Campfyre Stories

I have often lamented, though perhaps not on the blog, the strange pseudo-community of the bus.  While I ride the same route every day, and see the same faces every day, I don’t really know these people, not even to say hello.  Few people exchange names or even pleasantries and the only reason I can come up with is because we’re tired going into work before we’ve had coffee or we’re burnt out going home.

In all my years of riding buses, I can count on one hand the number of people that I’ve connected with on the bus, which is always odd to me because even though riding the same bus is not really enough in common to connect, with at least some of these people, there must be some other connection there to be forged.  Rarely, though, do I find the right opening to even find the common ground.  People squished together in a shared annoyance often seem to want to pretend they are not trapped (ish) in a big metal can with a bunch of other people.

So I wish a little, maybe, that there were a couple of people that I could connect with, that there would be someone to talk to to make the hour-long trip go by a little faster.  I can take some comfort from the fact that there are a couple of cute guys who ride the bus, and they are something to look at when it’s too dark to see out the window, anyway, and maybe someone to play the "looking at you, I’m not looking at you" game with.

But as I said when I started this little ramble, I see the same faces every day.  I know where they get off, I know where many get on - even if it’s as vague as "somewhere before I do".  So when I saw the sunglasses (unique ones, I’ve only ever seen the one pair in that style) left on the bus after the second-to-last stop on the route, I knew exactly to whom they belonged.

And he’s pretty cute.

So, of course, I picked them up to give to him.  I’m sorry, but if you don’t have a car, then getting down to the bus depot to check the lost and found is obnoxious.  I know I see this guy every morning and many afternoons, seems like it’s a whole lot easier on him for me to just give them to him.  Also, cute guy, good opening to conversation.

Only…  it didn’t work…  I guess.  Because there wasn’t any conversation. I mean, yeah, he thanked me and there was a bit of mindless chat for about a second, but that was really it and I was a little dejected and disappointed only because I didn’t get that person to converse with out of the deal.  But, what are you going to do, right?

But then, this morning when I got on the bus, there was only one seat free, next to this same sunglasses guy.  Since he sits on the outside seat, I had to ask if I could sit down which he said was the "least I can do after you returned my sunglasses".  This time we actually did start talking, about how we see the same people every day and it’s almost like we know them, but then we realize we really don’t, and how it’s nice to know the people you spend that amount of time with…  even if you don’t really know them.

"On that note…" I started in reply and we introduced ourselves at the same time. 

I think there’s some measure of craving that the more social of us have.  When we’re surrounded by people, we feel this push, this drive to connect with them, to learn about them, maybe for them to learn about us.  We want to make an impact, we want to make a difference, even if it’s a small one, in someone’s life.  Just to have the conversation this morning where someone else lists off all the same things that I’ve been feeling about recognizing the faces and knowing that we all have this one small thing in common…  it feels good, you know?  To know that other people have that same frustration in what has the potential to be an incredibly social situation.

People have always expressed surprise to me about how many people I meet on the bus and how many friends I have made (though, again, I can count them on one hand, and they tend to be rather short-lived).  For me, though, the consistent surprise comes not when I meet people, not when I make friends there, but when I don’t.

A little old lady rides every Thursday morning.  She’s very chatty and very friendly and rather invasive.  Until yesterday, I had managed to avoid being cornered.  At 7am, I still just want to be left alone.  I’m not awake yet and I don’t have the energy to deal with pretty much anything.

But she got me.  And started talking my ear off.  Upon finding out where I worked, she started telling me stories about when she worked there, starting during WWII.  She had been working at Woolworth’s when she found out how much [company] paid the other girls, so she and her friend went straight over and applied.  What was surprising, she explained, was that they kept her on after the men came home and most of the women were laid off.  A situation she attributes to her Regent’s diploma from a parochial school.  She worked there for 37 years before she retired.

She kept telling me "Anything they can do, you can do better," which I don’t think is accurate.  I mean, yes, there are things I can do better than some, there are things I can do better than most, but, for the most part, whatever my peers are doing, I can do as well.  I don’t want to inflate my perception of my abilities, certainly not based on gender.

"Uncle Sam needs you," she said repeatedly.  Which I suppose is just a generational thing.  That’s why she started working in the first place, because Uncle Sam needed her and the rest of the young women to step up and continue what Our Boys overseas could no longer do because of their deployment, but in the 21st century, it’s kind of an outmoded concept.  The first 3 or 4 times I shrugged it off, but as she continued to repeat the phrase, it started to get rather annoying.

But I think that the overall experience outweighed the annoyance of her overused catch phrases.  This woman had been made into a feminist by the War Effort and her introduction to the working world.  This 70+ y/o woman who had, between her work and her husbands, more than enough money to retire comfortably ("Pa is rich and Ma don’t care") was still working a few days a week in a salon, just to keep herself busy.  She was a real working woman.  She hadn’t had children, not because she couldn’t, just because…  "Well, I guess we just never got around to it."  But coming from a Catholic family, she has a wide array of (great/grand) neices and nephews and they are all close.

I don’t know that I’ve ever met a woman as feminist as she, considering her age and generation.  It occured to me that this is the type of woman that needs to be considered a fore-mother of the feminist movement.  She didn’t make a fuss, she didn’t have to be militant, she simply insisted on doing a good job in a male-dominated location/field.  She did her job better than the men in order to prove herself.

Though it bears the same name, the multi-national conglomerate that I work for is not the same company that she worked for all those years ago.  The culture is much more progressed and women have a decent (if not specifically *equal*) foothold, at least in the divisions where I’ve worked.  But the world has changed a lot since she retired, and I can’t expect her to understand how different the experience of a woman today is from a woman in the 40’s.

And, you know, I don’t think I’d ever get the chance to ask her, but I bet that this lady was one of the women chanting, holding up signs and burning her bra in the 60’s and 70’s, working to make it so that I could have the job I do without having to fight nearly as hard and she and her peers did.

The radio station that I listen to doesn’t do a lot of talk, which is why I listen to it in the morning…  Especially mornings like today.  I don’t want to listen to yelling or callers or even controversy before I’ve had my first cup of coffee.

So I rode into work, dozing in the back of the bus, listening to radio.  I know what day it is and, honestly, I don’t know that I’m ready to write about what happened 6 years ago.  I don’t want to get controversial and political because, for me, 9/11 marked a forced growing up for my son.  And those memories, I’m not ready to share yet.

The DJ didn’t say anything about it being 9/11, he just played the music…  and then he played Tears in Heaven with spliced-in sound bites from the day of the attacks.  It was chilling.  Newscasters, witnesses, family members all spliced in with this heartbreaking song about the worst kind of love and loss.  The last line was George W. Bush stating that we were going to go out there and get the ones who did this to us.

And then he played Peace Train.

And I nearly cried.  And I still mist up a little writing about it.  I think it was possibly the most fitting 9/11 tribute I have ever heard, and no one had to say a word…

Earlier this month, I had a horrible experience with the local bus company.  I called repeatedly and even sent an email in complaint over this specific incident.  It’s not that I even mind the 1.5-2 mile walk into work, but I mind when I have done nothing wrong. 

In fact, just this weekend, I received a reply in the mail.  It essentially said "We’re sorry that you have problems with buses running on schedule and we will add additional time checks to all our buses that run that route."  Which was not my issue.  My issue was that when running late, this last bus that takes me (and usually only me) where I need to go, completely skipped over the part of the route where I catch the bus and also that the company had essentially lied to me about what my options were.

So this morning, when I found myself running 2-3 minutes late, when the bus didn’t come, I assumed it was my own fault and resigned myself to walking into work.  The entire situation was down to my inability to leave the house on time.  When the bus actually came, I was stunned.

Apparently, a woman had had a seizure on the bus and delayed the route by a little over 20 minutes, however, due to my diligence in complaining, they came and picked me up.  In fact, because she was running so late and trying to pick up some time, the bus passed by several stops, pointing to the next bus coming behind her, but now that they know that I rely on that route, and take it every day, they’re stopping to get me, even when running late.

A minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.  I’ll take it.