I rode a bus a lot back in my Lincoln days. Went downtown as a kid to swim lessons at the YWCA and to the public library, or to the dentist. Did my Christmas shopping at Woolworths and the department stores after a ride downtown, where all the lights are bright* . I rode a city bus home from high school via the VA hospital and the mall. Commuted to the university, and learned it was possible to walk the six miles to campus carrying a large, heavy bookbag if I missed the bus.
On a cosmic level, I learned the bus never arrives until you give up and accept that you missed it. The whole privacy concept on public transport is a topic open for discussion. You ride along putting your energy into creating the repellent force field so you don't have to interact with the other passengers, and yet you are eavesdropping. You pretend to ignore people acting out in various ways, but you gradually develop relationships with the repeating stranger. You ride the bus home from work every night for five years with the same guy, gradually becoming more intimate, but you never learn his name or where he goes after he gets off at 33rd and Randolph Streets... How would Studs Terkel get the stories of everybody riding on the bus?
There's a popular kids' book and play called "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever", and then there's Ms. Frizzle and the kids on the "Magic Schoolbus". Somewhere in the middle is "The Best Field Trip Ever". The field trips that are burned into my memory are the trips to the Lincoln Journal and Star newspaper offices, the Gooch's Mill macaroni plant, and the Skyline Dairy ice cream plant.
I can remember exactly five times when I got in trouble as a kid, not that I was perfect, but, well, actually I was real close! Usually if I strayed, my over-active guilt complex kicked in, so no official sanctions were required. One time I got in trouble on the bus on the way to a field trip downtown. I'm pretty sure it was fourth grade, and we were on our way to visit the newspaper. We had received a lecture about not making faces and waving out the bus windows. Imagine my surprise to look out the window of the bus and spot my dad walking down the street on his lunch break. Wouldn't you wave??? Of course! Would a jury convict?? "An example was made of..."!
Mom and I used to have a wardrobe evaluation--"You can't wear that! It looks like an outfit the woman eating the Velveeta sandwich at the bus stop would wear." Geez, I miss Fritzi today. One month. Anyway, we also used to say, particularly about her mother's fashion color combos, "That looks like a nosebleed on raspberry sherbet."
Jim Lehrer is a major bus fan. Have you ever read any of his books about the one-eyed lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, or his White Widow?
*DOWNTOWN by Tony Hatch- as recorded in 1964 by Petula Clark
When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sureDowntown - everything's waiting for you
Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows - downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close - downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You'll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown - waiting for you tonight
Downtown - you're gonna be all right now
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