Friday, October 5, 2007

Bus Buffet


I ride the bus. I ride the bus even though we have two cars in the driveway. This confuses some people. A neighbor who usually sees me walking to and from the bus stop saw me parking the car one day after running some errands. “You drive?” she asked looking legitimately surprised. “I figured they took your license for drinking or something.”

Driving to work would have kept me from some interesting experiences like contact with those asking for spare change for cups of coffee, or a chilidog. Instead of handing out cash I offer bus tickets or food. I happen to keep quite a selection of food on me at any given time – fruit, cereal, cheese, soup, and egg salad sandwiches.

One winter I had several stolen hams. A friend passed the hams on to us after taking more than his share at work. This was the annual holiday gift from his company and he took the hams in honor of his co-workers who had been laid off that year. I considered lugging the hams on the bus, hoping the next few hungry people are neither Muslim nor Jewish. Or I could set up a temporary carving station on the street corner and really get a good crowd going.

I now consider myself a bit of a celebrity. I have been approached with “you’re the bus lady right? Why don’t you gimmee some of them tickets to ride with? Which bus will take me to Mexican town? How do I get over to Receiving Hospital?” One woman found me and asked specifically for a homemade bran muffin I had given her the week before. “You bake real nice muffins, got any more in that bag?”

The Art of Obituaries


My favorite part of the reading the paper are the obituaries. I like when the paper really gives the obituaries the space they deserve with several paragraphs, a picture, and even a family crest. I’ve asked Dan to create a Stewart – Steinberg family crest. I can picture the Dysfunctional Bungalow Crest flying proudly, yet faded and tattered.

For one summer in college I worked as an intern at a small Jewish newspaper in Cincinnati. A short stubby guy seated next to me was assigned the obituaries and he hated it. Personally, I was envious of his important task, but if I it brought up he could rant for 45 minutes about how the editor was overlooking his oozing talent for hard-core journalism.

I love the details in obituaries like: the sports teams of which the recently deceased were fans of, heirloom rose gardens, church pie contests, hand-sewn quilt collections donated to inner-city children, runner-up as River Raisin Queen, 1926. These are the fine points in life that can be overlooked until the end.

I should write my obituary now instead of leaving it up to a resentful newspaper writer who already feels undervalued and does not understand the art of an obituary. A few well-placed exaggerations like my nickname, "spark plug" and favorite hobbies like amateur-anesthesiology and sacred-ground-architecture would make it a must-read.
Friends would shake their heads with sincere regret and confusion, “I really didn’t know her…why didn’t I spend more time her? Here I paid full price on anesthesia at the hospital last week, and I could of gotten a deal from ole' spark plug.”