Step right up folks. There is plenty of room, so move to the rear and take a seat. The fare is free, and I promise this will be an interesting trip. You might as well sit back and get to know your neighbors. Some might be a little odd, but almost all are harmless. This is a local so we’ll be making stops on just about every corner.
When I tell people that I have been a city bus rider for nearly fifty years, some ask why I subject myself to the bus rather than drive. I point out that riding the bus allows me to spare myself the expense, stress, and risk of driving, and it gives me the opportunity to read and focus on stories and ideas rather than on avoiding accidents, speed traps, or drivers with road rage. It’s not all pleasant, though. There are delays, of course, as well as noisy teenagers, crying babies, and occasional drama that arises between strangers.
Expressions about bus riding pop up frequently in ways unrelated to public transportation. Ken Kesey, the counterculture guru, famously said, “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.” The bus he was referring to was “Furthur,” the psychedelically painted school bus in which he and his followers, the Merry Pranksters, toured the country in the 1960s. To the Pranksters, being on the bus meant sharing the group’s goals and vision.
In a more conventional vein, riding the bus has been used to describe an approach to business management. It emphasizes the importance of having employees (team members in business jargon) with complete commitment to the mission and operation of the enterprise. One author of popular books on business leadership says that to build a great organization a leader must start by “having the right people on the bus.” Another says that success also requires having the “right people in the right seats” on the company bus.
More importantly, though, the idea of being on a bus offers a metaphor fundamental for understanding life. The bus is not anything like the Pranksters’ “Furthur,” nor is it a well-oiled corporate organization. It’s not a big city public transit bus. It’s not one of the Greyhound buses that still travel across the country carrying mostly poor people. And it certainly is not one of those huge land yachts cruising America’s highways, housing its owners in comfort similar to their McMansions back home.
Nope. The real bus is life, and everyone is a passenger, maybe sitting and looking out a window, maybe standing in the aisle. It’s a local that grinds on day after day, stopping at every block for more passengers—business executives, homeless, mothers with babies, old guys with walkers, and on and on.
Comparing riding the bus to life may sound like a trite Sunday morning homily by an evangelist in a cheap suit who goes on to assure listeners that Jesus is behind the wheel, never mentioning if Jesus could even drive or is a card-carrying Teamster. The metaphor of being on the bus has nothing to do with religion, however. Rather, it simply describes the reality that every one of us on that bus are riders on a one-way trip to the end of the line.
That fact is easy to ignore, particularly for those who are lucky enough to have wealth, good health, and some manner of “success”—or who are young enough to not yet understand the reality of day-to-day existence. It is easy to motor along in our own version of reality, forgetting that everyone has the same destination as everyone else. At some point, though, everyone has to park, climb aboard, and face the same vagaries of fate. Accepting that helps us to appreciate whatever good fortune accrues to us and to empathize with our fellow commuters. Let’s enjoy the ride together.
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While writing this essay, two things related to riding the bus came to mind. The first is the touching song “Clay Pigeons” by John Prine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfZJMIs3BI&list=RD4LfZJMIs3BI&start_radio=1
One of the verses describes a bus ride, but in a different sense:
I’m goin’ down to the Greyhound Station, gonna buy a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with two or three kids and sit down by her side
Ride ’til the sun comes up and down around me ’bout two or three times
Smokin’ cigarettes in the last seat
Sing my song for the people I meet
And get along with it all
Where the people say “y’all”
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talkin’ again
When I know what to say
The other thing that I thought of is the sign posted above the driver in every San Francisco bus and streetcar: INFORMATION GLADLY GIVEN BUT SAFETY REQUIRES AVOIDING UNNECESSARY CONVERSATION. Anyone who has spent much time on the San Francisco Muni would recognize those words immediately. As the driver of this essay, I say to hell with safety, so let’s talk. I welcome your comments.
This reminds me of Jimmy Buffett’s song Fruitcakes, one of my favs. Song by
Jimmy Buffett
Fruitcakes
You know I was talking to my friend Desdemona the other day
She runs this space station and bake shop down near Boomtown
She told me that human beings are flawed individuals
The cosmic bakers took us out of the oven a little too early
And that’s the reason we’re as crazy as we are and I believe it
Take, for example, when you go to the movies these days, you know
They try to sell you this jumbo drink
Eight extra ounces of watered-down cherry coke for an extra 25 cents
I don’t want it
I don’t want that much organization in my life
I don’t want other people thinking for me
I want my Junior Mints, where did the Junior Mints go in the movies
I don’t want a 12 pound Nestle’s crunch for 25 dollars
I want Junior Mints
We need more fruitcakes in this world and less bakers
We need people that care
I’m mad as hell and I don’t want to take it anymore
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin’ naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (people on the bus)
There’s a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Paradise, lost and found
Paradise, take a look around
I was out in California where I hear they have it all
They got riots, fires, mud slides
They’ve got sushi in the mall
Water bars, brontasaurs, chinese modern lust
Shake and bake life with the quake
The secret’s in the crust
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin’ naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (people on the bus)
There’s a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Speakin’ of fruitcakes, how ’bout the government?
Your tax dollars at work
We lost our Martian rocket ship
The high paid spokesman said
Looks like that silly rocket ship
Has lost its cone-shaped head
We spent 90 jillion dollars trying to get a look at Mars
I hear universal laughter ringing out among the stars
Fruitcakes in the galaxy (fruitcakes in the galaxy)
Fruitcakes on the earth (fruitcakes on the earth)
Struttin’ naked towards eternity
We’ve been that way since birth
Half-baked cookies in the oven (cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (people on the bus)
There’s a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Religion, religion
Oh, there’s a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning
Here we go now
Alright, alter boys
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
Where’s the church, who took the steeple
Religion is in the hands of some crazy-ass people
Television preachers with bad hair and dimples
The god’s honest truth is it’s not that simple
It’s the Buddhist in you, it’s the Pagan in me
It’s the Muslim in him, she’s Catholic ain’t she?
It’s the born again look its the WASP and the Jew
Tell me what’s goin’ on, I ain’t got a clue
Now here comes the big ones, relationships, we all got ’em
We all want ’em, what do we do with ’em?
Here we go, I’ll tell ya
She said you gotta do your fair share
Now cough up half the rent
I treat my body like a temple
You treat yours like a tent
But the right word at the right time
May get me a little hug
That’s the difference between lightning
And a harmless lightnin’ bug
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin’ naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (people on the bus)
There’s a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
The future, captain’s log, stardate two thousand and something
We’re seven years from the millenium
That’s a science fiction fact
Stanley Kubrick and his buddy Hal
Now don’t look that abstract
So I’ll put on my Bob Marley tape
And practice what I preach
Get Jah lost in the reggae mon
As I walk along the beach
Stay in touch with my insanity really is the only way
It’s a jungle out there kiddies
Have a very fruitful day
Hey
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin’ naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (people on the bus)
There’s a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
That’s right, you too, yeah, those crumbs are spread all around this universe
I’ve seen fruitcakes
I saw this guy in Santa Monica rollerskate naked through the crosswalk
Down in New Orleans in the French market there are fruitcakes like you cannot believe
New York, forget it, fruitcake city, Down island, we’ve got fruitcakes
Spread them crumbs around that’s right
We want ’em around
Keep bakin’ baby, keep bakin’
Songwriters: Jimmy Buffett, Amy Lee Schwartzberg. For non-commercial use only.
Ah, Jimmy Buffett. I just finished a novel by Jim Harrison and was reading about his friendship with Buffett
Very evocative, Tom!
Elise
Not just Muni but AC Transit and BART as well!
Reminded me of so many bus rides growing up. Excellent view of life, also made me laugh.
I have some fine stories from riding the bus and streetcar in SF for three decades.
Excellent, Tom!
Gracias, Chusa.
I was thinking earlier this week about “Many Are Called,” a book of photographs Walker Evans took of people on the New York subway, using a hidden camera. Of course, the point of my post is that riding the bus is a metaphor for the journey we all make through life. Evans’ subway photographs from more than eighty year ago are themselves an elegant example of the same idea, of our common humanity.
https://publicdelivery.org/walker-evans-many-are-called/