Haven't posted in a while. Bus has been relatively uneventful. Plus i have been busy with other things.

Week of 11/5 - Present

So i have decided to cut back on my blogging since I have started another job writing for an online journal. I will most likely blog weekly here.

I am actually just finishing up my first article for the journal. I will blog more about this in the future. The focus of this blog today is on last weeks transportation ventures.

The week was relatively uneventful. Eastbound were mellow with many of the same kids and adults making their way to school and work. For some reason the Westbound were standing room only twice. I stood at the front of the bus when i got on and observed a young Hispanic couple board the bus with their son. He was maybe 5 and the young couple stood while the boy sat with a Motorola xoom and commenced to manipulate a game of sorts on the tablet. It made me think of my 4 year old daughter who has been manipulating my iphone since she was 3 and figured out what it was. Amazing really.

On another evening homeward bound a very young Black couple got on the bus with a little tyke who was probably one and very unhappy. I was standing in the front again and watching this very inexperienced couple try and deal with a very you child who was upset. The mom kept telling the passive dad to hold the baby and he did but the little one squirmed and was frustrated so the dad would pass him back to the mom.

this went on for a few stops and i saw some people getting frustrated.

 i don't normally take action, but decided what the heck. I look over at the child and made a couple of silly faces, which caught his attention. After a few back and forth with faces and smiles and such, others around him seemed less frustrated. Also, the little one figured out quickly that when he smiled and giggled people around him copied. It was maybe 2 minutes into the whole situation that he figured out he was the center of attention. No more crying and less stressed parents. Mission accomplishment.

On Friday  i took the bus early in the morning for a doctor appointment. After my appointment i hit up Panera and then road back to town to meet my wife for some xmass shopping. I actually took the smaller transit when i got to town. I was not impressed by the smaller bus system. they call it the red or blue line depending on where you want to go. I took the blue line before, but this was the first time i took the  red line. The bus was half the size of a regular bus and was fitted with older seats like a shuttle bus. The bus driver was 15 minutes late and there was no place i could swipe my pass. I asked the bus driver about it and she said, "just let me see the pass.We're not that sophisticated here". There was a jar like attachment that people put money in, which seemed very primitive. 

The town is relatively small, but not that small sporting about 130K people. However, they support that sleepy town mentality and the buses do not go past about 7:00pm which sucks for us working folk who could use transportation at about that time.  

Life in the fast lane......

Week of 11/28/2011

11/28-present

The week started off uneventful. I got a ride Monday morning but took the bus home that evening. Everything was normal Tuesday and Wednesday morning. People were getting on and off the bus like drones. The same people getting to the same places day by day.

I did catch my fellow marine on the ride home Tuesday evening and we talked a bit and swapped some stories.

Wednesday evening was a little different. I was waiting for the Westbound and low and behold the guy who was on drugs and racist showed up again. He was walking with a cane (barely) and I could tell he was lit like a candle. He almost fell to the ground when he tried to sit down but somehow miraculously did not. He was sitting there swaying and mumbling something I could not make out. Then he looked at me and said something which I could not make out. I thought he was asking me for money and almost gave him my standard reply (I don’t give out money). Instead, I said “excuse me?” And the man replied a little more wide eyed “you got any food?” I immediately went down on one knee and said “sure”. I had a small bag of pretzels with peanut butter in them and another small bag of trail mix. I asked the man which one he wanted or if he wanted them both. He told me he had to take the pretzels because he did not have very many teeth so I gave them to him and he thanked me.

I never hesitate when people are hungry. I will not give people money, but I will buy them or give them food if they ask.

The next morning I got on the bus and a bus driver I had never seen before was driving. He was a large Caucasian bald man with an old school ZZ top red/yellow beard with no mustache. I shot him a good morning and he acknowledged with “how’s it going?”

The tall mentally ill man that I see sometimes on the bus was behind me getting on the bus. He sat in the front and started to ramble about how something was a “waste of nail polish”. A couple of stops up the bus driver (who was flying down the street) halted at a stop for a few minutes most likely he was ahead of schedule. As we sat there the mentally ill tall man got off the bus and grabbed a jacket that did not seem to belong to anyone and was placed on a trash can. He then got back on the bus and stared at the jacket for a while. Wonder what was going on in that head.

The bus was relatively empty as I sat in the back and listened to morning news. I arrived at work 20 minutes early unscathed.