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Tuesday, August 17. 2010

Take One For The Team

This morning there was a good idea rattling around in my head. Then I sat down to some naughty videos, watched a little of The Wire (the best show ever on HBO) and voila! Good idea gone.

Never put off to later what is prattling about in your thoughts at the moment. I was thinking about the nature of friendships, in particular the friendship I have with one person. Would I, could I abandon someone who is a friend when the chips are down for them? Not really, especially if I really like that person. That is where the idea started, but I don’t remember any of it from that point.

This blog was first started for political ranting. Along the way it morphed into everything else, from my infatuation with Playboy models to relationships, social interaction, fun in the sun and riding the bus. My friend Dan thinks I should write solely about riding the bus.

One tends to find a lot of the … under-privileged … on mass transit, many forgotten by those who might have been loved ones. They are caught in a state-controlled life that barely gives them enough to subsist on, let alone thrive. We don’t have much love for these people in our country. Mainly, we want them hidden from view so we don’t have to deal with them. I confess, when I’m on the bus and the driver has to pick up someone in a wheelchair, it’s a little annoying that my commute is going to be delayed while the driver buckles the wheelchair contraption into it’s place.

Over the years though, I’ve become quite a bit more tolerant. It’s good for the soul to be tolerant. Then there are the crazies who rant about anything and everything. Religion and politics mostly. People who appear to be off their meds have some interesting theories, conspiracy and otherwise. Like the guy who said the government conspired with the Costa Rican government to take his kids away and sell them to couples in Costa Rica. And God had a plan.

Sadly for a woman also on the bus, the ranting man recognized her and directed his conversation towards her. Someone had to take one for the team and well, she took it. Last night on the way home from work I took one for the team.

A guy who is often seen on the #20 bus (in all it’s route configurations) and just about anywhere on that route between Clairemont Mesa Blvd and Mira Mesa Blvd, recognized me. We don’t really know each other, I couldn’t even tell you his name, but he always has a valid pass and a brown paper bag with either a tall one or a pint. Lat night it was a tall can of beer, the label obscured by the paper bag.

Drinking Man is about six feet tall, always has a scraggly, unshaved face and is about as round as he is tall. Thankfully, he doesn’t wear tight t-shirts, but always wears a t-shirt and baggy shorts. He doesn’t do anything for sustenance, other than panhandle now and then, yet he seems simply contented.

Drinking Man sat directly behind the driver, the easier to have his beer without being ejected. I sat right across from him, in the front so I can keep an eye on the Trusty Trek, which is always in the front bike rack. The drinking man asked, “How far did you ride?”

My helmet was still on my head. So I told him, “Camino Ruiz.” From there to Black Mountain Rd, where I usually catch the bus, is three quarters of a mile. After work I don’t have the will to pedal all the way home even though intellectually I know I can get home sooner by pedaling the entire way instead of waiting for that #20, or if I’m lucky, the #31, which gets me two blocks closer to home. The bus ride relieves me of one and half miles of pedaling, most especially up Black Mountain Rd, from Carroll Canyon Rd to Hillary Dr. That’s one helluva a long climb.

So, the drinking man started blathering on about something, the topic of which was unclear for the first few minutes. He was talking about something closing. But there would be international training at Miramar College. As it turns out, Drinking Man was talking about a fire department engine company being closed and I almost asked if it was the engine company on Black Mountain Rd. Thankfully, my tongue was restrained.

Apparently, there will be fire departments from Europe coming to Miramar College for training. I dunno, Drinking Man may be right. He seemed to have a lot of information, but with people like him, a few accurate bits of information can go a long way, if elaborated on well enough.

So, for a mile and a half I took one for the team and let this guy chatter at me about geopolitical cooperation through fire departments. Yes, he brought politics into it. You know what becomes apparent if you hobnob with the real hoi polloi, some of the ones who appear to be the craziest are often the ones with the highest intelligence. No kidding.

The saying goes, there’s a fine line between genius and madness and if you use mass transit often enough, you’ll get ample opportunity to test that anecdote. And take one for the team if the crazy one starts talking to you.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 12:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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