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49°
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Friday
March 2010
12
Community Blogs
STRANGE BUSiness
The young man was seated opposite me near the front of the bus. I knew and liked his parents; I try to avoid their son. He always asks me for money; I always refuse to donate to his alcohol fund.
“Mrs. Rosenblatt, how are you?” he yells across the aisle. He slurs the words.
“Okay. How are you?”
“Mrs. Rosenblatt, I’m lonely. I miss my father.” His father was a special man, generous, warm.
“I miss him too.”
“He was a wonderful man. He said he’d come back, but he hasn’t.” He means come back from the dead. His father died several years ago. “There was only one problem with my father, he liked all the girls I went out with.”
“Better than having him hate all the girls you went out with,” I replied, then turned to look out the window.
A man sitting next to me called across the aisle to him. “Are you on the way to an AA meeting?”
“They’re not there anymore,” came the slurred reply, and they continued the conversation about AA, then coffee houses. Good, I thought, I’m glad he has someone to talk to. I’m sorry it can’t be me. I don’t want to hear him rant against his mother, or his father. He doesn’t want to hear me tell him to get help. Alcohol is not the right medication for mental illness. I got off the bus feeling sad.
Last week an older acquaintance, well, a little older than I am, noticed me as she was about to get off the bus and said, “Oh, hello, let me give you a hug.” She bent over and did just that, then disappeared out the door, and I thought, how sweet of her. I got off the bus feeling glad.
A few days ago the number 15 had to wait as fire engines wailed down Brady Street. The woman seated behind me said to her husband, “Did I leave anything on the stove?” I smiled, for I was asking myself a similar question. Made me wonder how many of the passengers had the same reaction, made me think about how alike we all are.
When we’re in a foreign country sometimes Adolph and I get on a bus, any bus, and take it to the end of the line, get an unplanned view of wherever we are. Every bus ride is an adventure.
When I board the bus on Oakland Avenue, I know what buildings we’ll pass. That’s all I can predict. The sky, the traffic, the people, all make the ride what it is, a conglomeration of unplanned views.
Tags: buses : quirks
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