Beach Town Bus Driver

On Saturday night I was assaulted by a passenger. I was taken to the hospital and examined and x-rayed to make sure there were no broken bones in my face. The assailant ran away and was not apprehended. I returned to work on Sunday and Monday and now I am off Tuesday and Wednesday. I am considering not returning to work on Thursday. I hope you all enjoyed some of the stories in the blog. In the past couple of months I have developed a strong aversion to alcohol and those who choose to abuse it. I find nothing funny or charming about a drunk.

June has given way to July and the "June Bugs" are waning as more families are arriving for their summer vacations. This can make for a somewhat volatile mix on the bus. I had a pretty full load of passengers on a northbound trip last night. There were several families with small children making their way back from an evening on the boardwalk. Mixed in among them were a bunch of June bugs who had been out drinking and partying. Somewhere in the back of the bus there was a very loud foul-mouthed girl. I couldn't see her because there were quite a few people standing in the aisle of the bus. But I certainly could hear her as she ranted, "f***" this and "f***" that. Some of the passengers back there started to tell her to watch her mouth because there were children on the bus. It made no difference to her. She just kept on going. Popular sentiment being against her, I knew I could get rid of this little sweetheart without even getting out of my seat. I made the stop at 16th Street and announced on the P.A., "This is 16. And the girl with the limited vocabulary back there, this is your stop. You passengers back there, please let me know when she goes out that back door because I'm not moving this bus until she is gone." The people back there immediately started yelling at her, "Get out! Get out!" At first she resisted, saying "I paid my f***ing two dollars. I don't have to get off this f***ing bus." But the crowd was too much for her and she either quickly gave up or her friends dragged her off of the bus in fear of the swelling opposition. She was kind enough to wave good-bye to me as she and her friends walked past the bus on the sidewalk. I got a squatting, two-fisted, middle finger salute with the tongue sticking out. Cute girl --- reminded me of a gargoyle. I said to my remaining passengers, "That little princess is going to make some lucky young man very happy one day." They laughed and clapped as we drove on to the next stop.

Sympathy and prayers to all of the victims and their families and friends.

Is there anything that we can do?
Yes, conserve energy.
Why is this important?

See: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050707/why_london_why_now.php

See: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-25.htm

Yes, I'm still alive and I'm still drivin' the nightline. We have just navigated through the 4th of July holiday weekend and man-oh-man did we move a lot of people. I'm hoping that was the peak for the season and everything will be downhill from here.

I don't know whether I have been suffering from writer's block or if the job has started to become routine. A few interesting things have happened in the last couple of weeks, but nothing that I thought worthy of the blog. I guess I'll have to hone my creative writing skills and embellish the stories a bit for your entertainment. So far, believe it or not, I haven't had to do that.

I always try to make the bus ride pleasant for my riders. I announce all of the bus stops and mention a few of the popular restaurants, miniature golf courses and other attractions along the way. For the real late-nighters, I mention all of the open-all-night pizza shops and fast food joints. When the passengers get off of the bus I have a few standard phrases; Have a good night, or if it's so late that the sun is starting to come up, Have a good day, See ya now, Bye-bye, Watch your step there (for the drunks), Good night, See you next time (for the regulars). Occasionally I'll slip one in that gets a pretty good laugh. When a group of pretty young girls gets off (not too young of course, but obviously younger than me) I might say, "And, if you're ever interested in an older man, you know where to find me."

Now, the thing that disturbs me a little bit is that the response is always laughter. Everybody enjoys getting a laugh but I can't help but wonder, is it really that funny? Well, after having another look in the mirror, maybe it is.

A grey-haired fellow wearing shorts, a tee-shirt and flip-flops boarded the bus up around 100th Street. It was obvious from the slur in his speech that he had been out bar hopping. He took the very front seat on the right side of the bus and immediately started talking to a young man seated directly across from him. “I sense something scientific going on here. Are you a student in the sciences? I’m psychic. I feel that you will be responsible for an important scientific discovery sometime in the future. Do you know Jeane Dixon? She’s my aunt. I’m psychic.” The baffled young man was speechless as he looked around at his friends. I doubt if anybody on that bus other than me and the psychic had ever heard of the late Jeane Dixon. She was a popular astrologer and psychic in the 1960s and 1970s. Her horoscope column ran in many newspapers throughout the United States. Of course, that was long before any of the kids riding on this bus were born.

The psychic turned to me and said, “I need to go to Fresco’s. Do you know where that is?” I was tempted to say, “Sure, I know where it is. You mean to tell me you don’t.” But, instead I just said, “Yeah, it’s on 83rd. There’s a stop at 84th. I’ll drop you off there.” As we approached 84th I said, “Here’s your stop buddy. You can see the sign for Fresco’s from here.” He replied, “Oh, I forgot. Somebody took my car keys. I can’t get off here.” Apparently, earlier in the evening, one of his clairvoyant companions decided that it would be best to separate the psychic from his car keys. Remarkable powers of induction! So he asks me, “I guess it will be OK to leave my car there tonight. What do you think?” What do I think? You’re the psychic! What do you think? Hold on, let me check my Magic 8 Ball here . . . Outlook Not So Good. “Gee, I really don’t know buddy but I can tell you this. If the number sixty-five keeps coming into your mind it might be because the vehicle impound lot is located at 65th Street.”

He thought it over for a while and decided he would go home. Along the way he reminded us again that he is psychic and his aunt is you-know-who. He also predicted a major earthquake here along the east coast. I'm not going to worry a whole lot about that one but we’ll see what happens. “I need to get off at 28th Street, are we at twenty-eight yet?” “Oh, sorry buddy. We’re at sixty-eight. Nice try though. You got one number right and one number wrong.”

He encouraged the young man to “Keep studying that science. It’s going to be important one day.” Then, at 28th Street, he vanished from our presence with a stagger and a wave.

This place would have to shut down if it weren't for all of the foreign students who come here to man every junk shop cash register, wait on every restaurant table, cook every french fry, scoop every ice cream cone and make every hotel bed in town. I don't know why American kids aren't interested in these summer jobs at the beach. There are a few, but the American employees are a small minority. I was taken aback the other day when a lifeguard from the Ocean City Beach Patrol got on my bus speaking with a Russian accent. Next we will have Russian police officers and firefighters down here. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It just surprises me to see the students moving into the public safety jobs. There are a lot of drivers and I haven't met all of them, but as far as I know, we don't have any foreign bus drivers. Although, there is one guy who is Jamaican. He's not a student and I think he has lived here for many years. I think he speaks English but I can't understand one word that man says. It's bad enough in person, but when the dispatcher says something to him on the radio his reply sounds like, "E ab ta boo tee ray." The dispatcher says, "OK." OK??? What in the world did that man say??? What do you mean, "OK"? I really don't think the dispatcher understood him either but what else was she going to say?

So far there have been many Eastern European students arriving daily; mostly Russians with a few Lithuanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Poles peppered in. What I find most interesting is the surprising number of students from Nepal. In addition, I have met at least one person from Slovakia, Finland and Senegal. We could open our own branch of the United Nations here.

Last night a jolly group of kids got on the bus a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'. As soon as they all got seated they all burst out in unison singing a song. At first I couldn't figure out if it was some kind of a school song or a fight song for a sports team or what it might be. They finished the song and somebody called out the name of another song. "Horray!" they screamed and started in on the next tune. Then it dawned on me. "Ohhhh! Irish drinking songs." The Irish students have arrived and I thought they were going to blow the windows out of the bus. I think they were having a ceili back there. I kept announcing the stops but there was no chance that anyone on the bus could hear me. A young lad came up to me and asked, "Say, I was wonderin' if ya might tell us when we come to Third Street." "We passed it about six blocks back." He turned to his friends and said, "We missed our stop." "Horray!" they all yelled and bounded off of the bus into the night still a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'. What a crowd! Welcome to America.

Dear Loyal Readers,
Thursday night was uneventful and Friday was looking pretty much the same. What to put in the blog was starting to weigh heavily on my mind. All of a sudden The Psychic stepped onto the bus and the next episode wrote itself. I'm anxious to get this one in the blog for you but it's already time to get back to work for the Saturday night shift. Please check back tomorrow. Thanks. Some of the feedback I have been getting has been wonderful. I now feel that I have a responsibility to keep cranking it out. I think I have created a monster. I wasn't looking for this kind of pressure! It truly is a lot of fun and I am glad to hear that so many people are enjoying the stories. More soon. Thanks!

Why do some people think it is perfectly acceptable to verbally abuse another person? A passenger boarded my bus with a five dollar bill in his hand. "The fare is two dollars please. I'm sorry, I don't give change." "What? Well that's [explicative deleted] up! How many people have exact change?" I looked at my passenger counter. "Five hundred and twenty-three so far." He turns back to his friends, "Hey, it's two dollars and this [explicative deleted] won't give me change. Give me a one and I'll pay for all three of us." His buddy gives him the one and he stuffs the six dollars into the fare box. "Here [explicative deleted]! That's for three of us." "That's great. But you are not going to talk that way to me and expect to ride on my bus. Now step off of the bus." "Give me my [explicative deleted] money back!" "Sorry, I can't get it out of the fare box. Here's your three tickets. Use them to ride the next bus."

Bye-bye [explicative deleted].