Sinister: A Chicago Bus Story

[Heather Marie Propes]

I live in Berkeley and take the Bart. Will I ever
have an experience like Julie's in San Francisco? Maybe, but the story
did remind me of a similar bus ride in Chicago. 

I first moved to Chicago in 1995 to get my master's degree in Art History
at the University of Chicago. For anyone who knows the area, the
University of Chicago is on the Southside, quite an interesting
neighborhood. Before I knew anything about Chicago transit and my
neighborhood (like the fact that it was an extremely bad idea to venture 1
mile in any direction), I used to take the #1 up to the City, via Cottage
Grove and lower Michigan Ave. We had an extremely exuberant, funny driver.
She would swerve around corners, yell at the drunk old men on the street
corners, and greet everyone who boarded with some sort of comment. One day
she told me,"You are the only white girl who ever gets on this bus," or
something like that. She was funny. During one ride I sat up in front with
her and advised her on her love life. She said she was sick of American
men and wanted a European boyfriend. I told her she ought to go to more
dance clubs.

http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/asbuch/index.htm#hometop

Heather Marie Propes   asbuch at midway.uchicago.edu       



On Wed, 11 Nov 1998 Julie_Smith at iacnet.com wrote:

> 
> Hello children. I have a bus story for you.  Anyone who's lived in San 
> Francisco for a period of time has experienced how horrible our mass transit 
> (called MUNI) is.  After commuting to work for three years, I have many many 
> stories, some funny and some frustrating.  But I'll just tell you an old 
> favorite.
> 
> One night I was waiting for a bus which is supposed to come every 15 minutes, 
> but typically takes twice as long.  On this particular night, I (and about ten 
> other people) waited 45 minutes before the bus finally pulled up.  During our 
> wait, we had formed what is called a "MUNI mob"-- a group of strangers that 
> become bonded in collective anger at how poorly the bus system is run.  We 
> shared bus horror stories and fantasies about blowing up MUNI's central office 
> and were basically having a grand old time bashing the system. By the time we 
> got on the tardy bus, we were all friends and amused ourselves by talking 
> loudly about how things would have to change, how inconvenienced we all were 
> etc.  About fifteen minutes into the journey there was a loud crackle and a 
> shower of sparks and the bus grounded to a halt.  My MUNI mob friends and I 
> stared at each other in disbelief, realizing that our trip was once again going 
> to be delayed. But then, one of our number caught sight of another connecting 
> bus pulling up across the street.  "Let's go!" he shouted.  We all ran off our 
> bus and across the street towards the new bus which we now saw was so packed 
> that people were scrunched together in the aisles.  As we got closer, we 
> realized that the driver was singing into his microphone, in kind of a bluesy 
> way.  He sang,
> 
> " Get on the bus...get on the bus....get on the bus." And then he'd interchange 
> it with,  "You don't need money, you don't need money, you don't need money."
> 
> Once my MUNI mob and I had piled on to the bus which was probably illegally 
> crowded at this point, the bus driver continued his performance.  As the bus 
> lurched along and we tried to stay on our feet and out of other people's laps 
> he sang,
> 
> "This is a San Francisco bus, this is a friendly bus, this is a musical bus, 
> this is a BUS I tell you, this is a LOVE bus,"
> 
> at which point someone at the back yells, "If you pack anymore **&%&^& people 
> in here it really WILL be a love bus."
> 
> The bus driver pauses and then sings, "There's no need to be dirty, there's no 
> need to be dirty. . . it's a friendly bus . . . . ."
> 
> The End.
> 
> Julie
> 
> 
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