Bus, I Miss You

I realized as I rode down 7th Street this morning that my bus-riding days are nearly over. I've been riding the bus or train since 1995, when we moved to Chicago. I can remember my public-transit info pretty well:

• from 1995-1997, I rode the #8 Halsted bus took me from our apartment in Chicago to work west of the Loop
  
• the Red and Purple El lines took me from that same apartment to Northwestern's campus in Evanston from 1997-2000
• from 2000-2002, the #670 Express hauled me back and forth between Minnetonka and downtown Minneapolis after we moved back to Minnesota
• since 2002, I've taken the #23 up Cedar to downtown Minneapolis and then the#14 along more-or-less the same route (with a few months of riding the Hiawatha light-rail line in between).
  

Public transportation has been great, and I'll miss it while I commute by car and then probably feet and bike in Northfield. In the spirit of a fond farewell to public transportation, an anecdote from last Friday's ride home on the #14, the strangest bus I've ridden:

When I boarded at 2nd Avenue S., two men, a 20-ish guy in a track suit and a 30-something guy in dirty casual clothes, were blocking the aisle while they talked from seats on opposite sides of the bus. I had to push through their knees to get to an open seat, and as I passed, Dirty Clothes said to Track Suit, "Fuck trees! Man, fuck trees! Fuck 'em!" A few blocks later, T.S. got off, at Hennepin County Medical Center, naturally. D.C. proceeded to increase the general jitteriness on the bus by twisting around to closely and repeatedly examine everyone around him, adjusting his too-big cardigan over and over, turning his baseball cap forward and backward, sniffing loudly, and joggling his knees. Often, he was doing all five things simultaneously. When he finally got off somewhere in Phillips, he walked directly into Bloomington Avenue without even the scantest glance at the rush-hour traffic. Fuck trees, man. Fuck 'em.