![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Notes from the Bus
Sep. 2nd, 2005 09:21 amSchool is back in session. Oakland public schools returned to class on August 29th. This means my morning commute is a tad 'crowded' lets say. I find myself getting up a little earlier in order to miss some of the morning's human traffic. Gone are the days you saw fleets of big yellow buses (or for some of us, the short yellow bus for the 'special kids. Yes, I was a "window licker" for a year--another story for another time.) School districts so desperately strapped for cash can no longer afford to purchase and maintain fleets, much less pay for drivers, and leasing a service to do it for you is nearly unheard of. The City provides a 600 series of buses as a public transit school bus. They run to the majority of high schools and junior highs in the city. Still, there is always that core contingent of kids who wouldn't be caught dead on a school bus. And they wait for the regular service bus as a point of pride. I have to smile...I was like that too after a certain age.
My young man is back. I saw him yesterday, that tosseled sandy blond hair. He's grown over the summer--inches taller. This year, at least currently, he was dressed in crisp khakis and a new shirt. I remember watching him all last winter, catching the bus in a t-shirt and no jacket or coat. He looked worn down but determined. Creative, nervous, his freshman year at the new Arts-Magnate school downtown. What a difference a year makes. He looks more self-assured. He's a sophomore now. He glanced at me and I smiled. He blushed. I was wearing a low cut shirt and I have no doubt he feels a bit awkward around me.
There is an older man who is often seated on the bus when I get on. He's a bit 'slow', developmentally challenged. I don't know his name, but I have sat quietly near him many, many mornings. He gets off when I do and transfers to the same connecting bus I do. We then get off again, together, at the same stop. He is a man whose life is defined by routine and consistent habit. One of them is three strong tugs on the rope for his stop. I always let him pull the rope, because I notice that if someone else does, and the notice bell *BINGS* he still pulls the rope, strongly, three times. Then he gets confused because he doesn't hear the responding bing. "Fairmont please, Fairmont please.." his voice betrays a sense of confusion and anxiety that the driver won't stop, because the rope and the BING didn't work. When that happens I will speak to him quietly. "The light is on...don't worry the driver knows to stop." He'll sit back, looking no less anxious really "Oh, okay." We get off, I turn right, he goes straight. I never know where he goes to.
She's sorta short, dresses urban drab, and has a hair style that can only be described as 'hacked at with dull, rusty sheers'. It's also bright red over blonde. Well, bright red for about 3 days then it waters down to an uneven dye job. She travels with a young boy who appears to be 8 or 9 years old. What impresses me most is every morning, they sit down and read together. Sometimes he reads out loud, sometimes she reads out loud. They do not get off at my stop and for a year, I've never known where they head to. Three weeks ago, I found out. I was sitting in the lobby of Planned Parenthood when she arrived at the door in a white clinic coat, dullish red hair, doc martins and called out a patient's name. She is Loralie and she is a nurses assistant, single mother, advocate, urban woman.
I'm impressed and...I'm now out of time for contemplation.
My young man is back. I saw him yesterday, that tosseled sandy blond hair. He's grown over the summer--inches taller. This year, at least currently, he was dressed in crisp khakis and a new shirt. I remember watching him all last winter, catching the bus in a t-shirt and no jacket or coat. He looked worn down but determined. Creative, nervous, his freshman year at the new Arts-Magnate school downtown. What a difference a year makes. He looks more self-assured. He's a sophomore now. He glanced at me and I smiled. He blushed. I was wearing a low cut shirt and I have no doubt he feels a bit awkward around me.
There is an older man who is often seated on the bus when I get on. He's a bit 'slow', developmentally challenged. I don't know his name, but I have sat quietly near him many, many mornings. He gets off when I do and transfers to the same connecting bus I do. We then get off again, together, at the same stop. He is a man whose life is defined by routine and consistent habit. One of them is three strong tugs on the rope for his stop. I always let him pull the rope, because I notice that if someone else does, and the notice bell *BINGS* he still pulls the rope, strongly, three times. Then he gets confused because he doesn't hear the responding bing. "Fairmont please, Fairmont please.." his voice betrays a sense of confusion and anxiety that the driver won't stop, because the rope and the BING didn't work. When that happens I will speak to him quietly. "The light is on...don't worry the driver knows to stop." He'll sit back, looking no less anxious really "Oh, okay." We get off, I turn right, he goes straight. I never know where he goes to.
She's sorta short, dresses urban drab, and has a hair style that can only be described as 'hacked at with dull, rusty sheers'. It's also bright red over blonde. Well, bright red for about 3 days then it waters down to an uneven dye job. She travels with a young boy who appears to be 8 or 9 years old. What impresses me most is every morning, they sit down and read together. Sometimes he reads out loud, sometimes she reads out loud. They do not get off at my stop and for a year, I've never known where they head to. Three weeks ago, I found out. I was sitting in the lobby of Planned Parenthood when she arrived at the door in a white clinic coat, dullish red hair, doc martins and called out a patient's name. She is Loralie and she is a nurses assistant, single mother, advocate, urban woman.
I'm impressed and...I'm now out of time for contemplation.
