Buses

     As of last week Brooklyn city buses have a glass partition around the bus driver. I hope the glass is shatterproof. Its a little scary looking. Perhaps there have been a lot of attacks on bus drivers lately. I guess this will help protect the bus drivers.
     The single most scary thing that happens on  a New York City public bus is when a wheel chair passenger comes on board. The driver stops the bus and gets up out of his seat

to help the wheel chair passenger onto the bus. I am always afraid that the bus is going to be hijacked by another passenger while the bus driver is helping out the wheel chair person. I am not sure that a protective glass partition will protect against a hijacking while the bus driver is not in his seat and helping the wheel chair person.

bus stop mayhem

this afternoon i was waiting for the bus and there was a long red light. the bus driver was still halfway down the block but he decided to let the people who wanted to get off at that stop off before he got to the actual bus stop. at some point he kept motioning to the twenty or so people waiting at the bus stop  to get on the bus . the bus was quite far from the bus stop and between the residual snow and ice and the access a ride bus that was parked on the side of the street next to the bus all of the people remained at the bus stop. not one person went to get on the bus. we figured he was going to pull up the next few feet and pick us up at the bus stop. the joke was on us. the bus driver was so angry that he drove right past the bus stop where everyone was waiting. what a heel. what was he in a hurry for anyway? i can understand why a taxi driver wants to drive quickly. the quicker he drives to his destination the more people he can drive each day and the more money he can earn. a bus driver is just driving that same route. what's the rush?
i ended up just walking home after waiting about five more minutes for another bus that never arrived.. no bus passed me by as i was walking home on the bus route either.

now i really understand why they had to raise the transit fares. (not) .
i wonder if this episode would have occurred in another city or if its just a ny thing.
p.s. i realize that this is a summer photo but i really liked this bus photo so i posted it anyway.

dedicated to my bus boyfriend...

they say some people have work boyfriends .( or actually i think they call them work husbands) well i had a bus boyfriend. what is a bus boyfriend you ask? i will tell you....

i live close enough to the subway to walk, but there is a bus that i can take to the train if i so desire. sometimes i take the bus . sometimes i walk. there used to be a mentally retarded man who would ride the bus at that time of the day. he would always give me a big greeting when i would get on the bus and get the bus driver to wait for me if he would see me running to catch the bus. he was even jewish. of course it was hard to avoid the fact that he was mentally disabled. he used to try to wake anyone who was resting their eyes in the morning on the bus. why didn't they just go to sleep a little earlier so they would be more awake? he would say. or he would ask me if i would sit in the front row at his camp production . sometimes he would talk about his roommates at the group home and his counselors.

still in all, he was nice looking and about my age. i kept thinking how it was too bad that he was mentally retarded. at times he rated as the kindest guy in my life for those few years that he rode the bus with me. eventually he moved and stopped taking the bus. sometimes i see him walking to the train and he greets me like a long lost friend.

some people who find out they are going to have a mentally retarded child decide to abort them. and im embarrassed to admit that i would prefer not to have any kids than to have a mentally retarded child. however, after getting to know my bus boyfriend i have grown to appreciate the value of a mentally retarded individual. they may never be of normal intelligence, but they are capable of bringing joy to the world in their own special way.

window into the past

elderly people who are still all there are the coolest people to spend time with. when you look around their living space you see ancient photos that seem current to them and furniture that to a younger person only exist in the movies or a thrift shop. you also get a window into the past. history books cant give you what an elderly person can. a book can tell the facts and even about how people may have been effected by these facts, but a book can only be read. you can ask an elderly person questions . they may not always remember, but when they do its amazing.

years ago when my great uncle was still alive he told me about how when he was small there were only horse and buggies. he also said that there used to be a stone in front of homes and stores . there was a large gap between the ground and the carriage. the men could easily jump down , but the women in their dresses could not do so gracefully . this is where the stone comes in. the women would step onto the stone and then onto the ground. it was much more graceful this way. he also said that years after horse and buggies were just a memory these stones remained. after awhile people didnt even remember why they were there in the first place.

after cars were invented one always knew when it was a good year economically when one looked in the driveway at the university and there were many cars parked there. (this of course was outside of new york. )

my great uncle also described the thrill of riding on a train for the first time. there werent even any seats, but for him it was just so exciting to travel city to city in such a modern mode of transportation.

my great uncle also lived years before window screens were invented. he said it was awful when one rode on a bus. all the bugs would fly in your face. not a great visual indeed. it was something i had never thought of . i thought window screens had been around forever. who knew?

i could have read all about these events in a book, but these facts on their own may not have actually interested me. knowing someone who had experienced such events made them seem less of a fairytale and more plausible. my great uncle not only knew about these things, he lived them.

there are so many nuggets elderly people carry within them. we must help them pass them on to us before they arent able to pass them on anymore.

truth is stranger than fiction

yesterday i was on the b9 bus and a muslim woman wearing a hijib was standing. a young teenage yeshiva bachur was sitting in the aisle seat of a two seater seat. a middle-aged yeshivish man called out to the boy and said to move over so the muslim woman could sit. at first the muslim woman refused the gesture. upon much coaxing from the middle-aged yeshivish man, the youngster moved over and the muslim woman sat down next to him.

ive NEVER seen anything like this happen before.