Rather than the word "extemporaneous", I suspect the operative word here is "content". September 1st. Yes, I am working the Saturday before Labor Day. I roll across the street to the bus stop, where I spot a passenger with a bike. When I have been on my way home from work, way up north or to the west of here, I have tiptoed to a stop before the one where a passenger has a bike. So if there is only one more space on the bike rack, I will get it. I've been using this stop across the street for eleven years. I've never tried that trick here. But Saturday mornings, the buses on my boulevard are stranding room only. But I suspect that, like me, those who work Saturdays don't necessarily have the Saturday before Labor Day off. I head for the previous stop down the street.
Tuesday. I'm on a bus up the street to work. Onboard are a couple of guys in back, yakety-yacking for all to hear. One tells the other, "I had one felony. I got all that shit expunged." In a seat up front is a middle-aged guy with a ponytail, a cane, a heavy metal T-shirt, and an ankle monitor. Some ten hours later, I'm on my first bus home. A woman who has long blonde hair with grey in it slowly approaches the driver. She asks him if we have already passed a particular street. She says that she has been listening to the computer voice through the PA system reading out the passing streets, and she hasn't heard it come up. He lets her know that it's behind us, and suggests she take this bus route back the other way. He opens the door for her and she hesitates. She asks him if we are in a safe neighborhood. We are several blocks from my own boulevard. That's several blocks safer than my own neighborhood. The following evening, I will pay attention to the computer voice as we pass her street. It does indeed announce the street she is looking for.
She...wanted to leave behind the revolving roommates and rising rent that caused her to move four times in five years. But she found her teacher's salary didn't go far in a gentrifying city where the median home price is now more than half a million dollars. ...that's especially acute in Colorado... - Denver Herald, 9/13/2018
...renovation of the Student Center is underway... "Throughout the master planning process, our community repeatedly expressed the desire for more space to gather. The renovated Student Center...meets this critical need." SOME HIGHLIGHTS: The Bookstore has moved out...to...make way for a new...Pub (2), a pizzeria and...a fireplace for students to gather. - Regis University Magazine, Spring/Summer 2018
...globalization beckoned. And our education system heeded the call. We are...witnessing a resurgence of trade education vis-a-vis trade demands today. ...driving the push for trade education is the ubiquitous and indefinable hipster. People...sometimes...just want...high quality items that are now in low supply, and...the brand identity of local, low carbon footprint. "People who learn a viable trade can often find a niche within...local economies...instead of...the mobility that the global economy demands of young people." - Yellow Scene Magazine [Smart Issue: August 18]
...in the Denver landscape...that's where the bulk of the tech labor pool wants to be... ...millennials follow their companies to Denver... They find a more affordable living situation than...the major coastal cities. The average tech employee in Denver gets paid $100,751 annually... "...the quality of life and low cost of living..." "...in the large urban core of Denver...that's where all the young people are..." ...ambitions for their 16th Street Mall-adjacent office to become a New York University-style "urban campus"... - Denver Herald, 9/13/2018
Going to CIA camp
I'm part of the National Society of High School Scholars. And they give us certain opportunities, like going to CIA camp. It was just cool to see how the CIA actually works. We did coding, soldering to create a computer board that actually worked. ...it was nice to be able to work with people who also have the same interests. We all were really interested in our nation, protecting it and how the CIA does that. - Arvada Press, 9/20/2018
...those who believe in the school district's vision and those who don't. The atmosphere inside the [cafeteria of the high school down the street from where I live, where President Obama spoke some years ago] got heated...when a few people loudly objected to the plan that had...attendees break into small discussion groups. "...we want representation! We want ouir voices to be heard!" Consulting firm hired The board...had hired...a Denver-based political consulting firm...minority-and women-owned. "We prefer a superintendent who represents the majority of our student population." Many...said the superintendent should be bilingual...should live in Denver and send his or her own children to Denver Public Schools. ...should increase...school psychologists, social workers, and counselors, and decrease punitive discipline... ...71 percent of teachers this year are white...77 percent of students are...of color. ...cultural background is important. "...they might have grown up in the same situation we are." - Denver Herald, 9/20/2018
What is it that makes a restaurant truly family-friendly? ...a generous wine and beer list...to soothe your frazzled nerves when the fries start flying? - Colorado Parent, 9/2018
"The vibe is killer. ...embodied the Boulder spirit of positive energy. ...you can just feel it. The artwork and vibe they've created are consistent. There is a certain scene that feels like home, that feels like Colorado." - Boulder Weekly, 9/6-12/2018
...break out the costumes. ...make your own beer-themed threads... ...the earlier you make it into the fest, the better chance you have of meeting your favorite beer celebrities... ...skip the pretzel necklaces. ...those...are so last year. ...indulge in expertly paired craft beer and food matchups... Ditch the map. ...a killer food menu... ...be prepared to belt out a beer-fueled karaoke rendition of a Justin Bieber song... - Elevation Outdoors, 9/2018
Wednesday. I'm on the old bus up the street to work. The driver is a cute girl who usually drives my first bus home from work. At one stop, we pick up a guy I used to see on the street in my neighborhood. He introduced himself to me one predawn morning several years ago, "I'm Richard Spotted Bird." Back then, he smelled like beer and wandered the streets. Today he strikes me as having someplace to go, and I don't smell beer on him anymore. We arrive at the train station where I spot the woman on my first bus home last night, the one who appeared lost. The driver opens the door and she asks her if he connects with the same bus which she was on yesterday. She confirms that it does. The woman declines to get on. (?) Some ten hours later, I am on the very same bus headed back the other way. In a seat up front is a guy with his head shaved and covered in tattoos. A short distance along, we pick up an older passenger, who takes a seat behind him. The first turns to ask the second where a certain deathburger is way across town. The other begins to tell him about his prison record. "I did a four, I did a six, I did a three." He mentions one of his arrests when the police called a K9 unit, "when I was already on the ground!" At another stop, a street guy gets on with a walker. His walker is too wide to get past the front seats. He takes a seat in front of me. His walker has a basket attached to the front. It's filled with small grocery items; tea bags, mustard, water, Powerade, and assorted other stuff. On the seat sits an issue of National Geographic Magazine. On the cover is an astronaut. He turns to me and says, "You sure are quiet." I take the opportunity to snap his photo. He says out loud, "I've been homeless since I was born. And they laugh at me. So are you."
In some ways, Colorado Boulevard still looks like it's 2006. ...wide swaths of the city's center have been torn down...over the years, this busy roadway has stayed just about the same. [I lived on this roadway from 1991-2007.] "Change is very rare in south Denver." [My neighborhood during the 1990s was some of the first gentrification which I saw in the city. Almost all the homes I lived in then are long gone.] At a meeting in July, traffic came up more often than any other issue. "This is going to make it five times worse. It's insane. You guys move over here. You live here for a little while." [Traffic was awful on that boulevard back then, and I have been recently returning to it on a regular basis. I can attest to its capacity, or lack thereof.] "Basically, they want everybody running public transportation and bicycles, and...to crowd up the streets as much as possible, so that you're totally frustrated driving." In the long run...Colorado Boulevard needs to shift to transit... - Denver Herald, 9/30/2018
I sometimes wish...before would-be painters took on...old buildings, they'll ask themselves..."Am I Diego Rivera?" A lot of the street-art pieces are little more than glorified signs, while others have a trippy, strawberry-fields-forever frothiness...found in...high school notebooks. There are murals...on random new apartment buildings whose owners think that art makes their projects hip... Graffiti is seen as the enemy of gentrification, while the murals are its agent, if unwittingly. The painted-up buildings along Larimer Street provide the perfect setting for the hipster Disneyland it has become, with its wide sidewalks swamped with moneyed millennials in search of good times. Although the motto of RiNo Art District is "Where Art Is Made," considering how many artists have been forced out by spiraling rent...it's now more like the place "Where Beer Is Served." ...a Denver native who grew up in Globeville, started out as a graffiti tagger and progressed to...a community organizer and arts activist...to help emerging artists and underserved populations, [his] organization...it's now practically a social-services agency. [He] has engineered multi-artist projects aimed at improving the environment of low-income communities, [and] decorates dumpsters with murals. - Westword, 9/8-12/2018
...tens of thousands of fans to Grandoozy, a three-day music festival...at the city-owned Overland Place Golf Course in southwest Denver. [I spent a couple of years riding past this place to and from work.] ...some...neighbors are incredibly unhappy... The divide the festival has caused is so vast that neighbors [who were] friends no longer speak to [each other.] ...the leader of the opposition...has enjoyed her privacy in Overland for over twenty years and says many of her neighbors choose to live in that part of town for the same reason. ...the neighborhood has sort of a country feel to it. People live on lots that could accommodate several homes, a rarity in a city that's growing... "We're girding our loins and hoping for the best."...the company [producing the festival is] paying for motel rooms for some of the elderly people in the neighborhood who might have a hard time with all the noise. "...with [Denver] City Council, with the city...really nobody gave a damn." Festival-goers coming in from the nearby Evans RTD station...will be accompanied by police escorts. ...if the festival continues to return to Overland, she'd consider selling her home. - Westword, 9/12-19/2018
Stay good, keep growing with the city, don't become...stale...and we've got your back. ...the trendsetting Supre Mega Bien...and...Ambli, an unassuming neighborhood eatery with world-class service and a globetrotting dinner slate...
The food is on point... The staff knows exactly what to recommend for a great date night. - Westword Bites 2018
Thursday. I'm just on the bus up the street to work. At the next stop...the monk gets on. Brown robe, crucifix. I get out at the corner for my connecting bus. So does the monk. There is a Jesuit university across the street, where he is headed. After work, my first bus home shows up quickly. We take off and he hauls ass. He asks neither myself nor the the passengers at the next stop for fare. He runs a yellow light. I change buses. At one point a young Caucasian bohemian woman gets on. She gets off at the train station, where a young Caucasian bohemian guy gets on. He's quiet until he asks a gabby passenger about her piercing. Yet a third Caucasian appears. He's a blond in a striped buttoned down shirt, khakis, and leather shoes. He's like a vision in a sea of west side depravity.
Bus Bingo, Pole Position, and Name That Lunch
Friday. I decide to pick up a prescription before work, as the pharmacy is closed whenever I go grocery shopping anymore. The pharmacist has me sign a scrap of paper which she herself wrote out, because the forms are no longer being printed. I get to the bus stop, where an elderly pair are waiting. The guy says something about soup kitchens, and asks the woman if her husband passed away. A bus with no visible route number pulls up. I assume it's mine. I step on and, suddenly, I'm in a game of bingo. The driver says he's the route 26. I've never heard of the 26. I ask if he's the 27. He tells me the 27 doesn't come this way anymore. I'm sure that's news to the passengers waiting for the 27, who also never heard of the 26. It's rare that the transit system adds a new route. Am I waiting for the 27? Nope. I step out and the woman suggests I take the 29. "Where are you going?" she wants to know. I tell her that...I know where I'm going. The route she refers to, more accurately known as the 36/29 (At this point in my life, I know more about the transit system than any man should.), I used to take home from where I used to work for the company my current owner bought and closed when it was under previous ownership. It runs south from here and back again. And I sure as hell ain't going south, nigga. My own bus arrives to collect me. Along the way, be pick up a middle-aged woman who is dressed like a teenager. Halter top and snowboarding pants, and a collection of bracelets on her left wrist. She's hauling a collection of big bags. Out of one she pulls a butterfly bracelet. She has no makeup on and her hair is either wet or moussed. I watch her wring her hair on each side of her head, before she proceeds to braid it into pigtails. It appears to be a shade of Clairol red. Further along, we pick up an elderly guy I've seen on the bus before. He wears knee-high leather boots and tank tops. This morning, he has a Chihuahua on his right arm, and a long metal pole in his left. He sits with the pole vertical. As we approach my stop, I stand and reach for bars to hold on to while the bus is moving. As I move down the aisle, I grab the pole, held by this guy, by accident.
I catch a connecting bus and get out down the street from a newly discovered yogurt place. I haven't had breakfast yet and it's closing in on noon. I should have just enough time to get lunch to go from a deathburger/ice cream place. Inside, I see that they have a salad with chicken. I order what I think is the crispy chicken salad. It says the salad and a drink are a five dollar lunch deal. I'm charged $6.48. I wait. I wait. I ask where the salad is. They're making it I'm told. I watch them make sandwich after sandwich. A guy who looks like a manager hands me a bag and says, "Chicken sandwich." "Chicken salad?" I ask. I wait. I wait. The guy who took my order goes and makes it in about 30 seconds. I asks him how much the five dollar lunch deal is. The manager hands me back $1.48. Hours later, it's after work. I'm on my last bus home. A couple of young Caucasian women get o at the train station. They sit apart due to limited seating. They are surrounded by the usual riff raff. If they are out of their element, they are laying low. A couple of guys get on. One has a pizza and cracks open a can of beer. The other is doing the occasional pull up on the bars over the seats. They take a seat and then stand up again. One of the women is able to move next to her other. The pull up guy sits in front of them. The beer can guy sits behind them. He's sitting next to another guy who is scrolling through his phone. Beer can dude asks if he can borrow his phone, but he doesn't appear to comprehend how it works. Beer can dude then leans forward and asks the closest woman something, perhaps what her name is. She's not interested. Pull up guy watches this with some amusement. I've never responded on a bus to any kind of interaction in a proactive way. My stop approaches, and I stand up and move in front of all four. I look at the ladies, and I stare back and forth between the two dudes. Beer can dud is oblivious. He appears drunk. Pull up dude looks at me sheepishly.
Saturday. Bus stop across the street. There is a young guy, a kid, desperately trying to light a cigarette butt. He finally throws his lighter into the street. An elderly guy comes along and lends him his lighter. As the bus approaches, the kid leaves, crossing the middle of the boulevard. Hours later it's after work. I step off the bus from work onto my corner. On the bus bench is a guy screeching at nothing and no one in front of him. He uses hand gestures. I take my bike home and return to catch the same bus further to the supermarket. He's still there and gets up and leaves. He heads the direction of the supermarket. Another guy comes shuffling up the street. He has a long face and appears to be dead tired. He hauls a big bag over his shoulder and a lighter in his hand. He crosses the street to the gas station, where he doesn't go inside. The bus comes and picks me up. A few stops down, we pick up the guy yelling at no one. He asks where the nearest pawn shop is. A passenger asks him what he has to pawn. He replies that he doesn't know what it is, but he's had it for a couple of days.
Monday. I step off my last bus to work and I hear the driver speaking to a passenger in back. he asks the passenger where he is going. The passenger mentions a boulevard at the very beginning of this route, and says he must "get back" there. I wonder why he got on if where you get on is where he needed to be in the first place. The driver mentions this. The passenger replies, "Yeah, but I passed out." The driver is suspicious and the passenger sounds as if he is becoming belligerent. After work, I roll up to the stop for my first bus home. This evenings random lone nut is a short, stocky woman. I watch her as she gets up and begins crossing the middle of the road, transfer in hand. Traffic dissuades her and she returns to the bench. I suppose she decides to catch the bus because there is too much traffic to walk in the road. (?) The bus arrives shortly thereafter. After we board, she asks the driver, "I've been working my ass off. (?!) If I worked from 10:45 to 6:45, how many hours is that?" She speaks very fast. I don't hear his answer. She mentions something about accounting. She must be the worst accountant. With no lunch, that's exactly eight hours. Do the math...literally. I like this driver.. He's impatient. At the transfer station, a passenger approaches in an orange vest, hardhat, and with an unintelligible voice. He asks the driver if he passes through a particular area. The driver answers and the passenger deliberates silently. "Are you getting on? I have four seconds." The driver holds out four fingers. The passenger comes aboard. I wonder where he works? I change buses. Another passenger has a bike on the front. If I hadn't seen her little helmet, I would never have guesses it was a cute girl in a plum-colored dress.
Tuesday. On my first bus to work, there is a guy in back telling someone else, "The only way you feel comfortable is when you're on the street." Two moms are sitting up front. One tells the other, "I by my kids clothes. They say, 'Mom, these clothes are gay.' I'm like, 'You're what, six?' I'll probably come home and they'll be like, "Look, mom, I learned how to chew tobacco.' Goddammit." Wednesday. I step off my first bus to work, on the corner for my connecting bus. I'm headed for the Sinclair station. Coming the opposite way is a guy with salt and pepper hair. He's in a black motorcycle jacket. He takes a seat on the bench at the bus stop in front of the gas station. inside, I see the clerk I usually see. She's singing along with an old song on the radio. I tell her she must have grown up during the 1980s. I didn't tell her I hated music on the radio in the 1980s. It turns out that she's just a year younger than myself. Like me, she also works for an hourly wage. Unlike me, she does community service for a DUI. When I come out of the gas station, he is standing between two gas pumps with his legs spread apart. He looks at me and says, "Hey boy," and proceeds to speak unintelligibly. I ride off to my bus stop. When I catch the bus, we pass the gas station. I see that he's back on the bus bench.
"...a great article on writing about sex...establishes some rules for successful story sex." I...use it in my own classes about writing sex scenes. I also always teach the "Bad Sex in Fiction Awards"...because it's good to study what not to do. Isn't that what art is supposed to do? Help us see our humanity with renewed clarity? Challenge us in some way? - Westword, 9/13-19/2018
I worry that Bhutan will not change. I think they are working hard to change. Already...towns...have electricity, because highlanders and villagers want electricity. If more trail runners go to Bhutan, I think they'll be welcomed. Support feature length films, and we will have a stringer community. It feels good to...be able to make stories that...invite...the raw and real reasons exploring is good for culture... - Elevation Outdoors, 9/2018
...mind-boggling script that glosses over tragedy with...c'est la vie sheen... ...a little girl says she "craves" stability "like a fat person craves chocolate." ...unreliable narrators and how they're only used in horror or mystery movies (since when?) Or when an olive-picker in Spain explains with the sincerity of a tourism ad that he picks only by hand as...it is the "right way." Did I mention that much of this story takes place in Spain for some shoehorned ethnic diversity, see through the eyes of a white man who romanticizes and caricatures other cultures? ..the film opens on a...never-to-be-seen-again character...while...in voiceover how the man is a "'cool'" gay guy rather than, like...throwing his gayness in our faces. This scene is so bewildering that, as it unfolded, I sneaked my day planner onto to my lap to check to be sure I was in the right screening room. In flashbacks, we see that...his pregnant wife...for no reason at all, strolled into a NYC crosswalk and just fucking stopped in the middle, while...talking about names for their babies. Like it's absolutely normal to hold conversations ten feet apart. In the middle of a city street. Just know that this is the kind of movie where everyone's mom dies, even when it's not in any way necessary to the story. There's just something weirdly patriarchal about this story that prizes women getting pregnant and cooking dinner...before they're...pointlessly offed. ...so founded in the virgin/ whore and saint/shrew concepts that...the "gentleman" sitting next to me [responded to one female character by saying] "Bitch". - Westword, 9/20-26/2018
Friday. I'm across the street from where I live, at the bus stop. It's a little after 10 AM. I see something which can be seen in any neighborhood around the western world, but which I haven't seen in the 11 years in which I've lived on this boulevard. I've seen the homeless, the drunk, the mentally damaged; stumbling, shuffling, yelling at the top of their lungs. This morning, I see a young Caucasian woman comes running along. Shorts, tank top, running shoes, earbuds. On my boulevard. On MY boulevard. Hours later, I am on the bus down this street coming back this way. I am standing up front in my new bike shorts. Unlike my old ones, which droop to cover my thighs, these ride up my legs. Sitting in one seat is a woman who asks another woman, sitting directly across from her, if she is drunk. The other replies, "No but I'm buzzin'." She's buzzed but unfazed. The pair share a laugh. The other hands a bottle to the first, who puts her pocketbook inside her halter top and takes it. She has a swig before passing it back across the aisle of the bus. She mentions that she's "tired, but I like money too much." In other words, she goes to work, tired or not. The pair share another laugh. The first stands up to get out at a stop. She tells me that I have "pretty legs." The other gets on her phone. From what she says, she's on her way to watch a boxing match someplace, perhaps on TV at home. She gets out at her stop. A guy gets on who also is on his phone. He sounds as if he's an activist. He mentions Section 8 housing as well as a neighborhood up the street which is fighting development. He says he tries to watch every city council debate. "It seems like the activists never get any money. It all goes to the ones in charge of the poor. That's why I don't want a PhD. I don't want to be part of the enemy."
Saturday, I step out of the same bus up the street to work as usual, the same one I took on Wednesday, when a wacko was on the bus bench. This morning, it's a woman who appears dressed to go to work at her job as an office manager. It's a chilly morning, but expected to tie another record for the high temperature. The woman notices my sandals and asks me if I am cold. I stare at her before telling her that I am not. Monday. For the first time in my life, a passenger taps me on the shoulder to move over so he can sit down. Behind us, a drunk tells me that I had better move over. On my connecting bus, a passenger is angry at the driver. He thought she told him she wanted to go to the end of the line. We are at the transfer station. It is not quite the end of the line, but she thinks it is. So, the driver turns off the bus ad runs to the restroom. He has no idea she gets up with her walker and can't exit the bus, because the ramp isn't down. After he gets back and lets her out, another passenger asks him about unhappy passengers. The driver mentions his bus being stuck in a line downtown behind an accident. A driver behind him exited his car and approached his bus with a shovel.
...the Chinese Government Party...agreed...to smash in every village the shakes of feudalism... The savage exploitation of labor...would have to be ended before industry could be a blessing... Communist agents...converted the areas of combat into quicksands for their war-lord enemies, peasant and labor unions developed almost overnight... To...passionate nationalism...connection with Russia was wicked. He saw the Communists...possessed of some magic formula that would tear the countryside apart in social upheaval... ...brought into contact for the first time with...the new Chinese industrial and commercial aristocracy. These men, no less than the foreigners, were terrified of strikes and labor unions... Chiang K'ai-shek was the chief architect of the new China... The new...government...claimed that it was the "trustee" of the people, who were in a state of "political tutelage"...its censorship closed down...over the Chinese press and Chinese universities. The government rested on...an army, a bureaucracy, the urban businessman, the rural gentry. ...classes...formed the social basis of the government. ...the businessmen on the coast and in the great cities. They had profited by the revolution. ...they dealt now with Western businessmen as with equals. The new government...stable finance...rational structure of taxation...first time opportunities... A wave of prosperity lifted Chinese commercial and industrial activity... ....Chaing disappeared somewhere into Shanghai's murky underworld. ...a fast, hard life of personal danger, hunger, and abandon... ...Shanghai was dominated by...an urban outgrowth of secret societies that...sank its roots into all the filth and msiery of the great lawless city... Out from the mists of Shanghai, Chaing K'ai-shek strode forth into the full blaze of Chinese national politics.. ...no grant of American aid, no...paper reform, no single army strengthened or individual battle won could revitalize China. A modern Army could function only in a modern state. ...only if American policy actively espoused democracy... - Thunder Out of China, by T. H. White and A. Jacoby, 1945
Tuesday. I step onto my first bus to work. Sitting in the front seat is a thin guy with hair somewhere between grey and white. He may be Vietnamese. He has on teardrop sunglasses, and some kind of medallion hangs out of the open collar of his buttoned down pinstriped shirt. His bag has a handle and wheels. Hanging on the handle is a cap from a golf range at a popular hotel in the mountains. He looks at me and smiles. He points to the empty seat next to him and gives me a thumbs up. I change buses and exit onto the street I take to the yogurt place. I get a salad from a sandwich place, get yogurt, and head to work. Along the way I pass one of the few breakfast restaurants on this avenue. When I eat here, I park my bike under a big tree. Today, someone else is under the tree. He's wearing nothing but cutoff shorts. he has a bike and a bike trailer, loaded with stuff. Other stuff is gathered around. On the ground is a huge watermelon cut in half. Wednesday. Bus stop across the street. A woman is coming down the sidewalk pushing a shopping cart. I think I recognize the cart as coming from the drug store up the street. She slows down when she passes the trash can to look inside. Tied to the cart are two deflated balloons. The bus comes up and whisks us to the train station. A guy and a woman attempt to board. The woman has big hoop earrings and a Raiders cap. The guy has an open can of beer. This driver is being trained by a supervisor, who stands in the doorway to tell the couple they can't come onboard with an open container. The guy tries to tell him that it will be okay, he will sit up front. (?) They depart. The woman thinks it's funny. Go Raiders...
Thursday. Bus stop across the street. Today, down the street, another middle-aged woman comes along. This one from the opposite direction. Instead of a shopping cart, she is lugging a plastic milk crate. It looks heavy. As she passes, it appears to be full of folded clothes. She is dressed like a teenager, with the cuffs of her jeans rolled up. She heads toward the gas station. Across the street, in front of the Chinese place, I see a young guy who looks like he just woke up. Another guy comes from the alley. He's in grey sweats and a bright red cap and bright shoes. This guy walks the length of the store fronts before turning around and quickly walking back. He looks in the trash and finds something before they both return to the alley. Hours later, on my first bus home, a young guy steps on. He's familiar but I can't place him. He's wearing what appears to be a blue jumpsuit with patches on the sleeves. He looks exactly like a space shuttle astronaut. Or rather one with a red bandanna on his head and a cigarette in his mouth. He's hauling a couple of huge trunks. My bike is one of two on the outside rack, and we end up with three more inside. One is with a guy with an ankle monitor. The other is with a young woman dressed like a folk singer in dark clothes. She asks me if this bus goes to the street where I get out.
Friday. Bus stop across the street. Directly across the street is the Chinese place. In the parking lot are a couple of fat guys with beards and caps. They are looking at the building, at the roof. Coming down the sidewalk on my side of the boulevard are a couple of skinny guys in orange vests. They cross the street and walk past the other two guys. The second pair pause to look at the bushes between the parking lot and sidewalk. One of the first pair goes inside to get some food. He comes out and the pair drive off. The second pair walk up a short way before coming back again. My bus comes to collect me, and along the way we pick up a regular passenger in a motorized wheelchair. He's in a hat with a skinny brim. At the train station, we pick up a couple who appear to be from out of town, perhaps another country. Each is rolling a big trunk on wheels. They have a seat directly across from the wheelchair guy. He proceeds to go on a nonstop rant between now and when we get to his stop. The couple spend the entire time in silence as this guy tells them where to catch the bus. He tells the driver to let them know when their stop is at hand, "because they don't know," he claims. He points out the passing street signs. "See these green signs. They let you know where they are." We roll past an elementary school. He tells the couple that this is where he went to elementary school. He mentions that he is in a wheelchair because he was in an auto accident and wasn't wearing his seat belt.
On my first bus house, a young guy and an old guy step onboard. The old one has a big sleeping bag. His jacket hangs off his frame and a bandanna covers his head. he prattles to the younger one about having a transfer but not knowing where. Does he have a transfer he can have, he asks. Wait, he finds a ride coupon. He asks the young guy to put it in the fare box. Whoops. He remembers he has a valid day pass, good until 3 AM tomorrow morning. He just wasted a ride coupon, good until the end of the year. He tells the younger one that he was on vacation and left $2,000 in the bathroom of a bar. He then mentions something about gay rights, and that he "got called a moron." Along the way, we stop for a passenger with a bike. There are already two bikes on the rack. The passenger asks if there is room inside for a bike. The driver tells the passenger that the transit system is no longer allowed to transport bicycles inside the bus. That's funny. Last night I was the second bike inside the bus. This evening, I'm the third.
Saturday. On my way home, a collection of images present themselves. On my first bus, a woman steps onboard. She sits in front of me, coloring in a coloring book. In front of her, a grey-haired guy takes a seat. He's in a tank top and has a knife and his phone on his belt. He holds cigarette butt between a couple of fingers. Across from him, his significant other has a seat. On her bra strap, it reads, "Victoria's Secret". We pass a couple in their late teens out on the street. She's on a bicycle and he's on foot. With his mop of hair and wire rimmed glasses, he looks like Harry Potter, or at least a member of The Byrds. He reaches for the bolt on her seat to adjust it. I get out a couple of stops later and head over to the stop for my last bus home. The couple come along as the bus approaches. I stand aside so she can put the bike rack down and load first. She looks at me as if she has no clue. Does she have braces? She looks like every small town high school girl I've ever seen. The guy jumps in and suggests that he put the bike on the rack while she gets out the "tickets". (Tickets? It's a city bus, you muggle.) He throws the rack down and puts the bike on as fast as he can. The bus takes us to the train, where the couple disembark. He takes the bike off as quick as he put it on. I get a better look at her through the window. Her face has a plain beauty, and her long brunette hair shines red in the late afternoon sun. It's chopped off straight across at the end and with bangs on top. I look across to the train platform. Some guy is doing the robot. I hope he takes good care of his girlfriend out here on this miserable, fetid corner. "I smell incense and spices..."
Sunday I am out to make a label at a copy place for a cassette tape, the tape which I finished a year ago. I stop for breakfast along the way. I had put some air into the back tire. When I come out from breakfast, the back tire is flat. I can walk to the copy place. I get the label finished much faster that I ever, and it looks better, both than I ever imagined. I get out and to a stop for a bus to the bike shop, which is closed. I think it may be closed now on Sundays. I take the bus downtown to get a drink from the deathburger on this hot afternoon. Outside, at the bike rack, is a homeless guy sitting on the ground talking to himself. He mentions all the problems with his back and feet. A guy comes from across the street and asks him which foot is bad. He kneels to pray for the guy, who goes back to talking to himself after the other guy says goodbye to him. I get a drink inside and put it in a pouch on my handlebars. I walk to a stop for a bus back to my boulevard. Around a downtown corner comes a guy on a skateboard. I move quickly to avoid him and suddenly feel my left foot submerged in a cold liquid. My drink had spilled. I grab a bus to my street and when i disembark, another guy with a bike on the rack tells me mine is beautiful. I get ahead of him toward the boulevard. He rides past me and it sounds as if he now says that my bike looks "gay".
Monday. Bus stop across the street. I carry all my cold weather gear with me now, filling a bag. This morning, I also carry a bike rim with another flat tire. With the bike shop downtown leaving me uncertain as to whether it's in business, or if its winter hours allow it to be open early enough during the week that I may get there and to work on time, I'm headed for a bike shop near work. From the bus stop, I spot a bushy grey-haired guy in a two piece suit and tie headed my direction. The Jehovah's Witnesses just can't enough of this bus stop. He offers me a Watchtower magazine. I tell him that I am out of hands to grab anything else. But I compliment him on his suit. At the train station, a woman steps on with a tiny dog. A guy steps on after her. He searches both of his socks for fare but is unsuccessful in locating it. I change b uses and arrive at the bike shop...which is closed on Mondays. Some 24 hours later, I return to have my tube successfully replaced. Hours later I roll up to the stop for my last stop home. On the bench are this evening's random nuts. A couple. The woman is old enough to be the guy's son. The bus arrives and we all step on. The pair take a seat in back where the guy berates the woman, telling he that he is tired of her complaining. He calls her "Nigga" and insists that this is his style. He then mentions 'being with her' as if they are not related by blood. I change buses. On my last bus home I get up and stand by the front door, along with my bike rim. Standing up there with me is the mental Vietnamese guy I usually see at my bus stop in the morning. He's in a khaki sportcoat and fashionably torn jeans. He asks me, "Bike...broke...?"
The next morning, the same guy is at the bus stop across the street. We both step on the bus when it comes. Unlike the evenings, the mornings on this route are pretty quiet. When the guy begins talking everyone can hear him. The guy begins asking questions to the guy sitting next to him. "Bus driver...take home...$40,000?" The other guy just stares at him. "You need...answer. I talk to...big boss." He goes on to say that he's been working on the street (?) and wants to get an office. Hours later, I'm on my first bus home after work. A woman is on her phone, telling someone that her ex got out of jail and shacked up with a woman she knows. "So when I get there, I'm gonna have my foot up everyone's ass." Tonight's driver, the one I like, mentions that any problems he has occur at the other end of his route. "Cops looking for people on the bus (with outstanding warrants.)" I have the occasional memory of the other end of this route. It's a train station I frequented years ago. I change buses, and the driver on my connecting bus looks like a ten-year-old girl. Sitting up front is a guy with a walker. He's speaking way too loud. He asks the driver, "DOES THE (route) 44 RUN THIS LATE?" She asks him if he is getting out at 44th Avenue. "NO, 38TH, 38TH." I'm standing between him and the front door. He lets me know, "I HAVE TO MOVE AROUND YOU, SIR. YOU MAY HAVE TO GET OUT." He sounds like an automated transit system message cranked through a PA system. I move behind him. "I'M GETTING OUT, THEN THIS SEATING WILL BE AVAILABLE," he announces. He stands up and says, "I START OUT SLOW..." I sit in his seat and he says, "I HAVE TO BACK UP, SIR. I HAVE TO BACK UP." Then he's gone. This driver is pretty savvy. She tells a passenger who steps on with a dog in a stroller that he must stay out the aisle. One passenger with no fare does not get a transfer from her. Another with partial fare she lets know she will make a one time exception. He says, "God is good."
Thursday. I'm out of the door and at the corner with a woman pushing a stolen shopping cart. We cross the street. She;'s in a T-shirt with the days of the week listed on the front. In the cart are personal items. We both arrive at the bus stop. She looks in the trash can and asks me, "You got one dollar?" Where are the Jehovah's Witnesses when I need them? After work, I roll up to the stop for my first bus home. On the bench is the couple from a day or two ago. This evening they are getting along. The bus arrives and we all embark upon it. The pair have a seat up front. A young, overweight guy with a ling perm and a skateboard comes up from the back, and sits across from them. He begins showing the couple his marijuana pipe. He tells them he also has a Yoda pipe and a spaceship pipe. When the couple step out, he continues speaking to no one about his pipe. Another pair of passengers step onto the bus, a couple of guys. They have a seat and one begins telling the other about using cocaine. We arrive at the transfer hub. Before the cocaine guy steps out, he asks the driver, "Hey, what bus (route) is this?" Friday. If I catch the right bus up the street to work, it will have on board a balding Caucasian guy in a shirt and tie. I am on such a bus this morning. He gets out at the train, where a couple of seniors step on. One guy says to the other, "This shit gets old, going back and forth. I'm every day. You go every other day." The other replied, "I go once a week." This gets a big laugh from the first, who goes on to mention "graduating" from one schedule to another. He mentions a "case". I wonder if they are in some kind of court mandated classes? Hours later, my first bus home is late. I take a bus on another route. At one stop, a pair of guys step on. One is telling the other about his donating plasma today. It took longer than usual. The other appears to identify with him. "Yeah, having to ask, having to plead." I'm not sure what the entire story is all about. The first guy also mentions something about being able to get cash from making a purchase at the supermarket with a card.
Another Saturday. Another month is almost over. The weather has finally turned Autumnal. Another packed bus at 7:30 in the AM. Up the street, a passenger steps on. She is wrapped in what appears to be a shiny purple sheet, perhaps a bedspread, which she wears as if it's a cloak. It looks as if it is secured at the neck by rubber bands. At another stop, another passenger approaches the front door. She notices his pants and asks him if he works in the jail. He does not...of course. "We wear these kind of pants in the jail," she tells him. "No bakery for you? They wear those in the (jail) bakery." I didn't know the jail had a bakery...or bakery pants. I change buses. I'm standing up front showing the driver my pass. A guy in a wheelchair is in the wheelchair space. H speaks with difficulty, and I realize that it's me who he's speaking to when he says, "You gotta sit down, I'm getting off." He refers to me by a name which I can't make out, only that it begins with "K". The driver for my crosstown bus to work on Saturdays is so nice, the first time he spoke to me, I thought he was gay. He's Caucasian, and he's conversing with a Caucasian passenger. Both men are in their early 30s. They discuss home prices in other states. The passenger mentions his dad taking him to NASCAR events in years past. I've heard of "NASCAR dad"s referred to politically in the same way as "soccer moms". "Basketball is do diluted," the passenger says. The players collectivize on their teams." What other race speaks like this? We pull into the transfer hub and a homeless woman steps aboard. I recognize her from up here in northwest Denver. Another woman steps on who recognizes her, and speaks to her in Spanish. I never knew the homeless woman spoke Spanish. A third woman behind the seond speaks to the second in Spanish. The second mentions something about someone's birthday. "Esta su cumpleano?" I ask her. It takes a second before she realizes that, yes, I speak some Spanish. No, she replies, it's the homeless woman's birthday. I've seen the homeless woman several times on this route. I speak to her for the first time, and it's in Spanish. I tell her happy birthday.
...the China-Burma-India theater of operations...had everything - maharajas, dancing girls, war lords, head-hunters, jugglers... American pilots strafed enemy elephants from P-40's. CBI politics were a fabulous compound of logistics, personalities, communism, despotism, corruption, imperialism, nonsense, and tragic impotence. Nowhere in the world did American policy work with such oddly assorted characters... - White and Jacoby
Sunday. Bus top across the street. Closing in on 10 AM. The second Caucasian I've seen running in my neighborhood is coming up the sidewalk. The bus arrives to take me to the train station. At one stop, the guy with the jail bakery pants gets on. I'm off to see a movie, out of the house before I've eaten anything. Then I'm headed, not to my usual bike shop, but to another. On the bus toward downtown, the back of the bike rack has an arm which is too short to reach around my front wheel. My bike will fit only on the front of the rack on this bus. We approach and cross the gate of a train track. before we come to a stop. The gate begins to come down as a train approaches. The driver is backing up as the gate comes down on my bike. It impacts my handlebars. Had my bike fit in the back part of the rack, it would have been n the clear... The usual one has been closed for three Sundays when its hours today are listed as 11 AM - 5 PM. The other bike shop is in my neighborhood of years past. Not only did the tech adjust my breaks so that the brake cable could be reattached, but he noticed that I hadn't put by back rim back on properly. I stop into the mall in my old neighborhood where the president of my HOA, and my next door neighbor, works. I grab some yogurt and stroll the place. I unexpectedly run into him. We very briefly discuss the new trash cans which have finally replaced our long time dumpsters. This mall full of expensive specialty shops is a curious location to discuss the trash collection in Denver's poorest neighborhood.. It's an encouraging end to the month.
