a nice bus ride

Yesterday morning, my bus ride to work was surprisingly pleasant. Normally, my commute to and from work passes by without any major incidents, therefore, my mind normally voids the twice-a-day occurence altogether.

After all, who really wants to keep these memories in the forefront of their minds:

The homeless guy who sat at the front of the bus and had an extremely loud, sexually graphic, conversation...with himself of course. Or the guy who sits REALLY close to you, coughing horrendously, sneezing without covering anything up and just told his friend on the bus that he's so sick he's been puking in the bushes for the past 10 mintues before the bus came. Nonetheless, let's stick to the lovely bus ride of yesterday morn.

Upon arrival, the doors to the bus opened to reveal a hip bus driver, with an enormously wide grin (too wide for so early in the morning). I was waiting for the bus with some tough-looking kids heading to school. As they got on, the driver yelled at them "Hey Man, how you doin' - where's my coffee?" The "tough-guy grimace" on each of their faces faded into a great smile for everyone he said that to. And for each passenger he had a fun comment for them, giving an all-over happy aura to the bus's contents.

So the ride started off well. I didn't have my book, so I people-watched instead (I guess that's pretty obvious if I'm blogging about a damn bus ride).

I noticed a girl around the age of 17 at the front of the bus, with a wide-eyed, excited look on her face. Y'know, the kind of look that looked liked she was riding on the bus for the first time in the city by herself. She clutched a piece of folded paper in her hand and kept referring to it as we passed each cross-street.

A middle-aged couple got on the bus together and the woman was using a cane for support. Next to her, her boyfriend or husband was holding her purse for her. He was holding it as most men do when they're given a purse (like a football underneath the arm). But instead of the awkward, immasculated look most men dawn, he instead had a very confident look about him, sincerely concerned with the woman he was with instead of those around him.

At one point, when the bus started to become very crowded, his girlfriend tapped him on the shoulder and he got up to let a young woman sit down. Even as the bus became more and more full, the people in the front actually were courteous and let their elders sit down. It was amazing. I normally only see it for an obviuosly older person, but yesterday, anyone in their twenties got up and let someone older than them sit down. And I mean older like only five years older. There were such looks of relief on the newly-sitting down faces, it felt wonderful and surreal.

Getting closer to downtown, I noticed a gentleman sitting next to the 17-year old, talking to her and apparently trying to give her directions. She continued to look more and more confused. He was naming off crazy streets that didn't make any sense. Then at one point another girl yelled across the bus to the 17-year-old, "Hey, where are you going?" The 17 year old answered "1st and Marion." And then the girl on the other side of the bus said "Cool, you can get off with me at 3rd & Columbia - I'll show you where."

That's the same stop I get off, so my route down the hill was similar to theirs. As I left the two of them to enter my buiding at 2nd and Marion, they were chatting away as if they were old friends.

I try to practice acts of kindness as often as situations allow and I am always so happy to witness those random acts and people being courteous to each other. Unfortunately, I just don't get to see it very often.

To witness so many great moments in just a mere 20 minutes on a Wednesday morning really made me feel good about life and the human race in general. Maybe we're not doomed to kill each other off? Hmm.