big dude, with a buzzed head and tattoos on his arms and legs. The kid looks around eight, with short hair and big brown eyes. A rider gets up and offers the kid his seat. The kid looks at his dad. “Go on, sit,” his dad tells him. The kid doesn’t say no or shake his head, but he balks. “Go on,” his dad repeats, putting some body language in it. The kid looks up at his dad. He still doesn’t move “C’mon, sit down,” his dad says again, sounding exasperated. The kid looks at the seat, then at the guy sitting in the other seat, then at his dad. He doesn’t move. His face is serious, and his big brown eyes are doing all the talking. Dad gets it. He pulls the kid close to him in a sideways hug, then takes his hand. They hold hands until two seats open and they sit down together.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Coming home from work” and is posted with the kind permission of posterboy2007. You can see this and all posterboy2007’s photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7146815@N06/2868863869

2011-06-12T05:00:00.002-06:00

BUS STORY # 240 (Nine Lives)

Jeff's Got Your Back, originally uploaded by busboy4.

There’s a spot in the back, at the end of one of the bench seats. But the guy sitting next to it is a big, big man. He’s got a way-too-small Dallas Cowboys cap on his head, and a big black wrist support on each wrist and forearm. He’s holding an industrial strength metal cane with one of those offset handles in front of him. He’s big enough to reduce the sitting area of the empty seat. I elect to stand.

“C’mon and sit down,” he says to me. It’s a friendly invitation.

I squeeze in part of the way and stop there. I’m feeling wedged in.

“Thanks,” I say. “You sure you got enough room?”

“You can’t hurt me,” he replies affably. He goes on to explain he’s got some bulging discs and some cracked vertebrae, so there’s not much else that’s gonna hurt him worse than that back of his.

I ask him how he cracked his vertebrae.

“Hit and run. Three times.”

First time he was on his motorcycle going down Lomas. He says he was lucky he was wearing his helmet and a leather jacket. The car took off. He got up, picked up his motorcycle, and drove himself to Presbyterian Hospital.

“Busted ribs, a busted right arm, and road rash,” he tells me.

Then there was the time he was riding his bicycle on Gibson. There’s an intersection with a red light. Three cars cut through a gas station to duck the red light. The first car ran him down. The second and third cars ran over him.

“Busted ribs, busted pelvis, both wrists busted. I was paralyzed from the waist down for six months.”

He doesn’t tell me what happened to the bike, and I don’t ask.

Then there was the time he was driving on that street behind the airport, the one that goes to the post office. The cops told him they think the other car was involved in a breaking and entering up there. It was speeding down the hill with its lights off. He saw it coming at him at the last minute. Too late to do anything. Busted his leg. His seat belt didn’t lock and his head hit the windshield. Knocked him out.

He’s had four heart attacks in the last year. His doc gets upset with him because he tries to tough it out at home. Tells him he’s doing more damage to his heart by waiting. That first time they had to put “those springs” in the arteries on both sides of his heart.

But he’s a tough guy. He played football, at Syracuse. He can take pain. That’s what a real man does.

“See this?” he says, pulling up his Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. There’s a scar running down the center of his abdomen. “Got stabbed with a butterfly blade during an attempted robbery.”

He had his own business, was outside taking a break, when he overheard a customer trying to shake down one of his employees. He went back inside to throw the bum out. There was a fight. He used to box, too, and he beat the snot out of the guy. But he didn’t know the guy had this blade hidden in his hand. So while he’s beating the snot out of the punk, the punk gets a free shot at his liver. After knocking the guy out, he put a towel over the wound and called 911.

“I walked myself to the ambulance,” he says.

He’s just come from University Hospital. They’re planning on sticking some needles in his back to do something about those discs. He’s a real man, but he sure hopes they can do something about that back pain.

2011-06-05T05:00:00.016-06:00

BUS STORY # 239 (Grocery Cart)

She’s an overweight, older woman, with long hair dyed a muddy red-brown, and overgrown gray roots. She’s struggling to get a granny cart up the steps of an old 300, and even with someone behind her lifting the other end, it’s not easy.

She’s talking out loud, half to herself, half to the driver and us. She’s explaining this is the first time she’s used the cart, and now she knows she should have removed the contents, folded the cart up, and then got on board.

What she’s really doing is apologizing to the rest of us for holding things up. Because the logistics of removing her two reusable cloth grocery bags and one gallon jug of milk from the cart and leaving them all on the sidewalk, folding up the cart, then carrying the cart on board, opening the cart back up on the bus, then going back out and retrieving the grocery items from the sidewalk, carrying them back on the bus and putting them back in the cart, makes no sense at all.

(Reusable cloth grocery bags? Not the plastic bags that come from the store? The detail will nag at me, but that story will get away.)

Once she’s backed up past the fare box, she continues backing down the aisle, pulling her cart with her. Her breathing is labored.

The cart is unusually large, and that’s part of the problem. All the riders except one have emptied the two elderly/handicapped bench seats and have moved toward the back of the bus.

The rider who remains is a blind guy. Once he figures out what’s going on, he tries pulling up his legs so his heels are on the seat. He’s an older guy, and I can see this is an effort. He ends up having to twist in his seat and pull both feet up on the seat next to him.

She gets past him and drops into a seat on the same bench, the seat next to where the blind guy’s feet were.

The cart takes up most of the aisle. She tries turning it to one side -- I can hear her grunt -- but it is a square cart; there is no gain. The other boarders have to squeeze by.

Old women with grocery carts have been using the bus for as long as I’ve been riding. But until today, they’ve managed to stay under my radar. This one’s got my attention, and now I’m trying to imagine what it must be like.

I make myself another ten-plus years older -- slower, creakier, more easily tired, enduring accumulated aches and pains and maybe a chronic illness, wrestling that cart onto a bus which doesn’t really have any accommodations for it, then lugging it home for a city block that might as well be a mile, and the whole time feeling in the way; a widower; carless; without the financial wherewithal to take a cab; without family in town, or maybe with a family that is unavailable for one reason or another, or maybe just can’t be bothered; without friends to take me shopping or to pick my groceries up for me because they are too old or infirm, or because they are not here for whatever good reason.

Or maybe because I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.

If they were invisible before, they aren’t any more.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled "Pushing Through" ⓒ All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of antonkawasaki. You can see this and all antonkawasaki’s photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/antonkawasaki/3383111934/

2011-05-29T05:00:00.002-06:00

BUS STORY # 238 (He Said)

Hearts On Fire , originally uploaded by busboy4.

They’ve been married 20 years, my co-rider explains, but things started going south when he lost his job.

He was making $50,000 a year, not enough to buy a home, but enough to raise a son and fully fund a 401k and an IRA. His wife was a stay-at-home mom, even when their son was in high school.

When he lost his job, he went down to the VA for help. But he felt they weren’t very adept at matching his skill set with prospective employers. Meanwhile, his wife continued to spend as she always had. In time, they began burning through his retirement savings. They had their first fights over money.

A few months later, still unemployed, doing his own job searches alongside the VA effort, he suggested she might look for work herself. She didn’t think it was worth the effort for minimum wage. He thought minimum wage would be better than nothing. The relationship cooled off considerably after that exchange.

One day, he cleaned up the kitchen and the living room. That made her angry. She took it as a criticism of her housekeeping skills. He suggested as much when he explained he only did it because it needed doing.

Then she started getting upset when he did the laundry, even though he’d been doing the laundry even before losing his job. He said he’s never minded doing the laundry.

One day, he went to another VA referral. The prospective employer told him he didn’t have a job for him, but given his experience, he knew exactly who he needed to go see. He made the call, set up the appointment. My co-rider went for the appointment and was hired on the spot.

The timing couldn’t have been better; his savings were exhausted. It didn’t pay the $50K he’d earned before at his old job, but it was enough to pay the rent, buy the groceries, take care of school and household expenses. But, he explained to his wife, not enough to continue the allowance he’d always provided.

His wife got a job. He’s pretty sure that was a "tipping point."

He’s also taken to working an extra half-day every weekend. He gets overtime, but the real reward is getting out of the house. He cranks the radio, busies himself for a few hours with stuff he can’t get done during the week when other people are around.

Afterwards, he does the laundry, away from home. He does the laundry away from home because she doesn’t want him tying up the washer and dryer when she needs it. But she never seems to get around to his laundry in a timely manner.

He doesn’t mind. Keeps him out of the house a little longer. Besides, he’s never minded doing the laundry.

2011-05-22T05:00:00.013-06:00

BUS STORY # 237 (Two Old Guys Have A Conversation)

After writing last week’s story about controversial bus advertisements, I overheard this conversation between two old guys. I was especially attuned because I go to the same barbershop and went to the same barber these guys were talking about. But I don’t think I’d have thought of it as Bus Story material before last week’s post. It occurs to me that this is the kind of conversation that makes riding the bus and interacting with one’s fellow riders a pleasant and positive experience. I prefer this to whatever fireworks might be generated by an argument between two riders over religion or politics. I think all of us just want to have a nice day, thank you.

An old guy boards, works his way down the aisle, nods toward another old guy in an aisle seat, then takes the aisle seat across from him.

“You’re riding late this morning.”

“Yeah, I’ve got an appointment at the VA.”

“What do you do? Catch the 16-18?”

“I get off at San Mateo and catch the San Mateo bus. It goes right into the VA, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

There’s a pause. Then the VA guy says, “I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, and I need to get my ears lowered.”

“Where do you go?”

“That place up near Menaul...It’s at the corner of Menaul and Juan Tabo, at the end of -- “

“The Foothills.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“I’ve been going there for years.”

“That’s my barbershop. I’ve been going there for years, too.”

“Yeah, I go to the girl in the back, you know, the one with dark hair, there in the back. I think her name is Lucy*”

“Yeah, I got a couple of ones I always go to.”

“You can’t beat the price.”

“That’s for sure.”

There is a pause.

“You remember the old Navy guy used to have the chair in the corner there on the left?”

“Oh, yeah. He was my barber. He died, what? A year ago?”

“Yeah, we swapped a lot of sea stories. I was in the Navy for 30 years.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“He was always worried about his wife. I think she had cancer.”

“I think that’s right.”

“I didn’t know his health wasn’t good.”

“Well, I think he started going downhill after that motorcycle accident. I think he was in a lot of pain after that.”

“Yeah, he went into the VA for something, and he never came out.”

“I can’t remember his name.”

“Me, either.”

“There’s always a lot of turnover there. But he was always there.”

“Yeah, it took me a while to find somebody else. Then they moved on. But there’s a couple of girls there now that are good.”

“Where do you live?”

“Up near Turner.”

“That the closest barbershop?”

“I’ve been going there for years. I just catch the Juan Tabo.”

“Roger.* His name was Roger.”

“That’s it.”

There’s a lull in the conversation. The bus arrives at San Mateo.

“Nice talking to you.”

“Same here. You have a good day.”

“I plan to.”

“Beautiful day out there.”

“Yes it is.”

The VA guy exits, and his co-rider and I watch him making his way toward the San Mateo stop. And then we move on.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Bus Ride down the Strand” ⓒ All Rights Reserved and is posted with the kind permission of Reds.. You can see this and all Reds.’ photos on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reds42/3485936746/

2011-05-15T05:00:00.038-06:00

BUS STORY # 236 (In Your Face)

We Are Not For Sale!, originally uploaded by busboy4.

Back near the end of 2007, I wrote a story about how wraps had begun changing the impact of advertising on the bus. (You can read it here.)

The reaction fell into two camps: 1) it was a tacky sell-out of a municipal service; 2) it was better than raising fares. Both camps were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Ever since, as far as I can tell, it’s been a non-issue here in Albuquerque. The wrap ads have been dominated by casinos, attorneys, and Shelton Jewelers, while the sideboards predominately promote syndicated television series reruns and local events.

What has disappeared are the posters inside the bus. Most are now public service displays (although one of the casinos is promoting a “star search” campaign).

Probably the most provocative wrap we’ve seen is the current one highlighting a national campaign against human trafficking.

Since the overwhelming majority of us agree human trafficking is a bad thing, there’s virtually no controversy here.

However, in other communities, controversial advertising on the bus has riled some of the ridership, vexed municipal transit companies, and gotten folks involved who don’t live in the community, or even the state, where the ads have appeared.

The first such controversy I am aware of began in the fall of 2008 in London. A comedy writer and an atheist organization teamed up to respond to a series of religious advertisements they found offensive with a sideboard declaring “There’s probably no God.” (You can read the story here.)

That drew cries of protest and a counter bus advertising campaign by a Christian coalition. (I posted a story about the controversy in the spring of 2009. You can read it here.)

Following the London flap, the atheist-Christian bus ad conflict worked its way through a number of cities world wide, including here in the U.S. and in Canada. (You can read one of many, many stories here.)

Around the same time the London story broke, another, decidedly more secular, story broke in Boston about how some riders -- and drivers -- were offended by some of a series of bus ads being run by a local fresh fish purveyor. (You can read the story here.)

Tellingly, the debate came down to an interpretation of the MBTA’s “court-approved” guidelines for advertising.

A year later, in Seattle, bus advertising became more controversial and much less entertaining when King County Metro Transit accepted an ad alleging Israeli war crimes. A counter anti-Islamist ad campaign was submitted to the transit system, and the battle was on. (You can read one of the stories here.)

At the heart of the debate was whether the original ad conformed with Metro’s advertising guidelines. Big surprise: There was disagreement over whether it did or did not.

Emotions escalated on both sides, and the county sheriff was concerned: "In particular, I was concerned about innocent bus riders being converted into human billboards" on buses carrying the ads. The fear was that those buses might be targeted the way they have been in Israel -- by both sides, depending on which ad the bus was carrying.

Metro ended up electing not to run either ad and was quickly sued for violating the Constitutional right of free speech. (You can read the story here.)

The case is still not settled. However, last month, King County Metro amended its advertising policy to specifically prohibit:

• Political advertising promoting or opposing a political party; the election of any candidate or group of candidates for federal, state or local government offices; and initiatives, referendums and other ballot measures;

• Public issue advertising expressing or advocating an opinion, position or viewpoint on matters of public debate about economic, political, religious or social issues;

(You can read the story here.)

While Seattle waits for a federal court decision on the free speech issue, Trimet of Portland is adjusting to a state court decision upholding a plaintiff’s claim that refusing an add violated plaintiff’s right to free speech. (You can read the story here.)

The free speech in question was an anti dams-on-the-Klamath-River poster.

www.SalmonForSavings.com, originally uploaded by busboy4 from the Salmon For Savings website.

(You can see the website here.)

The Oregon State Court Of Appeals says Trimet violated the right to free speech when it rejected this ad based on its guidelines of accepting only commercial and public service advertising. (The challengers questioned the public service neutrality of some ads previously allowed.)

Trimet is appealing the decision to the state supreme court. But in the meantime, it finds itself pretty much in the position of having to accept any commercial or political ad submitted by anyone. They’re a little nervous about sex-related business submissions: they feel they will be compelled to accept such advertising.

Finally, if things weren’t bad enough, consider this story from the New York Times:

On School Buses, Ad Space For Rent

Here is Busboy’s take on all of this:

I’m fortunate to be living in a backwater state where a bus is still for transportation and a school bus is still for getting our kids to school. We have a tradition of live and let live, of getting along with our neighbors, of actually finding it interesting there’s a bunch of other people not just like us. And: A lot of us live together with those other people in the same neighborhoods.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of riding on a bus which carries some sort of antagonistic socio-politico-religious advertising which might make my bus some kind of target for offended parties, I’m not likely to agree that riding the bus is less hassle than driving.

Nor is such advertising the sort of conversation-starter I’m looking for with my co-riders. Most of us are just trying to get to work or get home or otherwise take care of business without the intrusion of conflict and incivility. And when we do have conversations, I’d rather hear about people’s real lives than about some advertiser’s manipulative agenda.

How many of us have ever had our positions changed by an advertisement or a bumper sticker? Conversely, how many of us have become even more intransigent in our positions after seeing an ad or bumper sticker which challenges the truth or the integrity or the wisdom of our positions? Most of these ads just add more anger and tension to our lives. Who of us needs more of this?

There is a time and place for such discussions, but public transportation isn't the place, and commuting isn't the time. When Seattle’s Metro amended its advertising policy, Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielk explained, “We’re not here to serve as a mobile debate club.” To which I respond: “Amen, brothers and sisters.”

You can take a look at ABQ RIDE’s advertising policy guidelines here. I can’t imagine how they could be any more clear, to-the-point, and all-inclusive than they are.

But I’m not a lawyer.

And I know you can’t stop progress. It’s just a matter of time before some of that American culture currently plaguing the outer 49 seeps into New Mexico and turns up at ABQ RIDE.

I’m always on the lookout for a good bus story, but it’ll be a sad day when stories about people hot and bothered and bothering each other with their political or religious or cultural persuasions become commonplace.

When the time comes, and it probably will, let’s hope the good sense in the current ABQ RIDE advertising policy guidelines is rigorously followed, then left intact by the judicial system.

Have A Nice Day!, originally uploaded by busboy4.

2011-05-08T05:00:00.012-06:00

BUS STORY # 235 (Portrait # 12: The Reader)

I’d noticed her the day before. Or, rather, I’d noticed her hair, partly because it was all I could see of her, and partly because it reminded me of my wife’s.

My wife’s hair is silver-white, and it hangs straight. I still remember the time she told me she was tired of getting colored and permed, and how it was so damaging to her hair. And expensive. I told her if she was doing that for me, it wasn’t necessary.

She gave going natural a try. I’ve had a fondness for her hair ever since. So when I see the same hair on other women, I look.

That’s how I noticed my co-rider the day before, sitting at the driver’s end of the bench seat in the front, with a half dozen people between us blocking the view of anything more of her.

But this morning, the bus is emptier than usual. And so, when she boards and takes the same seat in front, I can see all of her now.

Her hair is more gray than silver, and it’s a little longer than my wife’s. She’s wearing a parka-like coat, jeans, and gray hiking boots. She’s got a red backpack and she’s carrying a trade-size paperback.

There is one person between us, a student who looks junior high to me. She flashes him a smile, and I see she’s missing two front teeth, the ones on the left. It’s still a nice smile. In fact, the missing teeth somehow make it all the more charming. She begins removing her backpack, and I notice she doesn’t let go of her book.

Once she’s settled, she smiles at the student again and begins a conversation with him. I can’t hear it. But in a short while, he pulls the cord.

When he gets up, she reaches out with her right hand -- her book is in her left -- and they shake. He goes and stands by the driver and waits there for his stop. I sense this kid was discomforted at being drawn into a conversation with this stranger of an adult.

She doesn’t look disappointed or discouraged. She unzips her coat a little, then takes off her glasses and hangs them in the zipper’s notch. She is still holding onto the book.

With her glasses off, her eyes are suddenly pretty. I feel a little shock when I look at her face and realize she must have been a looker in her day. Still is, really -- although I wouldn’t have seen that in junior high. The eyes, of course, but also a nice set of cheekbones and a fine nose.

She opens the book, curls the front page around the spine (ouch!) and begins. She’s holding the book in her left hand, and moving the little finger of her right along the rows of print. She mouths the words.

She’s focused from this point on. Once, there is a burst of laughter from the back which causes her to look up, smile (nice smile), then back to the book. I notice that, after a while, she quits using her finger to follow the lines, and the mouthing becomes less pronounced.

When a new rider boards and sits down beside her, she puts the book in her lap, smiles at her, and begins a conversation. After a while, she returns to the book, and to using her finger and distinctly mouthing the words.

When I get off, she’s back to just a murmuring of the reading.

How long has she been riding my bus? Was yesterday the first time, or just when I first noticed her? I can’t believe I didn’t notice her earlier. But, then, it took me a while to notice my wife that first time. Of course, that was before she’d gone natural.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “RedReader” and is posted with the kind permission of JimScolman. You can see this and all JimScolman’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jscolman/153926974/

2011-05-01T05:00:00.007-06:00

BUS STORY # 234 (Celebrating Five Years On ABQ RIDE)

Anniversary, originally uploaded by busboy4.

In some ways, it feels like I’ve been doing this forever. Riding the bus has become part of my daily routine. It feels strange when I don’t take the bus.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of my experiment with riding the bus instead of taking the car. It may have felt like a long, strange trip in the beginning, but not anymore.

As I wrote in my very first bus story, I was motivated by a combination of concern for the environment, the rising cost of gasoline, and the appearance of free bus passes courtesy of my employer who was experiencing a shortage of parking space.

OK, it’s true: it was the financial angle that finally got me off my cachangas.

But it’s been the experience that’s really kept me interested. This, of course, is where Bus Stories have come from. I started writing those a couple of months later, because I didn’t want to forget them.

In these five years, ABQ RIDE has come a long, long way. First and foremost to me is the schedule. Buses are more on time than ever. We may wish for more routes and for more frequent runs on our routes, but the reliability of the routes we have is more important.

The buses are more dependable. The purchase of new buses has greatly reduced those times the bus doesn’t show up because it broke down somewhere upstream. No bus is usually worse than a late bus -- especially when the weather isn’t its usual wonderful Albuquerque self.

The drivers are more professional than ever.

I am in awe of how they keep their cool. Just last night, waiting for the Rapid, I was watching the Green Line heading for the stop when a kid dropped a coin that bounced into the street. He ran right into the lane without looking to pick it up. Big screeching of brakes as the bus shuddered to a stop. The kid looked up, surprised, laughed, jumped back on the sidewalk. When I boarded, I said something like that kid was lucky he didn’t end up a bug splatter on the windshield. The driver just shook his head. Just another day in the life of. The kid has no idea how indebted he is to that driver.

Speaking of the Rapid, there’s another wonderful innovation. Three lines that span much of the city with stops only about a mile apart. We’d like to see more Rapid Ride routes, but we’re grateful for the three we have.

Bus passes and the elimination of transfer slips. I’m not sure why, but ever since this innovation, there’ve been no bus stories about boarders and drivers haggling over the fare. Less stress for everybody.

There is a slow but encouragingly incremental effort to integrate city service with regional transportation. ABQ RIDE has already done a good job integrating service with the Rail Runner. And we’re seeing efforts to provide more public transportation options to the folks in Rio Rancho.

The whole experience has me looking forward to two full-time retirements: the one from my job, and the other from my car.

2011-04-24T04:20:00.000-06:00

BUS STORY # 233 (One Rider’s “Carless In Albuquerque” Story)

Bus & Wreck, originally uploaded by busboy4.

He’s an old guy. I’ve seen him off and on for years now, but we’ve never really spoken until this morning.

After I take a seat, he tells me he’s used to seeing me on an earlier bus.

I explain work has me riding at different times these days.

He says that’s a good thing this morning, because I can appreciate what a beautiful day it is.

He’s right. It’s late April, and after a couple of weeks of oh-c’mon-now cool weather, it really is one gorgeous spring morning. We’re all in short sleeves and the bus doesn’t need air conditioning.

We get to talking about the bus, and he tells me how he came to be a rider.

A few years back, he was driving down the street minding his own business when the sun absolutely blinded him.

Anyone who’s ever lived out here knows how intense the sun is. There’s a lot of it, and because of our elevation, there’s not a lot of atmosphere in between it and us. And anyone who’s ever driven out here knows there’s a time of the morning and a time of the evening when the sun is low enough to be its most intense self. If you’re driving into it, and you’re a wise and responsible driver, you slow way down until you can arrange your sun visor and hands so you can make out what’s ahead of you. And if it’s behind you, you know better than to use your rearview or side view mirror, even if you’re wearing sunglasses.

Well, he tells me, it wasn’t like that. It was different. It was like a beam of light had lasered right into the center of his eye.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting in the front seat of his truck with an accordioned-up front end pushed into the back end of a city bus.

Good morning, driver.

He explains it wasn’t really a direct hit. The sun must have made him veer to his right, and he caught the left back end of the bus which was stopped in the lane next to his.

But he was going 35, so it was enough of a hit to crunch up his truck, deploy the airbag, and send him to the hospital overnight.

He says the cops didn’t give him a ticket. And he had good insurance, good enough to cover the $50,000 damage to the bus.

He didn’t replace the truck because after he got out of the hospital, he went to see his eye doctor. The eye doctor told him he had macular degeneration.

“They yanked my driver’s license, just like that,” he explains.

So now he takes the city bus.

He says it pretty much meets his needs, although sometimes he has to get rides places from one of his daughters.

I ask him where he lives.

Up past Tramway.

There’s no Sunday service past Tramway. What does he do on Sundays?

He chuckles. “I stay home.”

2011-04-17T05:00:00.011-06:00

BUS STORY # 232 (Five Men And A Woman)

Men, Two And A Half..., originally uploaded by busboy4.

There are five of us guys and one woman riding up on the back platform. Four of the guys are late 20’s-early 30s. I’m the old guy. The woman looks in her 40s.

The young guys get to talking conspiracy theories. Each has a story to best the previous one. All share a basic premise: you cannot trust the government. Or the politicians. Or the news. Or anyone or anything else except maybe the internet.

The woman and I are listening, although she is pretending to read a book. I’m fascinated by the conversation, and don't realize she is listening while pretending to read until well into the story-telling and commentary.

I pick up when I see her mouth twitch after an especially interesting comment. When I start watching her, I see her mouth twitch or her jaw clench in perfect synch with some of the more provocative stories and commentaries. And then I realize she isn’t turning the pages of the book.

Charlie Sheen makes an appearance in the conversation. Turns out all four of these guys love “Two And A Half Men.”

One of them says Charlie is his personal hero.

Another says the network was stupid for firing him. Look at all the people they put out of work.

Another says what does it matter he partied with a hooker or did a little blow? What about Clinton?

Another says if he was getting two million bucks for thirty minutes work, he’d be doing drugs and getting laid, too.

All of them are down with that.

The woman’s face is working overtime to mask what her mouth and jaw betray. When the bus pulls over for a stop, she gets up and leaves the platform for one of the vacated seats up front, well out of earshot. The other guys are oblivious.

I am momentarily transported back to grade school -- the one place where it was never more clear how much smarter and more mature the girls were than us boys. And I am particularly remembering the look on the face of one of those girls as she took in a group of us behaving like any pack of temporarily unsupervised young boys in the back of the classroom. Think Margaret reacting to Dennis the Menace.

Maybe our classmate was right. But that was then and this is now. Our female co-rider is old enough to appreciate just how far we guys have come since grade school.

I know I do.

2011-04-10T05:00:00.004-06:00

BUS STORY # 231 (Not A Scam)

Pssst! Wanna Buy A Ticket?, originally uploaded by busboy4.

We pass someone running our direction through the intersection and waving madly. He wants the bus to wait for him at the stop on the other side, of course. And the driver does.

He’s a fairly young guy, and he looks like he’s put in a long, hard day at a dirty job. He leans against a pole and pulls out his wallet. From the wallet, he pulls a cluster of bills.

He sticks the wallet in his jacket pocket and begins sorting through the bills.

“Man! All I got -- ”

He breaks off, peels a bill from the top, and goes to the rider closest to him.

“You got change for a five?”

The rider shakes his head no.

He tries a second rider with the same results.

Then he calls out to the rest of us.

“Anybody got change for a five?”

No one answers.

He goes back to the driver.

“All I got are fives and twenties. When we get to Central, if you could just let me dip into McDonald’s -- ”

The driver tells him not to worry about it.

He sits down on the bench seat across from the driver.

While we’re making the Lead-University-Central-Yale loop, he pulls out a cell, makes a call.

He tells whoever is on the other line that he’ll be late, he’s catching the Lomas bus and there’s an hour wait after the seven p.m.

He also says he’s got some money, and the way he says it sounds like it is especially good news to listener and caller.

He says he’ll be ready for a bedtime snack by the time he gets there.

We turn back down Yale and stop across from the McDonald’s. All of us get off here.

I’m waiting for the light to change before crossing the street when I notice the guy with the fives and twenties jitterbugging through the traffic, heading for McDonald’s.

Hmmm. Well, even if he really intends to get change, he won’t get back out before the bus is gone.

The bus is still there when I start crossing the intersection. I’m almost to the other side when I see the guy come flying out the door and head back across the street, ducking traffic, heading for the bus.

I stop on the sidewalk. I want to see if this is really gonna happen.

The bus starts to pull away.

Our rider starts yelling and running and waving his arms. He’s heading for the driver’s side window when the bus brakes. The driver’s seen him. Our guy cuts back toward the rear of the bus and around the back end where I lose sight of him.

But the bus is waiting, and I can hear the front door open.

This is the best I’ve felt all day.

2011-04-03T05:00:00.010-06:00

BUS STORY # 230 (Shorts 19)

Stockholm Marathon 2008, originally uploaded by Hannes R.

Seth* tells me how Lilly* looked out the window yesterday morning and asked aloud, “Why is it only skinny people are out there running?”

***

It’s 13 degrees out this morning. So my seat mate and I are amused when we spot a sagger at the farebox. He’s showing navy blue flannel. “Long johns,” we say to each other, and laugh.

***

I watch six people board at San Mateo. The first rider swipes his bus pass through the reader. Nothing. He tries again. Nothing. The driver takes the card from him, examines it, then runs it through the slot himself. It works. This happens three more times.

***

Young guy boards, flashes his wallet, moves on. Driver calls him back. Rider keeps walking to the back of the bus. Driver calls him back again, tells him he needs to see that pass. Rider says he already showed it to him. Driver says sorry, bro, he needs to see that pass. Rider doesn’t move. Driver and bus don’t move. Rider gets up, stomps up to the driver, flashes his wallet, and starts back. Driver says he needs to see it. Rider stops, pauses, returns to front, opens wallet, holds it out. Driver looks at it, says OK. Rider returns to back of bus. Driver and bus move forward.

***

Four weeks ago, I posted a story about how a driver handled an impossibly tight turn in a road construction area. (You can read it here.) Later that week, one of my co-riders pointed out a fence at the corner of Avenida Cesar Chavez and Buena Vista where the 50 is having to make a very tight turn to accommodate a road construction detour. He told me a friend of his was on the bus that didn’t quite finesse the turn. See photo below.

Don't Fence Me Out, originally uploaded by busboy4.

__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled "Stockholm Marathon 2008" and is posted with the kind permission of Hannes R. You can see this and all Hannah R’s photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/malter/2539520250

2011-03-27T05:00:00.027-06:00

BUS STORY # 229 ("Excuse Me")

delivery truck, originally uploaded by ed penguin.

The 66 is fairly full, with most folks toward the back of the bus. I take the window seat in the front row.

At the next stop, several more folks board. One of them, an older guy -- he could be my age -- takes the seat next to me.

“Excuse me,” he says after sitting down.

He settles in, and I realize he’s not starting a conversation; he’s apologizing for taking the empty seat beside me!

“No problem,” I reply quickly.

I’ve noted in a previous post that ABQ RIDE commuters are a pretty considerate bunch on the whole. More often than not, riders will stand rather than squeeze into an empty bench seat between two riders, or past a rider sitting in the aisle seat next to an empty window seat.

But this is an empty aisle seat, and my co-rider’s “excuse me” borders on being exquisitely thoughtful.

I wonder if its his age.

Then I wonder if this is a ridership characteristic unique to Albuquerque, or to small towns, or to the West, or if I would find the same thing riding daily in places like San Francisco or New York City or Seattle or Minneapolis.

It’s late Saturday night here on the 66, so it’s no surprise when one of the boarders at another stop is three sheets to the wind. When he passes by our row, he lurches into my seat mate, steadies himself, then continues stolidly on toward the back of the bus.

A few minutes go by, then my seat mate speaks.

“I don’t get it. Drinking, I mean. All you do is numb yourself up and go sticking your elbow in other peoples’ eyes just like he did to me, no ‘sorry,’ no nothing.”

This is a preamble to a non-stop This I Believe about alcohol and drinkers. It’s long on discipline and responsibility, short on disease and addiction. There’s enough heat to make me wonder if there’s a personal history of damage done that’s fueling the fire.

He marks his finish with an emphatic head shake.

There’s a brief moment of silence before he speaks again.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”

We don’t exchange another word until we reach his stop. He gets up and wishes me a good “rest of your life.” Then he steps into the rest of Saturday night, stone cold sober.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled "delivery truck" and is posted with the kind permission of ed penguin. You can see this and all ed penguin’s photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ed2_penguin2/5360139539/

2011-03-20T05:00:00.006-06:00

BUS STORY # 228 (The Charter School Teacher)

Preparing Children To Lead The Way, originally uploaded by busboy4.

My seat mate starts a conversation by asking me where I work. I tell him and return the question. He’s a teacher. He teaches junior high at a charter school.

How long has he been doing this?

Teaching? All his adult life. Junior high, six years.

Junior high, I muse out loud, and shake my head. Toughest gig in teaching. I ask him how he keeps from burning out.

He says he burnt out teaching public high school. The charter school has actually been a relief.

He looks to be in his 50s, square, strong face, gray hair combed straight back, rimless glasses. He’s articulate.

I ask him why teaching junior high in a charter school is easier than teaching public high school.

He explains his current class size is 20 students. It’s at least 35, usually more, in the public schools. He says with the smaller size class, you can make a difference.

He also explains that the rules are tougher: some principles have a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy.

He also explains that parental involvement is extremely high at his school, a marked difference between this and his Albuquerque Public Schools experiences. “It makes a difference.”

I tell him I understand charter schools are for the, quote, non-traditional, unquote, students. I’ve taken that to mean largely teenaged parents.

He says it’s a lot more heterogenous than that. His experience is that the majority of the kids were behavioral problems, and that “75 percent” of them respond well to more individualized attention and greater discipline. He says charter school teachers do a lot of teaching outside class hours. He calls it “tutoring,” but I sense there is some counseling and example-setting rolled into the tutoring.

He goes on to explain how the most difficult and frustrating part of the job has nothing to do with teaching. It has to do with negotiating the bureaucracy. Or, rather, bureaucracies. It seems charter schools are required to strictly adhere to the policies of the State of New Mexico, and to the policies of Albuquerque Public Schools. The problem is that the two entities’ policies don’t always match, and sometimes contradict one another. If they follow state policy, they get dinged by APS. And vice versa.

The real problem is that too many dings threaten the school’s existence. He says they’ve already closed three charter schools.

So why do charter schools have to abide by APS policy?

Because they’re really part of the APS and are funded through APS -- at least, initially. He explains that after six years, the charter schools have to come up with their own funding -- grants, federal funds -- whatever is available. Later, I will realize I'm unclear as to whether or not APS has any financial obligation to the charter schools after six years.

What about tuition?

Absolutely not. They remain a public education enterprise. That’s why they get funding from APS. He does offer the opinion that APS is not fond of the charter schools because they cut into the APS share of funding. When I counter with the proposition that it’s still funding for public school students within the district, he suggests the issue is less money for APS administration.

He doesn’t say it, but what I hear is a situation in which APS might have a vested financial interest in seeing charter schools dinged out of existence. I’m wondering if there could be a method in the dueling policies madness.

He says he believes the new governor is serious about cutting the fat from APS, and that he anticipates a significant reduction in the administrative overhead. He’s for that: “The money would be better spent on the kids.” I'm not sure the money is going to be there for anybody, but I keep that thought to myself.

If he's right about the governor, I’m wondering if unemployed policy writers will soon be swelling the ranks of the unemployed.

He has his own concerns about being unemployed. If his school gets closed down, he says he’ll finish his career as a sub. He won’t go back into the public school system. He hopes it doesn’t come to that. He likes what he’s doing and where he is now -- even though it means a daily commute from the West Side.

“Makes for a long day,” he says.
__________

After this encounter, I went on line looking for information about New Mexico charter schools. Here’s a link to FAQs for anyone who’s interested:
http://nmccs.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3&Itemid=23

2011-03-13T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 227 (Pete’s NYC Bus Story)

New York City Transit Authority 1962 GM New Look Bus #2151, originally uploaded by Ottawa Bus Gallery.

You’re from New York City where they don’t say no prayers
Anything goes and no one really cares
-- Don Henley, from “You Better Hang Up.”

I recently reconnected with a grade school classmate I hadn’t seen or heard from in 50 years. When we found out we were next door neighbors (so to speak: he lives in Phoenix), I started making plans for a weekend reunion.

We met in downtown Phoenix, a place more reminiscent of LA in the ‘50s than the Disneyland Scottsdale area I’m familiar with from a recent business trip. Pete had picked Macayo’s, an old and venerable Mexican restaurant which turned out to be right on the light rail line.

Pete and I had come to Dallas in the fourth grade, although neither of us knew that until that first night in Phoenix. I’d left Dallas after grade school, but Pete finished high school there before going to Arizona State for college.

His mother and father divorced while he was in high school, and his father moved to New York. Pete spent a summer up there working as a temp at his father’s place of business. He took the bus to and from work, and he told me a bus story about a young Dallas boy’s encounter with New York City ways.

He says he was sitting in a crowded bus when an old woman burdened with grocery bags came on board. Pete did what any Texas gentleman would have done back in the day: he stood up and offered her his seat.

As soon as he stood up, a man standing in the aisle behind him slipped into his seat. Pete was shocked, then recovered and explained he was giving up his seat for the old woman, not for him.

The guy ignored him.

Pete explained again the seat was meant for the old woman, and asked him to stand back up.

He told Pete what he could do with himself.

Pete said at this point he was aware that everyone else in the immediate area, including the old woman, was looking at him as if he were from another planet. He was also aware that he was angry, and he explained to the man he’d intended to give his seat to the old woman, and if the man didn’t vacate the seat of his own free will, Pete would do it for him.

The man started cussing him out roundly, but he got up. The woman, still looking stunned, and perhaps thinking she’d better do as the crazy kid said, took the seat.

When he told his father what had happened, his father explained that Pete wasn't in Texas anymore. But, he added, Pete had done the polite thing, just as he’d been raised to do, and his father was proud of him.

I’m happy to say -- and my wife agrees -- that Pete is still the kind of guy who'd notice, then offer his seat. We’re already planning an Albuquerque visit for Pete which will include taking the Rail Runner to Santa Fe for a get-together with yet another grade school classmate. I just hope it won’t be standing room only.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “New York City Transit Authority 1962 GM New Look Bus #2151” and is posted with the kind permission of Ottawa Bus Gallery. You can see this and all Ottawa Bus Gallery’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottawabusgallery/2139524374/

2011-03-06T05:00:00.005-07:00

BUS STORY # 226 (Outside The Box)

Yale and Randolph: The Eye of the Needle, originally uploaded by busboy4.

There’s a bunch of us watching the 222 coming up Randolph and heading for that right turn south on Yale, toward the airport.

It’s a tough turn these days because, in what must be the 5oth road repair project on this section of Yale in the past nine months, the outside southbound lane is a ditch, and the middle lane is blocked off by a row of construction saw horses with big-eyed orange lights.

That leaves a tight entrance into the inside lane with saw horses on the right and an elevated median with a traffic light pole on the left.

The driver has to really thread the needle here.

We watch the light turn green and the bus move forward. We watch the driver turn, then slow, then stop. He’s not gonna make it.

And he’s stuck.

He’s essentially crosswise now, pointing southeast. Going forward will put him up onto the median and into the signal light. But traffic is stacked up behind him and there is nowhere to back up.

Those of us watching from the street are quiet. Not one “He oughta” from the entire group -- and these are mostly guys, too.

The driver waits until the three northbound Yale lanes have cleared, then roars around the median and up the wrong side of the street.

There’s a mix of gasps, exclamations, and laughter from the group. A couple of guys give the driver a thumbs up, but I can see from his expression he is neither amused nor pleased with himself.

We see the first car come round the bend from the airport. It’s in the middle lane and the driver certainly has a clear view of the bus coming toward him on his side of the street.

Not too far up, there’s a breach in the median, an opening for vehicles trying to turn left onto Yale. The bus driver converts that to an escape route back to the right side of the street. He’s there well before the first car passes him.

We are all too thunderstruck to cheer. It takes a few seconds before the first nervous laughter clears the way for a scattering of all’s-well-that-ends-well comments.

And you sure aren’t gonna hear any “He should’ve” from me.

2011-02-27T05:00:00.003-07:00

BUS STORY # 225 (Portrait # 11: Vintage)

Hip-Hop On The Bus, Gus, originally uploaded by busboy4.

An oversized white baseball cap sits over his ears. It has an embroidered dollar sign, white on white, on the front, and smaller dollar signs, also white, printed randomly over the rest of the cap. The bill points exactly sideways to his right, but he adjusts it several times, reorienting the bill in different directions, using the window as a mirror. I can see cornrows when he adjusts his cap.

He’s wearing Flavor Flav-size sunglasses even though it is still dark outside.

He has a large cube of glass in his right ear. I’m thinking it’s a good thing these are so ubiquitous, because otherwise, someone would have cut that ear off and run with it by now.

He’s wearing a black sweatshirt with a blue and yellow and white sports logo on the front. I spend a lot of time failing to decipher just what team it belongs to. I strike out on the sport, too. Finally, I conclude it’s a generic sports design, nothing more. That’s different, I think. It should have been a jersey, with a real team logo. But what do I know?

I check to see if he's sagging. He isn't.

He’s got some fancy sneakers that you can’t tell where the shoe ends and the sole begins.

In my day, he would have been nationwide. But this morning, he has the curious feel of a relic.

When he exits, I watch him take possession of the sidewalk going north. Most of him disappears into the dark, but I can still see the white cap bobbing in the darkness when we pull away.

2011-02-20T05:00:00.003-07:00

BUS STORY # 224 (Sarah, Part Two)

Lonely wait at bus stop, originally uploaded by net_efekt.

I’ve had to work late tonight. I’m hustling up the hill hoping not to miss the six p.m. 50 and already worrying about what time the 11 switches from running every 20 minutes to every hour. I’m relieved to see someone standing at the stop across Yale.

“Has the bus gone by to the airport yet?” I ask.

She hasn’t seen it yet. She says she is an hour late, that the bus runs every 30 minutes, and last night it was here at 5:03, so it should be here at 6:03. The precision catches my attention.

So does her apprehension. Her voice is tremulous. It’s dark, and light from the streetlamp, some ten feet on the other side of her, is blocked by a huge pine tree close to the sidewalk. I maintain what I hope is a reassuring distance, and I make small talk about the bus service.

She tells me about an incident on last night’s bus involving an inebriated rider. She says her “partner” worked as a security officer for Sound Transit up in the Seattle area and “she” always came home from work with stories, but this is the first time she herself has ever witnessed an incident.

I’m not sure if she’s out and proud, or if she’s signaling she’s not one of my kind so as to discourage any notions on my part.

I ask why her partner moved to Albuquerque.

The two of them came down from Tacoma together. Sarah* -- she will tell me her name later -- is a coder working as a contractor for a local HMO. This is her first job since finishing school in Seattle, then an internship in a small town east of the Cascades. She’s just completed two weeks of orientation, and this is her second day of work.

So she’s only been here a few weeks then.

Four, to be exact. After finishing her internship, she went back to Tacoma to try and find work. “I sent out a thousand résumés, and heard nothing back. Absolutely nothing.”

Meanwhile, her partner had moved from here to Tacoma to join her. Turns out they met on line.

Sarah says she thinks her partner developed SAD -- “you know, that Seasonal Affective Disorder.” She points out New Mexico gets a whole lot more sunshine than the Pacific Northwest. Yes it does, I tell her.

So when Sarah couldn’t find a job locally, she started looking out here with the idea of getting her partner back home and in a happier frame of mind. She got a hit from her new employer immediately.

They moved to Albuquerque.

The hardest thing, she adds, was leaving her kids behind.

Whoa, I think to myself, and I ask about her kids.

She has three daughters. This year, the oldest is a senior in college, the middle a senior in high school, and the youngest has just started high school.

Her oldest is pretty much on her own and is getting ready to start a teaching job.

Her middle child is very involved in school and extracurricular projects, and Sarah says she did not want to deprive her daughter of having a senior year which would cap a wonderful high school experience. “It just wouldn’t be fair to her.” The parents of a fellow student invited her to stay with them for her senior year.

The youngest has been somewhat of a problem ever since Sarah’s partner came to join her. They didn’t get along. Sarah’s ex-husband offered to take her in.

Sarah allowed this reluctantly. Her ex-husband, she explains, is bi-polar, and during their marriage attempted suicide several times. But he’s remarried, and seems to be doing much better with his current wife. His wife reassured Sarah her daughter was welcome in their home.

Her divorce was the beginning of a series of catastrophes that left her homeless for a period of time. (That experience could surely explain her wariness.)

She suffered not one, not two, but three automobile accidents, each of which totaled her car. She had insurance, but each accident raised her premiums and diminished her reimbursements to the point she could afford neither car nor insurance. That’s when she started taking the bus.

In between accidents, she lost her job.

She says she worked as an accountant for the Port of Seattle for 20 years. The economic collapse dominoed down to local governments who had to downsize. She knew two accounting positions in her department were going to be eliminated, but she was hoping seniority would protect her.

She said they called her in one morning and told her she had done an outstanding job, that the department was a better place for the contributions she had made, and that the Port had saved thousands of dollars because of her. Then they let her go.

She found herself among a lot of newly unemployed accountants looking for work in the Pacific Northwest. When she ran out of funds, she moved herself and her daughters out of their home and to a campground. She set her daughters up in a small camper trailer while she slept in her car. Her daughters were not happy. Neither was Sarah. But it was all she knew to do.

Although I didn’t get all the details, I heard enough to understand Sarah figured out the bureaucracy for getting various kinds of assistance, and she knows now she was slow to realize what help was out there. Assistance included medical coverage which, when she first used it, brought her the news she was diabetic.

It also must have included educational aid, because Sarah went back to school to become a coder. She says she was told there was a coming change in the current coding system, and that coders who knew the new coding would soon be in great demand.

She was also happy that, like accounting, coding didn’t require a lot of interaction with people. She tells me she’s not really an extrovert.

I think this is probably true. Even though she’s sharing a remarkable amount of personal history with me, it doesn’t just flow. She answers my questions, but for the most part, she’s leaving me to put the pieces together myself.

So why is she telling me any of this in the first place? I’m guessing she’s been needing to unburden herself, has no one else other than her partner to talk to, and here I am, asking questions and showing interest. The classic stranger in the night.

She finished her coding program with an out-of-town internship. I’m pretty sure her daughters were back in Tacoma since she doesn’t mention them. What she does mention is that she fell in love with another employee, a woman, who broke off the relationship near the end of her internship.

She loved the job, loved her employer, loved the town. They offered her a permanent job, but she felt unable to stay in such close proximity to the woman she still had feelings for. “And I would have had medical insurance,” she adds, weighing the loss.

Does she have insurance with her company here, I ask.

No, but she has gotten onto a plan at the University Hospital. On her very first visit, they told her she needed to start taking insulin. Also, she was suffering from altitude sickness. They told her that should pass in a few months after she’s adjusted to living here.

After finishing her internship, she returned to Tacoma. Somewhere between then and now, she met her new partner on line.

Happy ending? Well, not exactly. More like life goes on.

She’s had to start hiding her money from her partner, even though her partner has a job here. And when I say, “You’re kidding!” I see tears start rolling down her cheeks. “I had to do the same thing with my ex-husband,” she says. Then she says her partner has promised to start couples counseling in January.

She tells me there’s a Bible verse that says we need to forgive 7,777 times, and she’s started keeping track. The only scriptural calculation for forgiveness I know of is from one of the the Gospels, and that comes to 490. But I keep that to myself.

Just before we reach her stop, she tells me she feels fortunate she met me, and thanks me for showing her the Red Line alternative home. I wish her luck.

Riding on alone, I try to sort out all the strands I’ve heard this evening, but at first, all that comes to mind is the mournful lyric, “Nobody knows the trouble I seen.” God bless and keep you, Sarah.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Lonely wait at bus stop” and is posted with the kind permission of net_efekt. You can see this and all net_efekt’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/292943964/

2011-02-13T05:00:00.002-07:00

BUS STORY # 223 (Sarah, Part One)

back to basics #3, originally uploaded by mugley.

I met Sarah* at the bus stop. We’d both worked late and were waiting for the 6 p.m. No. 50.

We got to talking and discovered we both got home by transferring to the No. 11. When I explained I either walked across the UNM campus to catch the 11, or else walked down to The Frontier to catch the Red Line to Lomas, she told me she just rode downtown and transferred at the Alvarado.

She didn’t realize that, starting with the six o’clock, the 50 doesn’t go downtown. It turns around at Central and Yale and heads for the Yale Depot. This is when I learned she’d just started riding the bus.

After explaining how the schedule works, I offered to walk with her to The Frontier and get off with her at Lomas. Once she was on the 11, I knew she’d be more comfortable. I’m not sure she completely believed me until the 50 turned west on Lead.

Once she knew she wasn’t going to be going downtown this particular night, she took me up on my offer. She confided the street life on Central made her uneasy. I understood I was the less fearful alternative to going it alone.

Then she wanted to know how far The Frontier was. She told me she was suffering from altitude sickness and was having a lot of trouble getting her breath when she had very far to walk.

I told her we only had to walk a couple of blocks, and we would go as slow as she needed. Slow going it was. A Red Line passed us while we were crossing the intersection near The Satellite. She was mildly winded when we got to the station, but not in any distress.

We waited about 10 minutes for the Rapid Ride, then waited at Lomas and Louisiana another 15 for the 11. Her stop was past Eubank.

Altogether, that gave us better than an hour together. In that hour, Sarah told me much of her story. I got most of it by asking questions. Over time, she began to answer more expansively. Still, there were too many questions that didn’t have time to get asked. But what she did share with me was remarkable.

When I began writing this out, I tried combining the details of our ride together with the story Sarah shared with me during that ride. It made the story too long and too disrupted. So now that I’ve explained how I met Sarah, next week I’ll tell the rest of the story -- Sarah’s story.

__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “back to basics #3” and is posted with the kind permission of mugley. You can see this and all mugley’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugley/4665924914/

2011-02-06T05:00:00.016-07:00

BUS STORY # 222 (New Bus Passes)

New Bus Passes from ABQ RIDE, originally uploaded from the City of Albuquerque website by busboy4.

Last week’s brutal winter storm marred the debut of ABQ RIDE’s new bus passes. It turned the transition from old to new from just being a little awkward to an uncomfortable inconvenience.

The day before, you made sure the pass hanging from your neck or clipped to your shirt was facing the driver, and took a seat. That next day, blasted by icy winds, you boarded, fumbled with your bag and your gloves, got your ticket either into the activation slot (“No, not like that. The other way.”) or the magnetic strip reader (“No, you’ve got it facing the wrong way...Now you’ve got it upside down.”), then found a seat and started figuring out what to do with your pass so you wouldn’t fold, spindle, mutilate, or just plain lose it while you were dealing with the rest of your stuff.

Boarding took longer, of course, and the cold took its toll.

One old guy took off his gloves to take his pass out of his wallet. His fingers were numb and he had trouble extracting it. He got it most of the way out when he dropped it. The wind threatened to blow it down the street, but somehow it got stuck to the floor of the bus. When he leaned down to pick it up, he dropped his wallet into the gutter just beneath the bus. He had one glove under his left armpit and the other in his teeth when he got to the reader.

The young guy behind him knelt down and retrieved the wallet for him. But he bent his own bus pass in the process.

Another rider realized after the bus had left the stop that she’d lost her glove somewhere between waiting in line and passing her card through the slot. It’s never a good thing to lose a glove. But it was a particularly bad thing on this particular day.

I’m working on my own cold weather strategy. Right now, I’m tucking it into the same pocket holder I used for the old pass. It’s handy, it’s protected, and it’s a designated and exclusive location which makes the pass harder to misplace.

But it also means dealing with a loose glove and cold-numbed fingers -- either that, or waiting until I’m at the reader to begin removing the glove and extracting the card. This latter won’t endear me to the people behind me or to the driver who’s trying to stay on schedule.

None of this will be a problem for anyone with two free and functional hands.

As for the rest of us, well, we’ll probably have something all worked out by the end of the month.

In the meantime, there is already discussion on the ABQ Bus Riders group on Duke City Fix about moving from the somewhat flimsy paper pass to a more durable and rechargeable card.

It’s a brave new world.
__________

This illustration is taken from the City of Albuquerque website. You can see the illustration, but more important, read all about the new passes, here.

2011-01-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

BUS STORY # 221 (One Driver’s Story)

Green Line At Tramway, originally uploaded by busboy4.

I’m the only rider boarding the Green Line up by Tramway this morning.

The driver is still young, but the bloom of her youth looks to be near the end of August. Maybe she has a family, maybe not. I have this image of someone who floundered a bit after high school before landing at ABQ RIDE. The usual dull progression.

Once again, as I’m about to find out, what do I know!

We’re getting ready to pull back onto Central when she starts talking about a rider who was telling her how much he hated riding the bus. He can’t wait to have his car back. We get to talking about riders and drivers and traffic, and I move up to the bench seat just across from her to make the conversation easier.

I ask her how long she’s been driving. Eight years. But not all eight with ABQ RIDE.

She started out driving a school bus in a small, semi-rural community. But having all that responsibility for all those kids made her uneasy. After we invaded Iraq, she got an opportunity to drive a bus transporting troops. She took it.

Eventually, she went to Baghdad.

Driving in Baghdad was interesting. She explains how she always had great protection, how most of our security had been outsourced to private contractors, and how all these guys were ex-SWAT or ex-Special Forces -- people who knew what they were doing. She says they’d get on in the mornings with their weapons at the ready and tell her how they sure hoped today was the day somebody was gonna try something. She let them know she did not share their hopes.

I wonder how her security would have protected her from an IED. But then I think she was surely only driving inside the Green Zone. Still, I can’t believe the thought didn’t live with her every time she drove.

After Iraq, she taught driving safety courses and started driving for ABQ RIDE.

She’s big on safe driving. She describes the “five second rule” which prescribes a safe, city driving following distance. “You should be able to count to five -- one-one thousand, two-one thousand, and so on, between you and the vehicle ahead of you.” She says you should come to a stop behind another vehicle so that you can see their rear tires. This gives you room to move around the vehicle if that becomes necessary. She also prefers the middle lane which, as a bus driver, she can’t really use most of the time.

She says she can drive the bus all day and not get frazzled by the traffic until she’s driving home in her car after her shift. If she could, she’d take the bus to and from work.

I’m thinking of the old conundrum, “Who does the washer woman’s wash?” I smile at the irony of a bus driver who prefers taking the bus but who has to drive her car to her bus driving job because there’s no bus service.

And then I smile at the symmetry of how this conversation began: a rider who preferred driving his car to taking the bus.

And then I smile at my casual assumption hers would be “the usual” dull story.

Turns out we share a strategy for keeping our cool during rush hour: leaving early and listening to classical music. I’m thinking of a classical music station in Dallas that has a special program during the morning and evening peak traffic times. It’s called “Road Rage Remedy” and features especially soothing classical music.

As we get closer to town and take on more riders, our conversation dwindles. I find myself wondering more about her. Is she happy to be safely settled into driving a bus in Albuquerque? Does she miss the glory days in Iraq? Would she rather be doing something else somewhere else?

I’m glad she’s here at ABQ RIDE. Although I don’t recall seeing her before, I’ll always recognize her from now on. And I’ll be conscious of feeling extra safe and secure knowing she's my driver.

2011-01-23T05:00:00.002-07:00

BUS STORY # 220 (Shorts 18)

4 bus back ends, originally uploaded by busboy4.

He’s got on a knit watch cap but no earbuds. He’s got a personal size spiral notepad in his left hand and a pencil in his right. Right now, the pencil is keeping time along with his head to some inaudible beat. He’s looking at the notebook and mouthing words to the beat. Then he stops, writes in the notebook, resumes the silent mouthing and the beat. Hip-Hop? R&B? Poetry on the bus?

***

Sitting on the inbound Lomas, I notice a half-smoked cigarette lying on the floor between the seats in front of me. A little while later, I see a high school student pick it up and put it in his T-shirt pocket. If I were writing fiction, he would have been an old man who was spending a lot of time on the street. But I suspect the two of them have this in common: neither is thinking about cleaning up the litter.

***

A black guy boards the Rapid, walks back to the aisle-facing seats just before the pivot, and swings up into the seat. He looks across the aisle at the white woman facing him, and his face lights up. He jumps down, steps into the aisle, leans over and kisses her on the cheek, then retakes his seat. They begin an animated conversation about how glad they are to see one another, and they begin catching each other up with all the goings-on in their lives. But this conversation is a little different. He’s articulating very clearly and very loudly while simultaneously signing to her. She answers back with what is clearly a serious speech impediment, but she does not sign. Just as fascinating is how clearly joyous this conversation is for both of them.

***

As we’re rolling through the intersection with Menaul, I see the No. 8 a block away and also heading for the intersection. It occurs to me there may be someone on that bus watching us roll through the intersection and thinking “Dang! Just missed it.” Our driver pulls into the first stop past the intersection and pops the doors. Nobody’s there. Nobody’s getting off. He sits there. Can it be? Is he possibly waiting to see if someone was trying to transfer from the 8 to our bus? A couple minutes later, a young guy comes into view on the sidewalk rapid-walking his bike. He goes to the front of the bus, loads it on the rack, then boards. All right driver!

2011-01-16T05:00:00.054-07:00

BUS STORY # 219 (GRH: This Is Cool)

It’s early Wednesday morning on January 12 when I click on ABQ RIDE’s Facebook page and notice a post from January 4: “How many of you have heard of GRH?”

Not me.

So I click on the link and read:

GRH stands for Guaranteed Ride Home. It is a form of insurance for commuters who regularly use alternative modes of transportation instead of the Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV). [That’s “car” or “truck” or “motorcycle” in English.] When you choose to carpool, vanpool, ride the bus, bike, or walk to work or school at least 3 times a week, you will not be stranded should an emergency arise. In case of an emergency, this program gives you a FREE ride to your destination(s)*.

This is cool, I think to myself. But what is that asterisk at the end of the last sentence? I suspect fine print that will make this GRH less cool than it sounds.

*GRH only provides trips within the ABQ RIDE bus route service area.To view ABQ RIDE's service area view our System Map.

Oh, OK. Perfectly reasonable.

So when could I use it?

Examples of valid GRH emergencies:

1. Illness at work or school.
2. Personal medical emergency.
3. Family member is ill.
4. Family member emergency.
5. Left stranded by a carpool or vanpool.
6. Missed the last scheduled bus pick up.
7. Unscheduled overtime after arriving at work.
8. Problems with bicycle.
9. Any VALID emergency.

*Please Note: Use will be limited to FIVE GRH rides per calendar year, beginning on your registration date. Requests must be for rides to HOME from the workplace or school. Ride requests that originate from a residential address will be refused.

That “unscheduled overtime after arriving at work” catches my attention. That’s happened.

“Missed the last scheduled bus pick up.” ABQ RIDE is right: that one is a big concern. I’ve come too close for comfort more than once.

So how does it work?

It's easy, it's fast, and it's convenient!

1. Register with the GRH office (243-RIDE).
2. Dial the quick-ride dispatch number that you will be given when you register for GRH.
3. A driver will be sent to your location.
4. Present your GRH ID card*, or simply state that you are with the GRH program.
5. Tell the driver your destination(s).
6. When you arrive at your final destination, you will be asked to review and sign the GRH voucher provided by your driver. Your ride will be paid for by ABQ RIDE.

*Your GRH Card will be mailed to you upon receipt of your GRH Registration Form.

So how do I sign up?

4 Easy Ways to Register Today!

1. Complete the attached form from the brochure and mail to ABQ RIDE.
2. Fax a completed form to us at 764-3196.
3. Stop by our Customer Service Center located at: 100 1st Street, SW .
4. Register on-line by clicking HERE.

OK. Your guaranteed ride probably won't look anything like the MOV* at the top of this story. It'll probably look more like this:

small bus, originally uploaded by ed penguin.

But it's still cool.
__________

*Multiple Occupancy Vehicle, of course...
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Pink Limo” ⓒ All Rights Reserved and is posted with the kind permission of tipper *. You can see this and all tipper *’s photos on Flickr at: http:/www.flickr.com/photos/63701271@N00/2465234084/

The photo at the bottom of this story is titled "small bus" and is posted with the kind permission of ed penguin. You can see this and all ed penguin’s photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ed2_penguin2/5352767335/

2011-01-09T05:00:00.023-07:00

BUS STORY # 218 (“As You Can Tell, I’ve Had A Problem With Alcohol Today”)

Choose Your Ride Tonight, originally uploaded by busboy4.

It’s later than usual, and when I board the bus, there are only half a dozen other riders on board. I swing into an empty seat and start taking off my hat and gloves.

Across the aisle, a woman is applying Chapstick. Over and over and over again. Then she puts the tube in her purse.

Next thing I know, she’s holding a blue plastic squeeze bottle over her upturned head. She’s using it to irrigate her eyes. The rocking of the bus makes it a challenge.

After she puts the bottle back in her purse, she looks around, spots me, and gives me a well-hello-there smile.

Let’s just say my guardian angel doesn’t have to go into alert mode.

I flash a quick smile of acknowledgment, then start rearranging my stuff.

A short while later, we pass a car dealership. She turns to me and says, “I didn’t know they sold Jeeps here.”

I explain it’s a Chrysler dealership, and it’s been there a long time.

She knows that, she just didn’t know they sold Jeeps there.

There’s a pause, then she says she misses her car.

I ask what happened to her car.

It’s in the driveway.

What’s wrong with it?

She ran into something.

A brief pause.

“I got a DWI.”

She goes on to explain that she woke up in the hospital and found herself handcuffed to the bed. Then she woke up again and the handcuffs were gone. She figured they were needed elsewhere.

A month later, she got a call saying the paperwork was filed all wrong, and she wasn’t going to be prosecuted. Then another month later, she got a call from the D.A.’s office saying they got the paperwork filed correctly and she was going to be prosecuted.

I ask if this is her first time.

Yes.

Does she know why she did it?

She was fighting with her boyfriend.

Pause.

“And I have a problem with alcohol.”

She says she deserved the ticket, and she doesn’t know how she’s ever going to stop drinking.

I ask if she’s ever thought about AA.

She turns her head to the window and doesn’t answer.

A few blocks later, we reach her stop. She turns in her seat and tries to stand up. She has to lean forward and grab the vertical bar by my seat to pull herself up. She pulls up slowly.

When she’s upright, she looks at me and says, “As you can tell, I’ve had a problem with alcohol today.”

I wish her luck, and watch as she makes her way, slowly and carefully, out the rear door.

You Drink, You Drive, You Lose, originally uploaded by busboy4.

2011-01-02T05:00:00.004-07:00

BUS STORY # 217 (Proactive)

Cockeyed, originally uploaded by busboy4.

“Pardon me, but do you know how far is the school for the blind?”

She looks to be in her early 40s. Trim, nice blouse. Big, stylish sunglasses and hair rolling over her shoulders. Nice arms, too -- smooth skin, good muscle tone. She reminds me of a girlfriend from about a hundred lifetimes ago except for the bottom of the tear drop tattoo seeping out from under her right lens, and the small, circular tattoo on her neck. Pity, I think to my old man self.

I tell her the Institute for the Blind is the first stop past Gibson.

She thanks me, then explains she’s starting classes there today. I ask her what kind of classes.

She tells me she’s been blind in her right eye since birth. It hasn’t really posed any problems for her until about two years ago, when the vision in her left eye started going bad. She says she’s had to change prescriptions four times in the last two years.

She’s asked her doctor why this is. He says after years of doing double-duty for the right eye, it’s wearing out. She understands the relationship between aging and wearing out. She’s 54 (!). But she doesn’t understand why, in this age of technological wonders, there isn’t something that can be done to stop the deterioration.

I ask her if she’s considered getting a second opinion. She has -- and a third, too, if she isn’t satisfied with the second.

So what does the Institute for the Blind have to offer a still sighted person, I ask.

Everything a blind person would need, she replies.

She doesn’t use the word, but she is being what, these days, we call “proactive,” and what my grandmother used to call “planning ahead.” She’s decided to start preparing herself now for the possibility she will eventually go completely blind.

I am impressed. It’s smart, but even more, it’s gutsy.

I tell her I hope this works for her like the umbrella theory. I explain: “If you go to the trouble of taking your umbrella with you when you go out, you won’t need it. It only rains when you decide not to take it.”

She laughs and tells me she hopes I’m right.

When we’re crossing Gibson, I tell her the next stop is hers, and I’m pulling the cord.

“Oh, I see it now -- across the street,” she says.

When the bus stops, she thanks me and I wish her good luck. Then I kick myself for pulling the cord for her, as if she were helpless. The last thing she is, and is likely ever to be, is helpless.

2010-12-26T05:00:00.003-07:00

BUS STORY # 216 (Portrait # 10: Woman With Red Suitcases)

Luggage, originally uploaded by Jaypeg.

She’s obviously coming from the airport. She’s sitting on the bench seat behind the driver, with a rucksack on the seat beside her and two large, red suitcases on carriers blocking the remaining bench seats to her right and a significant portion of the aisle.

She’s an older woman, straight silver hair, “old lady” hands.

Old enough to be embarrassed that her bags are inconveniencing everyone who boards. If she were a few decades younger, this wouldn’t be bothering her so much. But she’s not, so she’s apologizing to everyone who squeezes by. In between boardings, she fidgets with the positioning of the bags, trying to make a little more room.

Gray flannel slacks, dark green turtleneck, an outdoor vest in a color my wife would probably call “cayenne.” She doesn’t look like someone who is used to hauling a lot of luggage around on the bus. I look for a wedding band and see no jewelry at all.

No makeup, either.

A couple of stops later, I realize from the bus driver she’s not from here. He’s telling her he’ll let her know where she needs to get off to catch the bus to Coors, and he lays out a bit of the town geography for her.

All of these things show in her face: having to ride the bus with all this luggage, being the center of attention by inconveniencing everyone else, not knowing where she’s going, all by herself . . .

Here’s where the story is, and this is all I’m gonna get of it.

The driver tells her we’re approaching Central and this is where she will be getting off. She needs to walk across Central, turn left, and walk to the shelter where one of the Rapids is waiting. “But make sure it’s the Red Line,” he tells her. “There’s two other lines that stop there.”

At Central, she pulls on her rucksack and starts trying to maneuver the bags. The driver leaves his seat and hauls the bigger bag out to the sidewalk. One of the riders sitting close by, a small black woman, jumps up and grabs the wheel-end of the other bag so that the two women carry the bag off the bus. Although her expression says this is more help than she really wanted, she is profusely thankful for the other woman's kindness.

We last see her in the crosswalk, struggling with both suitcases bumping into one another behind her. I’m hoping there’s someone to meet her at the end of the line.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Luggage” and is posted with the kind permission of Jaypeg. You can see this and all Jaypeg’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaypeg/484854078/

2010-12-19T05:00:00.030-07:00

BUS STORY # 215 (The Desert Bus Christmas Story)

desertbus, originally uploaded by busboy4 from the website TorrentFreak.

Here’s the lead: a sketch comedy team based in British Columbia raised $208,349.82 this past November for an organization that donates toys, books, and games to hospitalized children. They did this by by playing a video game until people stopped sending them donations.

What makes this a bus story is the video game used to raise the funds. The game is Desert Bus.

Here’s the story.

The organization donating toys to hospitalized children is called Child’s Play. Child’s Play was organized by gamers, and currently has over 100,000 members. It began in 2003 and to date has contributed more than seven million dollars to some 70 children’s hospitals in North America, including New Mexico’s UNM Children’s Hospital here in Albuquerque.

LoadingReadyRun is the sketch comedy team that raised the more than $200,000 for Child’s Play this November. Interestingly, they were also founded in 2003. The team is noted for producing a new sketch comedy video every week.

Desert Bus is an unreleased video game that was part of a package of minigames called Smoke and Mirrors. It was designed by the comedy team Penn & Teller (although Jillete Penn credits Eddie Gorodetsky for Desert Bus). Wikipedia provides a nice summary of the Smoke and Mirrors story:

"The game starred the comedy-magician duo Penn & Teller. The publisher Absolute Entertainment went out of business before they could release the game, yet the game was featured and previewed in various gaming publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and reviewed by VideoGames magazine...The game re-surfaced years later when Frank Cifaldi, editor of Lost Levels, a website dedicated to unreleased video games, received a copy of the game from a reviewer who had covered it years ago."

The Desert Bus game requires a player to drive a bus from Tucson to Las Vegas -- in real time. We’re talking an eight-hour drive/game here. And, no: the game cannot be paused.

But wait! There’s more!

The drive features an absolutely straight road through a virtually unchanging desert landscape in which nothing happens -- unless the driver lets his or her attention lapse. That’s because the bus, left to its own devices, will veer to the right or left. If the driver isn’t paying attention, the bus goes off the road and the game is over. (Actually, what happens is a tow truck eventually arrives and hauls the bus back to Tucson -- at the real time speed of 45 mph. The player gets to watch the road trip in reverse.)

Especially funny (at least to Busboy) is the fact that if you get all the way to Las Vegas without driving off the road, you win -- one point! You also win the opportunity to turn around and drive back to Tucson. The drive back features a change. Toward the end of the trip, you get sunset, then dusk, then night, with the road illuminated by the bus headlights.

A successful arrival in Tucson wins you another point and the opportunity to head back to Las Vegas. The maximum score you can win is 99 points.

The time it takes to score those 99 points depends either on your own clocked experience or on who you listen to. Wikipedia says each trip runs eight hours, which calculates out to 792 straight hours of driving. But TASVideos says the time is “41 days, 17 hours, 15 minutes and 6 seconds” -- or 1001+ hours.

More humor comes from Penn's story of the inspiration behind the game. He says the game was a reaction to the then-current controversy over the violence of video games. The joke was to create a real life scenario that was as boring as, well, reality. (Of course, any bus driver will recognize the reality flaw in the game: the nirvana of nothing happens never happens.)

As it turns out, the video game is not completely violence-free. Gamers report that about five hours into the drive, a bug gets splattered on the windshield.

LoadingReadyRun launched its first “Desert Bus For Hope” campaign in November, 2007. That marathon game lasted 4 days and 12 hours and raised $22,805. This year’s game ran for five days and 21 hours and raised $208,349.82. Since it’s inception, the team has raised over $442,000 for Child’s Play.

Contributions to Child’s Play can be made any time of the year to either the hospital of your choice or directly to Child's Play itself. Contributing to a hospital is more interesting because the site directs you to that hospital’s “wish list” on Amazon. I can see, for example, that, among other things, UNM Children’s is looking for three copies of the Ninetendo video game Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time.

It’s pretty cool how a bunch of gamers have gotten together to provide diversionary entertainment to hospitalized kids. And it’s pretty wonderful how a sketch comedy team has taken the gaming theme and turned "the most boring video game ever" into an entertaining fund raiser.

__________

The photo at the top of this story comes from the website TorrentFreak. Busboy is especially fond of the timely "Christmas tree" air freshener hanging from the mirror.
__________

I’m indebted to Mrs. Busboy for bringing the Desert Bus For Hope story to my attention and suggesting it as a Christmas bus story. Thanks, love.

2010-12-12T05:00:00.002-07:00

BUS STORY # 214 (The Conversation Starter)

Bus Pass, originally uploaded by busboy4.

The conversation began when a rider pointed to a bus pass lying on the seat between us.

“Careful you don’t lose your pass,” he told us before exiting the rear door.

“Thanks," I said, even though it wasn’t mine.

The woman on the other side of the ticket laughed and said, “I’ll bet that’s from yesterday.”

She picked it up and turned it over. Bingo.

“Well, he was being thoughtful,” I offered, and she agreed.

The conversation might have lapsed at that point. But after a brief pause, she pointed out most of the school kids weren’t on the bus this morning. She thought it was called something like “fall break,” but she wasn’t getting any fall break. She was on her way to her pre-school class of four and five year olds.

I said something about the challenges of having a roomful of pre-schoolers.

She laughed and said they kept her on her toes, but they were good kids.

How many in the class?

Thirteen.

So how long had she been teaching?

The kids? Three years.

Where else had she taught?

That, she said, was a long story.

By this time, I’d stuck my magazine into my backpack and turned in my seat toward her. She was Native American, maybe early 50s. Long dark hair pulled back tightly into a bun. Brown leather car coat, dark blue unwrinkled jeans, yellow work boots.

She’d worked 13 years in Window Rock at a shelter for battered women. One of the things she did was facilitate healing ceremonies for the women in the shelter. I got the sense this was a critical first step in getting the women to start moving in a constructive direction.

Window Rock told me she must surely be Navajo, but she did not have the characteristic Navajo cadence to her speech. In fact, she sounded like any of my well-educated, non-Native American, female coworkers. However, she did have the Navajo mannerism of not looking directly at me. She mostly kept her eyes on the seat across the aisle from me. I adopted the same mannerism, fastening on a pair of black shoes with Velcro straps up on the rear platform, and for the most part was able to maintain it for the remainder of the ride.

I told her 13 years in a women’s shelter sounded like emotionally draining work, and asked how she managed to keep from becoming burnt out.

She told me funding got cut and she lost her job. She said she came to Albuquerque to live with her daughter while she tried to figure out what to do next. She did get a job at a women’s shelter here, but quickly decided she was ready to leave this work behind.

I found myself wondering if being a Navajo among so many non-Navajo women meant she found herself unable to connect as effectively with her clients, or if there was a loss of passion for those who were not her own people, or if she found herself devalued or dismissed because she was Native American. Or maybe going back to the work simply made her realize how much she really didn’t want to do this anymore.

The school job just sort of fell into her lap, and she regarded it as a gift. She did find it humorous that she thought she’d left raising kids behind when her own children left home.

There was another pause, and then she added, “I also used to fight forest fires.”

“Were you a Hot Shot?” I asked, surprised and impressed.

“No, just a regular fire fighter.”

She proceeded to tell me how she’d done this work for five summers, and how she’d gone all over the country. Her last fire was in the mountains of North Carolina, and before that, the one in Raton -- I might remember that one . . .

I didn’t, but I did notice she’d become more animated remembering and telling me about those forest fire days. Something in her telling reminded me of a Joni Mitchell line: “I was a free man in Paris/I felt unfettered and alive.”

And then we were at her stop.

“Have a good day,” she told me as she headed for the door.

And just like that, she was gone.

2010-12-05T05:00:00.019-07:00

BUS STORY # 213 (Some Things Are Universal)

I’m watching what I’ve already assumed is a couple get on the bus.

It’s not that I’m an exceptionally perceptive guy. First, this is a middle-of-the-block stop, and there’s just the two of them. Second, the two of them are male and female who look to be around the same age. And: they are both black.

So I’m watching this man and woman board the bus, put their money in the fare box, then promptly upset my assumption by sitting in different seats. She takes the seat in front of me -- a window seat on the driver’s side of the bus -- and busies herself with her shopping bag and her purse. He takes the window seat directly across the aisle from her and looks out the window.

I have just finished processing this with the old saw, "Never assume, for it makes an ASS out of U and ME,” when the woman starts talking out loud. I don’t know who she’s talking to because she’s looking at the partition behind the driver’s seat. And I don’t know what she’s saying because she’s speaking a foreign language.

The man across the aisle answers her -- in a foreign language! The same foreign language, I assume.

I look over, and he’s looking at her. And now that I’m looking at him, I conclude they’re speaking an African language or dialect.

It’s not just that the sounds have no discernible trace of the Indo-European languages. It’s also that he now looks African to me, in the way the South African faces in the crowds or the Ghana soccer players looked African when I watched some of the World Cup games this summer. African, as distinct from African-American.

On the other hand, looking at the woman in front of me, I can’t see anything distinctly African about her at all. The only thing I notice is that, as the conversation continues, she continues to look straight ahead.

He continues to look at her when he answers, and now I see he’s using hand and arm gestures when he answers that don’t look at all American to me.

Still, I know something of what’s going on here. It’s there in the vocal tones, body language, and where the man is concerned, facial expressions. And that’s how I will realize later that neither of them is from Africa. He is from Mars; she is from Venus.

Some things are universal.
__________

* This story was revised 12/7. See comments for discussion.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Morning Bus Ride” ⓒ All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of joeysee. You can see this photo at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeysee/3238425250/

You can see all joeysee’s photos at:
Photo by JoeySee
and
  www.joeysee.com

2010-11-28T05:00:00.002-07:00

BUS STORY # 212 (Buddy, Can You Spare A Smoke?)

Whatcha got in there?, originally uploaded by busboy4.

There are three of us, all guys, up on the platform in the rear of the bus.

One guy is wearing a less-than-pristinely white T-shirt and pants. He’s sitting in the second seat of the last row on the driver’s side.

One guy is wearing a gray hoodie and a worn, dark gray baseball cap. He’s sitting on the driver side facing me across the aisle. He’s also holding a well-used skateboard. He looks lean and leathery, and about twenty years too old for that skateboard.

There’s a stop, and we’re joined by a woman who takes the far passenger side seat in the last row.

It’s while she’s putting the wallet back in her purse that the guy in white spots the cigarette pack. He asks her if she can spare a smoke. She doesn’t say anything, but she goes to the pack and pulls one out, then wordlessly hands it to him. He thanks her, then puts it between his thumb and forefinger and examines it, turning it this way and that, before tucking it behind his right ear.

A couple of stops later, a new guy gets on and joins us in the back, taking the first seat on the driver side bench, two seats up from skateboard guy. He’s got a gray T-shirt and yellow plaid Bermuda shorts.

A little while later, and the guy with the cigarette behind his ear pulls the cord and goes to stand by the back door.

The new guy spots the cigarette behind the ear and asks cigarette guy if he has an extra he could spare. Cigarette guy explains he only has the one, and that one only because someone gave it to him.

New guy holds up both hands and says it’s OK, he was just asking, and he certainly understands, no problem.

Skateboard guy reaches inside his hoodie and pulls out a cigarette. He hands it to the new guy.

The new guy thanks him, touches his heart with his two V-for-victory fingers, then touches the side of his forehead in a salute. Then he reaches out his hand.

“I’m Mac.”*

Skateboard guy reaches over and shakes.

“Mike.”*

“How come you’re ridin’ when you got that skateboard?”

“I only ride it downhill.”

Everybody chuckles. We’re all of us on the ride home from downtown -- one long climb toward the foothills.
__________

*Real name changed.

2010-11-21T05:00:00.001-07:00

BUS STORY # 211 (Shorts 17)

sag, originally uploaded by robby-T.

The bus stop where we’ve pulled up is by a gas station. The driver has just closed the doors and started up when a white car comes racing into the gas station alongside the bus and honking. The bus stops. “All right, all right, all right,” says our driver, and he opens his door the same time the passenger door of the white car flies open. A high school girl gets out and runs for the bus. “Thanks for giving me a heart attack,” the driver says to the girl when she boards, but it sounds good-natured. They talk for a bit before he starts up again and she heads for a seat.

***

Somewhere near the Emma Ferguson Library, we stop for a tall high school kid in a red hat with the bill at five o’clock and a tattooed vine winding around his neck. He’s holding a skateboard almost as tall as he is. He looks back down the sidewalk before boarding, then steps up to the till and says something to the driver. He hangs around the front and looks back out the window a couple of times, then takes a seat in the back. It’s a long minute before an old woman in blue denim comes into view from the curbside windows. She’s moving as fast as she can which is not very fast at all. She climbs aboard and thanks the driver several times between bouts of breath-catching. She sits on the bench seat behind the driver. She’s beaming like she’s won the lottery. The kid’s paying a lot of attention to his skateboard.

***

Cell phone conversation overheard on the bus: “I’m on the bus . . . Yeah, I know. You were hitting on my girlfriend . . . No, I’m not angry. You were drunk. ____ like that happens . . . Yeah, I know. I love her, too . . . Dude, I am. Not. Angry . . . Because you’re the only friend I have . . . ”

***

He’s an old guy, maybe 70, maybe more. Baseball cap with the bill curved around those old-fashioned glasses with the oversized lenses, striped polo shirt, jeans, and boots. You think you’ve got him pegged -- until he turns his back to pay the fare. Holy frog! He’s sagging like a teenager! The jeans ride low, and his underwear is giving proof through the night. Not the jewel-toned sateen or plaid boxers the kids sport, but a pair of classic tighty-whities. And above the twisted waistband -- Dude, check out that cleavage!
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “sag” and is posted with the kind permission of robby-T. You can see this and all robby-T’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbyt/525520993/

2010-11-14T05:00:00.014-07:00

BUS STORY # 210 (And How Was Your Day, Dear?)

So: I get to my stop at 6:27 a.m., which is either going to be six minutes before the bus arrives or more, depending on whether the bus is on time or running late. The bus does not come in six minutes, or in seven, or in 10 or in 14 . . . The next bus appears right on time, 16 minutes later.

When I board, I spot Frank,* a regular on my route, but not always the same schedule. I sit across the aisle from him,and he tells me how the bus he intended to catch never came. That was my bus. Each of us is now reassured it wasn’t us.

Before we reach Tramway, we pick up four more regulars and we all go through the same routine about how the bus never came and it wasn’t us.

I’m already thinking I’m going to miss my connection at Yale and Central, which will wipe out the prep time I was counting on for a meeting at 8:15 a.m., and will possibly make me late as well. I’m wondering if I should get off at Louisiana and gamble on catching the Rapid. If it comes right away, I may have a shot at my regular connection.

The argument is settled when I watch the Rapid go by right in front of us as we’re stopped at a red light on the other side of Louisiana. I’m going to lose 30 minutes and my prep time.

Down at UNM, I’ve just gotten off the bus and am heading for the crosswalk when I realize my wallet is not in my pocket. The 11 has just taken off, and I’m standing there paralyzed. I could pray for a miracle, but I’ll likely never see that wallet again.

I recover my wits and pull out my cell phone. Maybe if I alert ABQ RIDE right now, they can reach the driver and somehow recover my wallet. Fat chance, but certainly worth the effort.

My cell phone battery is dead.

Unbelievable.

Well, there’s nothing to be done now but get to work and start calling ABQ RIDE, then my credit card companies and the New Mexico Department of Motor Vehicles.

Crossing the street, I realize this coming Saturday’s winning Powerball ticket is also in that wallet. I’m well into imagining how I’ll buy another ticket with the same lucky numbers (an amalgam of my kids’ birthdays and my wedding anniversary) and lay for my co-claimant, the dirty rat -- when I remember I was working on the budget at the kitchen table this morning.

Could I have left my wallet on the kitchen table?

My wife is not home and won’t be any time soon, so there’s no point in calling. I decide to go on to my meeting. It’ll be close, but if the 50 is on time, I have a shot.

I’m standing under one of the trees next to the shelter, waiting impatiently, when a heavy, wet plop hits the top of my head. I reach up instinctively and feel the spot, then pull my hand back to look. It’s covered with thick, yellowish liquid. I look up into the branches above. You, dear reader, are way ahead of me at this point. For those inquiring minds that want to know, it was a female House Sparrow.

Even with the lost wallet looming before me, I almost laugh. I mean, how much more perfect could this morning possibly get?

The 50 is on time, which means I have a shot at getting to the meeting on time. When I board, I see Maddie,* another regular who is one of the six of us who got left behind this morning. She must have missed the 16/18 connection and walked down to Martin Luther King and caught the 50 there.

Before I can ask, she asks me if I noticed that none of our regular co-riders who board the bus west of Tramway boarded the bus we ended up on this morning. Hmmm.

That means all those other riders either found another way to get to work, or were picked up by the bus that left us behind. Maddie says, “He shorted us.” Her theory is the driver was late to his starting point and decided to lop off the route east of Tramway to make up time.

I suggest maybe it was a driver who didn’t know the route. She gives me a look, then decides I am surely being facetious.

We discuss calling this in. I’m thinking I’ll email Rebecca Torres, ABQ RIDE’s contact person, after I get home from work. Right now, I’m trying to organize my thoughts about the problem I need to address at the meeting I’m still not sure I’m gonna be on time for, and how to handle my missing wallet.

At work, I go straight to the restroom to wash my hands. Then I look in the mirror. No visible trace of bird bomb. I go on to the meeting where I find out no one is prepared to discuss what I needed to be at the meeting for in order to discuss.

It’s not really the same thing that happened under the tree, not literally. The meeting is short (naturally), and I realize if I hurry, I can catch the 50 going back to Central.

I have a plan, you see: go home and see if my wallet’s there. If it isn’t, I’m taking the rest of the day off to take care of business. If it is, I can clean up, then go downtown where I’m supposed to be at another meeting at 11:00 a.m.

I get to the bus stop and pull out my cell. I’d better let my boss know where I am and why, and where I might not be for the rest of the day . . . Oh, yes, the phone. I forgot. I instinctively feel the top of my head.

The 50 is on time and the ride uneventful. I get off at Central, walk to The Frontier, and catch the Red Line 13 minutes later.

We’ve made the turn at Louisiana and pulled into the stop when the driver announces we all have to get off the bus. He explains he’s running an hour behind and has to turn around now. We have to get off and catch either the 3 or the 157 which should be along any minute now.

In the immortal words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up.

We all get off the bus, and watch it head north for Lomas. A few minutes later, the 157 arrives.

We all climb aboard. I’m seated when I see the last two riders from the Rapid still standing outside the door. It’s a young girl and her mother. The mother looks late 30s, the girl maybe third or fourth grade.

The young girl asks the driver where this bus goes. He tells her. She turns and explains to her mother in Spanish. They board, and the young girl puts money in the till. It slowly dawns on me that she’s just paid their fares a second time. They’d already paid when they boarded the Rapid that they were made to get off of.

I am too slow and too wrapped up in thinking about what lies ahead for me if my wallet is gone to fully register the sadness of what I’ve just seen. It isn’t that the driver was taking advantage; he didn’t know. It was the young girl and the woman who either didn’t understand, or else felt too intimidated to insist they’d already paid. The rest of us had passes. It isn’t until later that I think the cash in my wallet might be significantly less a loss to me than that extra $1.35 is to the girl and her mother.

We get to Lomas. Less than 15 minutes later, I’m on the 11 on my way back home. When I get there, I walk into the kitchen and there’s my wallet on the table. I reach for the sky, not the top of my head. Yes! And then I count my blessings. The bird deposit is suddenly a whole lot funnier.

After scrubbing my head with a wash cloth, I shoot my boss an email, send another to Rebecca Torres, then go back to work.

This time, I take the car.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

Postscript: When I got home that evening, I had a response from Rebecca Torres. Rebecca said she’d checked with dispatch and they showed nothing happening. But she also said she’d have someone speak to the driver. (She also told me one of my co-riders had also called this in. I’m guessing that was Maddie.) That was a week ago last Thursday. As of the date/time of this post, I've heard nothing further.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “IMG_3421 Crowie” and is posted with the kind permission of Leilah. You can see this and all Leilah’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37243146@N00/2690863602/

2010-11-07T05:00:00.011-07:00

BUS STORY # 209 (Honoring Our Veterans)

vietnam, originally uploaded by dirk32787.

We get off the Rapid together, me through the back door, him through the front after the ramp is put down and his motorized wheelchair makes the exit.

I’m waiting at the intersection, looking west for my connection. He rolls up and I move to one side. We both wait till the white stick figure appears and the numbers start ticking down from 25.

On the other side, we head for the bus stop to wait for our connection. He wheels his chair around and faces due west.

He looks to be in his 60s. Big guy, but solid, not fat. He’s in a navy blue polo shirt and navy blue shorts. The right leg is a long-healed above-the-knee amputation. The left is a long-healed below-the-knee. Later, I determine he’s also missing the first two digits of the fingers of his right hand.

He’s got a cap on that says “Vietnam Veteran” across the front of the hat and across the hatband in the back. He’s wearing those old style aviator sunglasses. He sits – and, really, this is the only way to describe it – he sits tall in his chair.

Things that he doesn’t have, and which are striking by their absence in this particular scenario -- at least, here in Albuquerque -- are an American flag or pennant flying from a flexible rod, and patriotic bumper stickers plastered across the back of his chair.

Across the intersection to the west, there’s another rider waiting for our bus. I’m thinking it’ll stop for him, then get caught by the light, and we’ll have to wait another two minutes for our turn.

But the rider is looking our way, too. And then he gets up and starts walking our way. In the crosswalk, I see a lean guy in a baseball cap, long black beard streaked with gray, a turquoise tank top and faded, ragged jeans.

He walks right up to the vet, leans over, says something to him, puts his hand on his shoulder, says something to him again, moves the flat of his hand to the side of the vet’s head, pulls it back to his heart, then gently thumps his heart. He starts to turn away, then turns back and says something more.

I can’t make out what he’s saying, and I can’t tell if it’s Spanish, or English slurred with emotion or alcohol or both. He puts his hand on the vet’s chest, then pulls it back to his. And then he walks to a railing behind the bus stop bench and sits in the shade.

Throughout this exchange, the vet hasn’t moved a muscle. I have no idea if he spoke to the man or not.

I don’t know if these are two vets who recognize one another and don’t need words, or if the guy is overcome, and the vet is gutting it out with dignity or a patient appreciation of the intent. A dozen other possible stories blossom.

The vet takes his hat off. His head is bald, lumpy, scarred. I assume it goes with the legs and fingers. He leaves it off until the bus comes.

The other guy and I wait for the ramp to come down, wait for the vet to board. That’s when I smell the alcohol.

He wants me to board, but I tell him I’m waiting for the driver to finish getting the chair buckled in. He goes around me, and waits by the till. When everything is settled in, he’s sitting on the bench seat across from the vet. The vet keeps his face fixed forward, and there is no conversation, attempted or otherwise.

When we reach the guy’s stop, he lurches forward and almost falls right across the wheelchair. He catches himself, and lurches out the front door.

The rider behind the vet turns to the guy sitting next to me and says he hasn’t seen Tommy* this drunk at this hour in a long time.

“He’s the sweetest guy when he’s sober, but he’s a mean drunk.”

And then he notices a plastic grocery bag Tommy must have left on the bench seat.

Throughout all of this, the vet has been sitting silent and motionless. He is staring straight ahead, out through the front windshield.

I’m thinking he knows something we don’t.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “vietnam” and is posted with the kind permission of dirk32787. You can see this and all dirk32787’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekdoneen/430949054/

2010-10-31T05:00:00.009-06:00

BUS STORY # 208 (Mona Lisa)

School days are here again, and the northbound 141 is standing room only. When I board, there’s a line in the aisle from the rear platform to just behind the driver. I set my backpack between my feet, grab the overhead bar, and brace myself.

From where I’m standing, I can see clearly the road ahead and the face of our driver in her big rear view mirror. She’s a young gal, smooth face, narrow black frame glasses, hair pulled back in a bobbed pony tail. Smooth, untroubled face.

It’s at Haines, just as she’s started pulling away from the stop, that the car in the southbound lane decides it can turn left fast enough to beat the bus. If she hit the brakes, I don’t feel it. Feels more like she just stopped accelerating. The car whips by right in front of us. I watch her in the mirror. I see her eyes follow the car eastward down Haines. And I see her smile.

It’s not a did-you-see-that smile, or a laugh-out-loud smile, or a what-a-jerk smile or a that-was-close-smile, or any other kind of smile that I can relate to what just happened. It’s a quiet, enigmatic little smile.

A few minutes later, we’re approaching the eastbound exit to I-25, when another car races around us, then abruptly cuts in front of us and barely makes the exit ramp. The guy standing behind me says simply, “T-bone.” I look in the mirror in time to catch our driver following the car as it rockets through a latticework of white paint before cutting into the lane in front of another car. She’s watching all this with that same eerily quiet little smile.

I spend the rest of the ride thinking about this smile. By the time we reach my stop, I’ve come up with three possible explanations:
She’s on Prozac;
She’s mastered the Eightfold Path of the Buddha;
She’s memorized the license plate numbers and, come the night, there’s gonna be a reckoning.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “mona” © Heather Johnston Photography and is posted with the kind permission of studioheather. You can see this and all studioheather’s photos on Flickr at:
http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/28490096@N06/2657314153/

2010-10-24T05:00:00.011-06:00

BUS STORY # 207 (“An Incident”)

Bus Stop, originally uploaded by busboy4.

It’s the first almost-cold day of the season. The wind is blowing hard and chill, gusts sandblasting bare skin. It looks like it might rain. There are five of us waiting at the corner of Lomas and Louisiana for the 11. Those of us that left before sunrise have light jackets. Those that left later in the day don’t.

A junior-high girl in a white T-shirt, short gray skirt, and black suede boots huddles up close to her mother. Mom’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. A woman in dark pants and blouse stands by the bench where mom and daughter are sitting. She’s using a big, pink shopping bag as a windbreak. An older guy in a gray and maroon striped polo shirt and black shorts stands near the curb, scanning Lomas for a bus.

We’ve been here about 40 minutes now, long enough to have seen two 11s going west, and three Red Lines going north.

“See anything yet?” asks the mom.

“Lotta dust,” answers the older guy.

It starts to spatter rain.

“Look, a rainbow!”

The girl is pointing northeast, toward the mountains. Sure enough, there’s a nice half-rainbow coming down somewhere near the end of Lomas. Where the pot of gold is. Where I’d be if the bus had come.

The spattering passes. A guy in jeans and a blue hoodie with the letters LA on the front walks across the street and joins us. He ends up sitting on the low metal bar separating the used car lot from the sidewalk and smoking.

The older guy sees a bus. He tells us it’ll probably be crowded since it has at least two runs’ worth of riders on it.

We watch the bus stop on the west side of the intersection and let four people off. The four people waiting then board.

This is a good sign.

When the bus pulls up at our stop, the driver runs his hand past his neck: the “full-up-to-here” signal. This is a bad sign. We keep walking toward the bus anyway, and he stops and opens the door.

“Sorry, I’m full up. I just can’t take any more riders. There’s another bus behind me. He’ll be here in 10 minutes.”

The girl thinks the driver seems “frantic.”

I start tracking the time on my cell phone. The next bus arrives in 18 minutes.

I ask the driver what happened to the earlier buses.

He mulls this question over before answering, a bit tentatively, that there was “an incident” on one of the buses and they had to transfer the riders to another bus.

When I get home, I post a question in the ABQ Bus Riders Discussion forum at Duke City Fix asking if anyone knows what happened. No further information is forthcoming at the time of this post.

However, I also email Rebecca Torres at ABQ RIDE’s Customer Service asking the same question. She responds the next day. There was indeed “an incident” which required calling in APD. She knew service had been disrupted for quite a while, and she apologized for the inconvenience.

At this point, I don’t need any more detail. I'm happy to have a quick and straight answer. Given the circumstances, neither she nor ABQ RIDE owes me an apology. Instead, I'm feeling thankful for all they do -- and all they put up with -- to keep us moving.

2010-10-17T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 206 (“But Someone Trying To Better Herself...”)

Yes U Can!, originally uploaded by busboy4.

“Is that our bus?”

She’s talking about the 50 on the other side of the street.

“It is.”

“So what does it do? Go up to the airport and turn around?”

“That’s right. It’ll be back here in about 10 minutes.”

We watch it go by. Then she tells me she was up here to see about getting food stamps.

She’s going to school full time, she explains. Organic chemistry, biology, and a math class. The chemistry and biology classes have labs which run another four hours each. She’s got a 3.8 GPA, but that’s because she puts a good two-to-three hours of study in for each course.

She tells me she’s a “single mom.” Later, she’ll tell me her kids are all grown and on their own now. She pays her own rent, has a patchwork of grants to pay for school, and no job. She’s applied for a work-study position, but hasn’t heard anything back.

About the food stamps, she says, “They told me if I was homeless, I’d qualify. But someone trying to better herself . . . ”

I ask her if she’s going to CNM. She is. She’s studying to be a lab technician. She was in the medical field and she wants to stay there, but doing something less physical. She was a nursing assistant for 13 years. She took care of the elderly -- “Lots of Alzheimer’s” -- until she wrecked her shoulder at work. They had to operate.

I ask her where she’d been working. Seattle, then Salem, Oregon. The bus comes before I can ask her how she ended up in Albuquerque. On the bus, we both sit in the front, a couple of seats away from being opposite one another. She tells me she’s gonna go over to the college and see if she can find out where she is on the list for work-study. Otherwise, she’s just gonna have to find a job. That’ll be the end of her 3.8 she says.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” I reply. Which is true, but that doesn’t save it from sounding lame after it’s out of my mouth.

A regular intake of passengers disrupts the conversation. She gets off at Smith’s. I ride on, remembering the times when I went back to school to “better” myself -- or at least my job prospects. She’s a tough cookie, and she’ll come out fine on the other end.

2010-10-10T05:00:00.004-06:00

BUS STORY # 205 (Portrait # 9: On the Powwow Highway)

I want to ride one of your fine ponies., originally uploaded by busboy4.

I didn’t see him until he moved to the front of the bus. Young Native American kid, no more than mid-20s, but with an inscrutable, somewhere-else expression that was older.

Dressed all in black. Black baseball cap with a black and purple headband over it so that it covered the cap logo and both his ears. Where the logo would have been, a metal roadrunner was pinned to the headband.

He had a backpack with a bicycle pump sticking out of it, and a great chain worn bandolier style. His black jeans were tucked into gaiters.

He’d moved to the front where he sat on the edge of the seat with his eyes fixed on the road ahead. He looked utterly unselfconscious, utterly focused, utterly self-contained. There was something oddly out of time and place about him.

Later, I watched the way he took his bike off the bus rack, and I realized everything he was wearing had a specific purpose, and that purpose was the bike. And then I had the sense that he and the bike had still another purpose, and that it was serious and not of the white man’s world.

I would have had him get off at Tramway and ride north toward Sandia Pueblo, or else at Turner and ride east toward the mountains. But he got off at Eubank, and walked his bike past my window back toward town.

He disappeared before the bus made it to the intersection.

2010-10-03T05:00:00.006-06:00

BUS STORY # 204 (The Consultant)

Albuquerque, New Mexico, originally uploaded by Sean Jones.

He boards at the Nob Hill stop and takes the seat facing me over the wheels. Gray slacks with a nice drape, black polo shirt, daypack. Polished black business shoes like you don’t see much of anymore. He’s a not-young guy, but “older guy” doesn’t do him justice. He looks to be in excellent shape, and he’s got the square-jawed, rugged good looks of somebody you might see on the cover of Outside magazine. Turns out he bikes.

He’s an environmental consultant and he’s on his way to Santa Fe for a meeting.

We get to talking about the commute. He loves not having to drive to Santa Fe. Ten years ago, he worked for the state and commuted back and forth every workday. We both commiserate about driving I-25 during rush hour. He got to work feeling harried and all wound up. Getting home was even worse.

Now, he gets on the bus – his train ticket (discounted when bought online) gives him a free bus ride to and from the train station – and he does things like have this conversation. On the train, he works or networks thanks to the Rail Runner’s Wi-Fi. Or he just sits back and enjoys the ride.

You add up the fuel costs, wear and tear on your car, and parking costs, and the train is a real bargain, he tells me. Of course, he adds, it’s subsidized by you and me, but all the more reason to use it.

I agree. I add that, besides reducing commuter traffic on the interstate, it’s also become something of a thing to do, like the Sandia Peak Tramway or the Cumbres & Toltec narrow-gauge between Chama and Antonito.

My wife and I have taken the Rail Runner three times now, all day trips to Santa Fe. We took some out-of-town guests on one of those rides. The whole experience feels more like a vacation trip than a commute. Two of those times, we’ve sat next to whole families doing exactly the same thing. And the train up is always crowded, especially on the weekends. Board at the Journal Center on Saturday morning and you just might have to stand.

He also uses the train to visit his daughter in Belen. She lives about four miles from the station, and he takes his bike and rides from the depot. He hangs out with her for the day, then comes back home. One of the perks of being a consultant, he adds.

He joined a small consulting business started by two of his friends and former co-workers. He says it’s taken him a long time to learn the ropes, but now he has a network of go-to specialists who know their business and who also satisfy the requirements for landing federal and state bids.

You try to develop a team you can call on that includes a woman, a minority, and a veteran, he explains. So it’s important not only to have someone whose expertise and reliability you can count on, but who also fits the preference criteria for so many federal and state contracts.

He says this specialist expertise is invaluable when dealing with unanticipated discoveries -- say a cache of pot shards or a small population of local fauna. These are evaluated by a select team member whose findings help determine what variances, if any, need to be made to the project.

I like his enthusiasm for his work, and the pleasure he takes from having achieved a certain level of expertise and comfort in the process. He says it was hard won, and I’m old enough to appreciate what that means.

I also like how much he “gets it.” He’s exactly the ideal commuter the Rail Runner folks must have had in mind when they began planning. He knows the train is so much more than a novelty or a cheap alternative to driving. How many innovations which actually reduce the stress of every day life do any of us experience these days?
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Albuquerque, New Mexico” and is posted with the kind permission of Sean Jones. You can see this and all Sean Jones’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotografia79/2160327727/in/pool-1334123@N24/

2010-09-26T05:00:00.020-06:00

BUS STORY # 203 (Dean’s Story)

MTS Bus, originally uploaded by So Cal Metro.

(Back in September of ’07, my good friend Paul wrote one of my favorite bus stories about a bus driver in San Diego with Albuquerque ties, and how family and the economic times worked together to determine where he lived and worked. [You can read it here.] Three years later, here’s a story about a bus rider in Albuquerque with San Diego ties, and the same compelling constellation of family, work, and economic times. There’s even a service connection.)

Like most businesses with many employees doing different jobs at different locations in the area, we’re computer-dependent. We have a centralized Help Desk where we can call in our problems -- forgotten passwords, lost files, misbehaving computers, and so forth.

Most of the guys working the Help Desk are young, smart, and move on to something more lucrative and challenging as soon as the opportunity presents itself. In the current economic climate, other young, smart guys who’ve lost more lucrative and challenging jobs also wind up on Help Desks.

This is Dean’s* story.

I met Dean on the bus one morning on the way to work. When I found out he worked at our Help Desk, I asked him about a virus that had recently hit our system. His explanation included a history of this virus and its many evolutions, what its intention was and how it worked, and how this version was able to gain entry into our system despite our anti-virus program.

I told him he seemed uncommonly well-informed. He grinned, shyly, and explained he’d worked in encryption for the U.S. Navy and the FBI.

Where was this?

San Diego.

So he moved from San Diego and an incredibly interesting and challenging and well-paid job to Albuquerque and a job at a Help Desk? I figured it could only have been a girl.

“Family,” he explained.

His parents and his brothers and sisters all live here. They had been after him to come join them, and he finally agreed.

So was he raised here?

Turns out he was raised all over, but all over didn’t include here. His dad was career Navy.

His parents decided to retire to Albuquerque. I assumed it was because of the service connection -- a pretty common story out here, actually. But this wasn’t the case with his parents. They’d been on vacation, stopped here, looked around, and liked what they saw. That’s also a pretty common story out here.

By the time they moved to Albuquerque, Dean was already out of college and in the Navy. After being stationed in San Diego, he started settling in there -- house, share in a local business, good friends, cool city, great job . . . but his family kept after him to join them.

After landing a spot with one of the telecommunication giants with a local presence, he sold his house, his share of the business, and moved to Albuquerque.

He was smart with his money. He invested it so he wouldn’t be tempted to spend it. That was about three years ago.

Shortly after moving, the economy tanked and he lost half the value of his investments. Then, along with a few hundred others, he lost his job.

His supervisor gave him a heads-up and pointed him in our direction. Two weeks after his layoff, he was working at our Help Desk.

Given his background, I asked him, why couldn’t he get a job with our IT security?

Contract exclusion -- we outsourced our Help Desk and our contract prohibits us from raiding our partner’s employees. And besides, since the economy tanked, we’ve had a hiring freeze.

Then why couldn’t he get a job with Kirtland or Sandia Labs?

He laughed. He told me he’d applied to both from San Diego. They told him he was overqualified. Kirtland sends the kind of work he does to Dallas. The Labs didn’t have any job openings.

What about Los Alamos?

He smiled and told me they rejected his application. No, he doesn’t know why. He could probably ask his old boss to find out for him. But that would take a lot of time and effort, and probably wouldn’t change anything.

Has he ever thought of moving back to San Diego?

His old boss has called him a couple of times to tell him he can have his old job back any time. He said the devaluation of his investments meant he couldn’t buy a house right away. I’m thinking that when Dean buys a house, he pays cash.

But haven’t home prices gone down?

Not in San Diego, he told me. He then popped out all sorts of numbers and ratios comparing San Diego to here and to the nation at large. That told me he wasn’t just daydreaming about moving back.

He did have some concerns about moving back to California, though. He asked me if I’d heard about Governor Schwarzenegger’s I.O.U.s. I had. I told him I’d also read a long article on how the once-excellent university system there is disintegrating.

So, I ventured, are you thinking of moving back anyway?

He’s pretty much made up his mind he is.

Has he told his family?

No. No he hasn’t.

When is he planning on going back?

As soon as he saves enough money to buy a car.

He didn’t have a car from his San Diego days?

Oh, yes, a beauty. He drove it out here from San Diego.

So what happened to it?

“It’s part of a parking lot.” He explained: early one morning, one of those monster trucks with the jacked-up suspension and big tires was being chased by the police. The chase ended in his parking lot where the truck literally squashed his car and two others. He got an insurance settlement, but needs to save up the difference between the payout and the cost of a new car.

So that’s why he’s taking the bus.

No, not really. He was taking the bus here even when he had his car, just like he did in San Diego. Only, he says, the bus service here is nowhere near as good as in San Diego.

He went on to describe a system that covers the whole city from center to perimeter with a network of routes that runs buses 10-15 minutes apart from 5:00 A.M to after midnight. (I googled the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System later on and a spot check of the schedules confirmed his description.)

So how well is the system used?

He laughed and told me it is not uncommon to have to wait for a second or even third bus because the one you planned to catch is full. He says buses have color-coded signals to let you know whether you’ll be able to get on. Orange means “full,” blue means “moderate," and green means “empty.”

“Empty?” I asked.

Dean thought that meant ten or less riders.

I told him I’ve ridden a few “empties” here in Albuquerque. He laughed, and pointed out San Diego has a substantially larger ridership than Albuquerque.

True enough.

Right now, Dean thinks he’ll be returning to San Diego around Christmas. I can appreciate his needing the challenge his old job afforded him. Throw in the salary and the city and the only thing missing is . . . his family.
__________

*Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “MTS Bus” and is posted with the kind permission of So Cal Metro. You can see this and all So Cal Metro’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southerncalifornian/4286718953/in/set-72157606888674853/
__________

An additional thanks to Paul for this week's featured link: Last Week In: Santa Fe.

2010-09-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

BUS STORY # 202 (Migrant Worker)

Westbound stop, NE corner of Lomas and Eubank, originally uploaded by busboy4.

He takes the seat across from me and is struggling to get his bus pass back into his wallet.

Older guy, all in black, including a black baseball cap. Unshaven.

“Too early in the morning for this,” he says, finally wedging the pass into a windowed compartment.

“You normally sleep in?”

“Yeah, but I got a job at the fair.”

He’s working in the State Fair employee commissary, and it starts with breakfast.

He explains he’s worked there before, but it’s just a job to tide him through to December when he’s starting a job in San Diego.

I ask him if he lives here or there.

He lives here. Right here, right in this neighborhood, all his life.

“I went to school right there 35 years ago,” he says, pointing to Manzano High School.

He says this area looks pretty much the same now as it did then.

I ask about the job in San Diego.

He explains he worked most of his life on computer electronics. “IBM, Honeywell, HP . . . ”

There’s not much call for him in Albuquerque right now. But San Diego looks promising.

“It’s expensive there -- you gotta have a bundle saved up just to get started,” he says. He’s planning to take the train to LA, then a bus down to San Diego.

At Eubank, he pulls the cord.

“Gonna get coffee first at Hastings,” he explains.

He’s got his standards. Most folks would walk the 10 yards from the stop to the Circle K for whatever’s on the burner. He’s gonna cross the intersection and walk into the corner shopping center where Hastings has a coffee bar.

I wish him luck -- and hope Hastings is open at this hour of the morning.

2010-09-12T05:00:00.017-06:00

BUS STORY # 201 (What Are The Odds II)

Santa Ana Casino Bus , originally uploaded by busboy4.

Jen* and I go back a ways, back before I met my wife, or at least before I was aware of her as a person of interest.

We worked for the same company and knew one another as fellow employees. But we didn’t actually meet until we both ended up being assigned to a task force for what we both knew was a hopeless project. I arrived at the first meeting with a book someone had given me: Craig Martin’s Fly Fishing In Northern New Mexico.

After the meeting, she asked me about the book. I told her I’d been fly fishing for a couple of years or so, loved it, but wasn’t very good at it.

The truth is, I was using it as a great distraction. I’d head out into the wilds of New Mexico every set of days off where I’d camp out and fish or birdwatch or hike or go ghost town hunting. I was licking my wounds from a failed marriage, and all these solitary outdoor pursuits far away from the city were a great comfort to me.

I didn’t explain all this to Jen -- at least, not then. Jen told me she’d also just recently taken up fly fishing and was really enjoying it. The problem, she explained, is that she wanted to try some isolated places up in the mountains north of us. Since the best fishing was early morning and late evening, she’d either have to leave Albuquerque a few hours before dawn, or else camp. She was uneasy about camping out by herself.

I told her I had a truck with a camper shell, and I’d be happy to go camping and fishing with her.

She told me later she was taken aback by my invitation -- we’d be sleeping together in the back of my truck -- and she asked around to see what kind of reputation I had. I guess you could say she was worried my line was more fishy than fishing.

Whatever she heard must have been OK because she took me up on the invitation shortly afterwards. I wish I could remember where we went that first time. But we did our fishing, cooked our supper, slept in the back of the truck in our separate sleeping bags, then got up and fished some more before driving back to Albuquerque. That trip was the basis for many more fishing trips and the beginning of a good friendship.

My favorite of our trips was near the headwaters of the Rio Grande, up in Colorado. We’d gone into Creede to buy whatever the locals were recommending.

“Number 14 House and Lot,” they told us. "Ike swore by the House and Lot." We bought several. Not enough, as it turned out.

We split up and fished Squaw Creek, a series of stair step pools. I’d cast into the pool above me and wham! there was a strike. Whether I set the hook or not, I only got one cast, and that pool was done.

In time, I managed to lose all my H & Ls, and no matter what other fly I tried, I didn’t have another hit for the rest of the day.

I know, I know, I’ve digressed. But you take an old guy reminiscing, a guy whose lineage is Irish, and a fisherman, and you’d be daft to think you’d be getting a short story here. Just be thankful the three of us aren't also drinking the beer. Oh, and the bus is coming.

Long story short, Jen and I became good friends. And when I did start dating my wife, and that relationship began to turn serious, Jen was one of two good women friends whose insights and advice were invaluable to the flourishing of that relationship.

Jen is one very bright woman -- much more so, I know now, than I realized back then. Unfortunately, her potential was lost on the company. So she moved on to bigger and better things. The sad part was she moved out of state.

You can take the very bright woman out of New Mexico, but you can’t take New Mexico out of the very bright woman. (I think Abraham Lincoln said that.) Over time, even while Jen was becoming spectacularly successful in her work, she kept returning to family and a multitude of friends here, and eventually bought a combination investment/retirement/place-to-stay-in-Albuquerque house. And she still makes an annual trip up into southern Colorado and the trout streams there.

Jen and my wife and I get together a couple of times a year and catch up on all the news. It had been several months since the last time we’d seen one another when I left work one Friday afternoon to catch the 50 home.

When I boarded, I was surprised to see there were only two other riders on the bus, two women sitting across from each other and leaning into the aisle. One was giving directions to the other. Both had suitcases which told me they were coming from the airport. I hoisted my backpack up and squeezed between the two and took a seat a few rows back.

When I looked again, it struck me how very much one of the women looked like Jen. And then her voice registered. I sat there staring at her and waited for the two women to finish talking. When they were done, Jen looked back and her right hand shot out and pointed at me. There was a tumbling over suitcases and backpacks and a hug.

We got off at Central and ended up at The Satellite where she told me her story.

“You know, when I was leaving the airport, I thought to myself, you get off work around this time, and it was possible I’d actually run into you.”

It was an incredibly lucky shot. I don’t always work at the main office. I don’t always take the 4:30 bus when I do. I mean, what are the odds?

The last time we’d talked, the three of us had dinner at La Provence. Jen had talked about wanting to avoid renting a car when she was in town. The only time she really needed it was to get back and forth from the airport. She knew I was taking the bus and about the blog, and I told her I thought the bus would work fine -- unless she was leaving on Sunday. (Don’t ask me why none of the three routes servicing the airport run on Sundays. I don’t know.)

Anyway, here she is, and here we are, and what a way to find out she’d decided to give the bus a try!

Really, now, what are the odds?
__________

*Real name changed.

2010-09-05T05:00:00.011-06:00

BUS STORY # 200 (Shorts 16)

Love is on the way, originally uploaded by busboy4.

It’s one hot July afternoon, but the Rapid Ride is almost cold inside. We’re barreling up Central somewhere past Eubank when we have to pull up. There’s a cop car with its lights flashing in our lane and our driver couldn’t find an opening to the middle lane in time to bypass it. I can’t see anything from where I’m sitting except the back of the car and the bar of lights flashing red and blue over the top of the car. It isn’t until we find an opening and move around the cruiser that I can see what’s happening. The cop, a young guy, is assisting a decrepit old man into the back of the car. A walker is standing all by itself in the middle of the sidewalk. I don’t know if the guy was in obvious distress or if the cop decided it was just too hot to let an old man in his condition work his way up the long Central sidewalk on a walker. I like the latter version myself.

***

He’s maybe mid-40s. He’s explaining to the woman sitting across from him that he’s on his way to take some computer classes. He’s got this job as a receptionist, but he can’t really spell. He graduated from barber college, but he wasn’t strong in spelling. He can ask people to spell their last names, he’s OK with that part, but anything more and he just gets all balled up. The woman says the computer is just what he needs. If he learns Word, it’s got spell check on it, so all he has to do is get close and spell check will take care of it. His eyes widen. Yes, he says excitedly, that’s exactly what he needs!

***

Overheard from a conversation between two high school girls on the bus: “So he goes the third trimester starts the seventh month. I go no it doesn’t, it starts the sixth. Three, six, nine. I mean I’m the one who’s done it twice.”

***

I’m running a little late, but not too bad. I hustle out the door and get down to the stop a good couple of minutes before the bus comes. When the door opens, I reach down and grab the end of my lanyard and raise it up for the driver to see. At the same time the driver is looking blankly at what I’ve got in my hand, I’m registering what I’ve got in my hand doesn’t feel right. It’s my work badge, not my bus pass. I sheepishly tell her I know exactly where my bus pass is: hanging on the back of my closet door. She tells me to come on and board, she saw my pass yesterday morning, same place, same time, so she knows I’ve got one. I’m counting my blessings as we start to roll when she asks me how I’m planning to get home . . .

2010-08-29T05:00:00.012-06:00

BUS STORY # 199 (The Strike-Out Artist)

I Ride . . . 2, originally uploaded by busboy4.

We’re up on the platform, sitting across from one another on the bench seats facing the aisle.

He keeps sneaking looks at the woman sitting in the seat in the last row, directly in line with him. She’s got her feet up on the rail and is looking out the window.

He’s a big, meaty guy with a shaved head and wearing a red golf visor, backwards. Gray tank top, baggy shorts, brown sandals. Tattoo on his right calf.

She’s a pretty meaty gal herself. Shoulder-length black hair, plucked and penciled eyebrows, red, red lips. Black tank top, blue jeans, and those high-heeled platform sandals. She’s got a tattoo just above her abundant right breast. She’s not exactly spilling out of her tank top. It’s more like a grocery bag with a spray of greens pouring out the top. You can’t help but know there’s a bunch of carrots down in there. She's holding one of those smartphones that are competing with iPods for rider share these days.

He risks a longer look. She keeps looking out the window. Finally, he asks her name.

“Anna”* she replies without any enthusiasm.

He nods his head, waits a minute.

“I’m Mike.”*

She nods, looks back out the window.

He looks down at his sandals for a while. Then:

“Just get off work?”

And adds quickly, “You work at McDonalds?”

She shakes her head no. Her phone rings, and she answers it. A conversation ensues. He’s staring at his sandals again, frowning. Bad timing, that call. He looks over to his right.

A young, slim woman with two small children on either side of her is sitting quietly. Black hair down past her shoulders. Simple brown scoop neck T-shirt with blue jeans and flat-heeled shoes.

Mike says something her way. The children look over at him, but she doesn’t give any indication she’s heard him.

He tries again, louder this time.

She looks over at him. Her reply is polite, but her face says she really isn’t interested in having a conversation with him. She looks away when she’s finished answering.

He asks the little girl nearest him how old she is.

She tells him and he asks about her sister.

The woman looks down at her daughter who is enjoying this conversation, then over at him. She is clearly annoyed and at a loss at how to deal with this.

He makes the mistake of re-engaging mom and she shuts him down in a way that he understands. He hangs his head, and I feel a little sorry for the poor guy.

But when he looks left again, the first girl is off her phone. Hope surely springs eternal because he restarts a conversation.

Her phone rings again, and that’s the end of that.

He gets off the bus shortly afterwards, but not before waving to phone girl. She waves back.

When the back door closes, she puts the phone back down in her lap, no goodbye or anything else. It takes a minute to register.

The next day, I email my daughter and ask if she can make her iPhone ring when she wants it to. She has no idea. But I do.

__________

*Real name changed.

2010-08-22T05:00:00.010-06:00

BUS STORY # 198 (The Summerfest Detour)

Nob Hill stop from Carlisle and Copper, originally uploaded by busboy4.

It was Saturday. My wife was out of town, I had no commitments, and it seemed like a good day to take the bus to the Coop in Nob Hill to do my shopping.

I caught the 11 and transferred to the Red Line at Louisiana.

Once we pulled out of the San Mateo station, the driver announced we’d be detouring around Nob Hill due to Summerfest.

Well, dang.

I asked the driver how close to Carlisle he could drop me. He said it would be just east of Carlisle -- on Lomas. And he did. Later, coming back, I realized that he’d made a special stop just for me. Thank you, driver.

Carlisle and Lomas is a short mile to Carlisle and Central. The weather was overcast and the street barriers had eliminated most of the traffic. Throw in intrinsically interesting Carlisle itself and I had myself a pretty pleasant walk.

I got my shopping done and pondered my choices: 1) walk east to San Mateo and catch the Red Line to Louisiana; 2) walk west to Girard and count on there being a detour stop there for the Red Line; 3) walk back up Carlisle and just catch the 11 straight home.

Three sounded like the best bet. So I headed north on Carlisle across Central.

I was crossing the intersection where Campus turns into Copper when I saw a sign for a Thai restaurant where the old Ragin’ Shrimp used to be. I wandered over to see if it was open. It was. And even though I’d had no plans for lunch, I went inside.

I should explain here that I love Thai food. I love Thai food even more than I love Mexican food, which is saying something.

I should also explain there are a number of good Thai restaurants in town, just as there are a number of good Mexican restaurants. “Best” really means “my favorite” the way most of us use it, and we all are quite sure our favorites are the best.

For years, my favorite Thai restaurant was a place in the Southeast Heights called Thai Ginger. The neighborhood has been in decline for the last 30 years, and the restaurant was just a step up from your classic “hole in the wall.”

But the food! Early on, I ordered a house specialty called “Thai Ginger Perfect” -- a concoction of fresh vegetables and chicken sauteed with ginger and lightly spiced. After that, I could never bring myself to order anything else.

I didn’t go as often as I would have if left to my own devices. For a number of reasons (the atmosphere, the always small number of patrons whenever we were there, the neighborhood), my wife did not share my enthusiasm. And so I would stop only every month or two on my way home when my wife was working late.

When I started taking the bus four years ago, Thai Ginger fell off my map. It would have been right on the 140/141 route, but that would have meant an extra transfer -- the 50, the Red Line, the 140/141 down, then back up to the 11. It felt like more trouble than it was worth. And besides, my late-working wife would probably have beaten me home.

Recently, I drove by the old place. It had been repainted a deep lime green and renamed the Thai House. Well, dang. I felt I had let Thai Ginger and myself down. Another personal “best in Albuquerque” gone for good.

I’ve had some tasty meals at Orchid Thai, Siam Cafe, Thai Crystal, and the original Thai House in the University area (all easily accessible by bus), but none of them have been Thai Ginger.

So even though I had no plans for lunch, I found myself wondering if this new place could come close to the old Thai Ginger. And that, really, is why I went inside.

Inside was an airy, well-lighted little place, a big step up from the old Thai Ginger. I sat in the front room, at a table for two.

My server was a young guy, friendly, efficient, polite. Perfect English. I remembered the waitresses at Thai Ginger, and how I wasn’t sure their English went much beyond “number seven” from the menu.

I searched the menu and found Pad Khing which sounded like it could be close to the old Thai Ginger Perfect. While I was searching, a customer came in: a Buddhist monk! An Asian, older guy Buddhist monk. That reminded me of the first time I’d been to Yasmine’s and saw this old guy sitting at a table reading an Arabic newspaper. OK, I said to myself, authentic.

The Pad Khing presentation was lovely -- a dark, square porcelain plate had replaced the utilitarian white platter at the old Thai Ginger. I took a bite. Oh my goodness! This was really good. Fresh, flavorful, spiced just right -- oh my goodness! By the time I’d finished, I knew I’d found my new and worthy favorite. And I knew my wife would not have any trouble with the ambiance or the location.

I spoke with my server. How long had they been open? A month. How were they doing? Not bad, considering they hadn’t done any advertising yet. Most of their traffic was neighborhood folks, and they were spreading the word.

After paying the bill, I noticed framed reviews on the wall. Since they’d just opened, I was curious about those reviews. I became even more curious when I discovered every one of them was a (glowing) review of the old Thai Ginger. I went back to the register and waited for my server to reappear.

Turns out these are the same folks. Thai House down on San Mateo is family, but not this immediate family, not the Thai Ginger family. As is only natural, new recipes and different cooking styles have been implemented at Thai House. But, he told me, many of the old Thai Ginger patrons started asking his family to return to the restaurant business. And so they have.

As I walked outside on my way back to Carlisle, I passed the door to the kitchen. It was open. I recognized the cook. He and his wife were manning the woks. I stopped and called in that I was very happy to see they were back. They both smiled broadly and were gracious in their thanks.

Walking back up Carlisle to catch the 11, I realized if it hadn’t been for the Summerfest detour, I would have never found this reincarnation of Thai Ginger, now called Salathai.

And it’s less than a hundred yards from the Nob Hill station. What more could a Thai-food-loving busboy ask for?

2010-08-15T05:00:00.006-06:00

BUS STORY # 197 (Romo)

Thrive., originally uploaded by busboy4.

He scoots down a few seats until he’s sitting just across from where I’m sitting and reading.

“How’re you doin’?”

I look up at the question and see him reaching out to shake my hand.

He’s a young guy, early 20s, short hair, not bad looking. Brand new shiny white Dallas Cowboys jersey and oversize blue jeans shorts. Script I can’t read tattooed across the right side of his neck, and large gothic letters I can’t decipher running down each forearm.

I shake his hand.

“What’re you reading?”

I show him my New Yorker.

“You from New York?”

“No.” I pause, then add, “I have a daughter who lives there.”

“You from New Mexico, then?”

“For the last 30 years,” I answer.

“You like it here?”

“Sure do.” I pause again, then ask, “How about you?”

“Born and raised here.”

“Ever been out of the state?”

“I been west, but not south.”

“South” surprises me. I was expecting “east.”

“How far’ve you been?” I ask.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘how far.’”

That one also throws me a bit.

“I was thinking ‘miles.’”

He nods, says nothing.

“Seen the ocean?” I ask.

“Yup. California.”

Neither of us says anything for a minute or two. I’m wondering how it is that, of all the folks on the bus, I’m the one he’s decided to talk to. I’m an old white guy in office clothes -- the only old white guy in office clothes. All around us, the riders are listening in with studied indifference and feeling relieved he picked me and not them to talk to.

He starts up. “I like travelin’ -- North Carolina, South, Michigan . . .”

“You ever been to any of those places?”

“Michigan. Lots of times. I got family there.”

“Whereabouts in Michigan?”

“Lansing.”

“Cold winters there,” I tell him. “You ever been there in the winter?”

“Yeah, lots of times. You get into the swamp and pick berries.”

While I’m processing this one, he says, “I really wanna go to Ireland.”

“Ireland? Why Ireland?”

“Cuz it’s green, man. Really green.”

He pulls the cord.

“Michigan’s green,” I counter.

“I just gotta get out of here, get on the road. I like takin’ the road, seeing where it’ll take me without any money.”

Suddenly he calls out to the driver. “It’s the next stop. Sorry.”

“You’re tired of Albuquerque?” I ask.

“Everywhere I go here, nothin’ but trouble. I gotta get outa here.”

There’s another pause, and then he resumes.

“I’m tryin’ to get my life back together again. I’m gonna start classes at CNM.”

“What are you gonna study?”

“Veterinarian. Then I’m outa here.”

Once again, he calls out to the driver. “Sorry, driver, it’s the next stop after this. The one by the library. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. I shake mine, too, on the inside. He’s getting off just as this bus story is getting under way.

I look forward, wondering if the driver is irritated. Instead, I see the driver looking back at us in the mirror and saying, “It’s all right.”

When we get to the library, he says, “Nice talkin’ to you,” and puts out a fist. We bump.

I watch him exit, and catch the name on the back of his jersey: ROMO. Out in the sunlight, that jersey is as bright as white can ever hope to be.

2010-08-08T05:00:00.002-06:00

BUS STORY # 196 (The Good Driver)

Kamdyn The Bus Driver, originally uploaded by TotalPhoto (Leon).

Lilly* has just paid her fare and wished the driver a good morning. And he’s just wished her a good morning back. And that is all it takes.

Lilly’s facing the rest of us when she announces, “Ooh-whee! We got the good driver this mornin’!”

She doesn’t let taking a seat stop her from going on about how much better today’s driver is than that other old grumpy guy. Ain’t no way to start a morning with all that grumpiness, no sir. You need to start the day right and it’ll carry you all through your day.

She has found a kindred soul in the seat just in front of her. He adds she’s right about that. You start your day with a smile, and you’ll be smilin’ all day. But you start your day with a grumpy old frown and that’s the way your whole day will be.

Lilly says if you start your day grumpy, you’ll make everybody you meet grumpy.

The two of them keep escalating the call and response until the guy says you’ll end up so grumpy your dog’ll bite you when you come home. Lilly cackles at this one.

My seatmate looks at me and says, “Well, it’s Friday.”

Meanwhile, the driver looks at the woman sitting across the aisle and asks her if she knows who the grumpy guy is. She has no idea. All she knows is he’s the good driver.
__________

Real name changed.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Kamdyn The Bus Driver” and is posted with the kind permission of TotalPhoto (Leon). You can see this and all TotalPhoto (Leon)’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/totalphoto/4437172052/

2010-08-01T05:00:00.004-06:00

BUS STORY # 195 (Portrait # 8: Dancer)

Happy Feet!, originally uploaded by busboy4.

He’s hand dancing in the empty space by the middle exit door.

Wiry but well-muscled guy with a black tank top and a Dallas Cowboys star tattooed all over his right neck. Requisite cube of glass in each earlobe, and earpieces wired to an iPod somewhere below my line of vision.

Black leather fingerless gloves on both hands, looking elaborately laced, and making it easy to follow the amazingly fluid, ever inventive patterns of hand dancing to an inaudible sound track.

Mesmerizing.

His eyes are closed. Sometimes his lips move, but just a little, and not for long. His expression is pretty much unchanging. No facial air guitar histrionics, just a mellow into-it look while his hands do all the emoting.

At each stop, his eyes open and his hands drop, and he steps out of the way. After everyone has exited at his door, he steps back into the space and begins again.

Then his hands disappear. I can see his head bouncing up and down, and I realize he's dancing with his feet now. I lean out into the aisle and catch a glimpse of black sneakers moving in place.

I have no idea what he’s listening to, no idea what music of the spheres has freed him from the mundane world on this particular morning, but I do know whatever it is has pulled me away from my mundane world as well.

2010-07-25T05:00:00.008-06:00

BUS STORY # 194 (The Correction)

U-Turn? No Way., originally uploaded by clive.flint.

The Red Line is heading for Louisiana. It’s probably three-quarters full, and a lot of folks usually get off at the Louisiana stop.

Some of those riders realize the driver is not getting over toward the turn lane in what would be called a timely manner. Several of them stand up in their seats.

When the bus rolls through the intersection in the outside lane, they’re in the aisles and calling out what’s going on, where’re you going, and so forth.

We pull into the old stop in front of Ta Lin. A few seconds later, the driver, a young, easy-going Latino guy who is clearly laughing at himself, says into the mike, “Sorry, folks. The last time I drove this route, we stopped here and turned north on Wyoming.” He assures everyone he’ll get us back to Louisiana.

He waits until the traffic is clear, then pulls across the lanes to an inside left turn lane to the second street past Louisiana. It’s a small street, and I’m thinking he’s going to make a box – left turn at this intersection, right turn at the next, turn right at the next, and a right back onto Central going west, then a right on Louisiana.

But he’s got a different idea. After that left turn off Louisiana, he sees a parking lot entrance on the right, pulls into the entrance, then makes a hard left. He’s gonna try and turn around right here in the street!

Fat chance, I think.

And sure enough, it looks like he’s not gonna make it, and it looks like he’s not gonna be able to back up and straighten out, either. The other riders are thinking the same thing.

He stops, then inches forward, then inches forward a little more, then a little more, and then – a big bump. There’s a collective “Whoa!” from all over the bus before we realize he’s up on the sidewalk. But dang if he doesn’t get the thing all the way around.

We get a thump when the wheel drops back off the sidewalk.

As the bus heads back to Louisiana, the driver comes back on the mike.

“That, folks, is a Chicano U-Turn.”

Even the stern-faced security guard laughs at this one.
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “U-Turn? No Way” and is posted with the kind permission of clive.flint. You can see this and all clive.flint’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliveflint/3404092773/

2010-07-18T05:00:00.009-06:00

BUS STORY # 193 (People Don’t Want To Wait For Nobody)

Turning car, originally uploaded by ngawangchodron.

When the driver opens the front door to let on a rider, he takes one look and asks, “What happened to you?”

A woman’s voice answers, “I got hit by a car!”

She boards carrying a purse and a blind cane. She’s wearing shorts, and she shows the driver a laceration under her right knee. There’s also a bandage winding down from under the shorts.

The driver asks her where it happened.

The intersection of Central and Rio Grande. She was in the crosswalk when the next thing she knew she was looking up at the sky and there was a lot of shouting. Pretty soon, one or two folks are bending over her asking if she’s all right. She says the only thing she could think to ask was “Am I alive?”

The driver asks if she saw it coming.

“Honey, you know I can’t see anything to my right.” She hoists the cane to remind him. “I’ll tell you what’s funny,” she says, “he said he didn’t see me!”

She goes on to tell how this old man, he looked like he was 70, he was trying to bend over her and was all wobbly on his cane, and asking if she was OK, and then telling her he didn’t see her. She says she figured he was closer to death than she was, and she didn’t want to say anything that’d make him keel over on top of her.

But afterwards, she adds, people told her he was just trying to beat her through the crosswalk so he wouldn’t be stuck at the light.

The driver asks her what the cops said.

Honey, they didn’t talk to her. Not even in the emergency room. But she’s got a lawyer, and she can hardly wait to see what that police report says.

As it turns out, she may not know whether the report is accurate or not. She tells the driver she doesn’t remember anything other than walking across the street, then looking up at the sky.

Another rider asks her if she was in the crosswalk at the right time.

She says she always crosses with the signal. It’s too risky not to.

There follows a general discussion of intersections in general, and how unsafe they are. There is general agreement that drivers have a low tolerance for pedestrians crossing the street and holding them up.

Our co-rider probably has it right when she sums up the conversation.

“People don’t want to wait for nobody.”
__________

The photo at the top of this story is titled “Turning car” and is posted with the kind permission of ngawangchodron. You can see this and all ngawangchodron’s photos on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngawangchodron/4299935636/

2010-07-11T05:00:00.017-06:00

BUS STORY # 192 (Flirting)

Red Line at Uptown, originally uploaded by busboy4.

I’m on the Red Line after leaving work. But I’m not getting off at Louisiana to catch the 11 home. I’m going on to Uptown where I have a rendezvous at McAlister’s Deli, a chain restaurant in an outdoors mall of chain stores, less than a hundred yards from the bus stop.

Over the last decade or so, I have become a poor frequenter of malls. And when I eat out, which is not often, I prefer local places, preferably on Fridays after work or during the weekend.

On this work night, I’d rather be going home where I’d be getting into some comfortable clothes and making myself a big salad or, if my wife was home, sitting down to a home-cooked dinner with her.

But my wife isn’t home. I’ve gotten myself involved in a little flirtation, and am headed for Uptown and a rendezvous at McAlister’s instead.

That’s how it is with flirting. The next thing you know, you’re doing something other than the thing you’d normally be more comfortable doing and you’re weighing the trade-offs.

When we were younger and much less married, flirting usually meant staying in rather than going out. But we’re both old enough and have been married long enough that we save the flirting for the not-sure thing.

My wife loves eating out and she loves the chain restaurants. But she also likes eating out with me. So we have settled into a once-a-weekend routine alternating her favorites with my favorites.

It is not the weekend, however, and we ate out at one of her favorites last Saturday. This is what happens when you start flirting around.

As much as she loves eating out, she hates computers. She did not believe in instruments of the devil until computers entered her life both at work and at home. (She also believes they will be the end of civilization as we know it, but that’s another story.)

Having one at home eventually lured her into the wonderful conveniences of email, sharing photos of the grandkids, and Google. But we have a cranky old PC that takes tinkering and forbearance – skills my wife has cultivated for her relationship with her husband but not her computer.

So last month, she went to Uptown and the Apple store where she bought herself a brand new MacBook Pro. She also signed up for classes to learn how to use it.

I’m proud of her. And I’ve made a point of letting her know it.

Of course, I have my own hidden agenda here. I want her to be a happy, competent user of her laptop so there will be less competition for the seat at the PC, and so I won’t have to stop what I’m doing to troubleshoot whatever isn’t working the way she expects it to.

So you might say I started it.

Her first class is today, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

The night before, she asked me would I like to meet her after class.

“How would you like to . . . ” “What would you think about . . . ” “How about we . . .” Well, those are as unmistakable as a certain lilt in the voice, a certain arching of the eyebrows, a certain little smile. And, hey, doesn’t “meet me after class” make an old guy feel younger?

We could, she went on, go eat somewhere that has Wi-Fi and she could show me everything she’d learned. It would be a great review for her while it was still fresh, and I’d get to see all the neat things I could be doing if I ever wanted to borrow it . . .

She’s good, isn’t she?

But it’s not like I haven’t done the same thing myself. “How’d you like to go to a concert with me Sunday afternoon? We could walk over to La Provence for dinner afterwards.” And she did. Of course, the package included a piece by a 20th century composer she is not fond of. Oh, and taking the bus from the Park and Ride. But I think she thought it was worth the trade-off.

2010-07-04T05:00:00.005-06:00

BUS STORY # 191 (Shorts 15)

New Flyer and Old Flyer, originally uploaded by busboy4.

It’s still before sunrise, and there are three of us at the bus stop on the northeast corner of Lomas and Juan Tabo when the fireworks start. They’re coming off the electric wires running overhead. One guy asks if it was the birds. I hadn’t seen any on the wire, but I had seen several pigeons flying off from somewhere during the display. I scan the intersection for fried pigeons. Nothing there. I pull out my cell and dial 311. The operator puts me in touch with PNM Emergency. I tell my story. “It looks like the Fourth of July,” I add. “I’ll bet,” she says. Then she tells me they’ve already dispatched a crew to the area. The streetlights go out shortly afterwards, but I’m giving that to the approaching daylight.

***

The girl in front of me is holding a cell phone to her right ear. She’s listening to something hip-hop. So are the rest of us. I’m wondering if listening to a song on your cell is the most cost-effective way to get your musical entertainment. The driver calls out to turn that radio down, he can hear it all the way up there. She snaps the phone shut and puts it into a pocket.

***

I hear chamber music coming from what sounds like a transistor radio. It’s moving down the aisle and I realize it’s a ringtone. I look up to see a high school girl pulling her phone from a pocket in her backpack as she’s moving to the back of the bus. Dark sweatshirt, blue jeans, big gold hoop earrings. The music cuts off. “Wha’chew want,” she says to the cell. Chamber music!

***

I look up from my magazine to get my bearings. Then I look around me. There are five of us up on the platform. All but one of us is reading. Across from me is a couple reading from their bibles. The man has a worn leather volume and looks to be in the vicinity of Isaiah. He is following his finger and moving his lips. His wife has a well-thumbed paperback bible and looks like she’s smack dab in the middle of what some call the Pentateuch, some the Torah. To their right, a young man is reading a library book. I try and fail to get even a glimpse of the title. To his right a guy is holding his right hand out and furling and unfurling his fingers, one at a time, over and over again. His lips move with each unfurling. Not an iPod among us.