Driving a bus is like opening a window into the way we live our modern lives. Not the way we say we live them, but the way we actually do live them. You see things, some good and you remember them forever and some bad and you try to forget them.
A perfect example for these hot days is Spandex. Now people! Spandex is a privilege! not a right. Do not abuse this right. Spandex is a times ten multiplier to anything you are. Flaws and perfection are multiplied ten times. Please please please in the name of all things pure and good. Lay off the spandex if you are not worthy. You only hurt those around you, you only hurt the ones you love.
Driving a city bus means you see everyone, interact with everyone, even those who should never ware spandex. In our world it is the bus that is the great melting pot, the great equalizer. My bus is like a rolling united nations of people from all over the world, along with all the locals you can shake a stick at. As a bus driver you not only see everyone, you deal with everyone.
Also as a bus driver you see outcomes good, bad and horribly ugly. In effect driving a bus is a non-stop reality check on what the world is really like. On TV you hear statistics, in the newspaper you hear labels as a bus driver you see reality, over and over again.
The recession has brought an increase in one trend I was blissfully ignorant of before I started driving a bus, abandoned property. I’m not talking about the occasional wreckage left in my neighborhood or a spare tired tossed on a sidewalk. No, I’m talking about the detritus of someone’s life left behind. These piles of abandoned hose wares and clothing are a stark reminder of the human cost of a bad economy. You cannot help but see them, large or small these piles are out there and there frequency is increasing.
These piles of debris stand like sentinels for people lives gone wrong. Some times they just appear over night and others it is an evolution that starts with a yard sale, often called a moving sale. This yard sale then becomes a free giveaway and then the hosts are gone and what is left is the husks of their lives, the items indigestible by the modern world, left to weather and wait.
Some areas you find more and in other areas they are harder to find but they are everyplace in my city. Woe to the land owner who has an unfenced grass field for here you will often find piles and piles of debris dumped by those seeking a way out. Not garbage mind you, not bags of shredded credit card bills, food, wrappers, and old copies of Maxim magazines. I’m talking about the items that represents someone’s life. The items that six months before may have been a welcome sight for those returning from work to family and home, perhaps a books case or an ottoman or maybe a collection of Christmas cards collected over the years.
I have started to look through these piles. I call them tracks because I feel like in a very real way they are a footprint left behind on a life trail, and in a way I’m following them.
I keep a list of things I find trying to discern any pattern, clues to the lives of those who have moved on. I now give you a few selections from my notes. Maybe you can determine what has eluded me over the last year. The why to all of this pain.
Track One:
Inner SE Side Street: This neighborhood does not look like the kind of neighborhood that has felt the pinch of economic hard times. Plenty of boats ski machines, second cars and SUVs Tell a story of a community free of lay offs and pain, so far.
Items Remaining:
1. Sesame street clock
2. Bag of pillow cases
3. Shoe box of old greeting cards (most of them are to Anne)
4. Barrel chair that looks more Barrel then chair
5. A box of dog related items, collars, chains,
6. Cardboard box of books all sun dried and brittle, Mostly romance
7. An old kids bike, very small with training wheels
8. Two boxes of old VHS tapes. Mostly self help and fitness
9. A barrel of monkeys barrel filled with decks of playing cards
10. Polaroid’s of a family reunion from the early 80’s era
Track Two
Outer SE: Not far from my house is a field that is used as a neighborhood dump. The frequency of its use is directly related to the height of the grass. The higher the grass the more it is used. The landowner recently cut the grass low and the dumping has stopped.
Items Remaining
1. Corner sofa, half covered in plastic the other half cat hair
2. Old large rear projection TV. Just the top half
3. A box of old egg cartons painted green.
4. Torn open bag of shirts, all small
5. Two mugs with Obama picture on them
6. A mountain picture calendar from 2006. Good pictures
7. Two bottles of Elmer’s glue half opened and dried
8. A large trophy for best Limbo dancer from a cruise line
9. A huge tub of Aloe Vera spilled over.
10. Five pair of used kids shoes all high top converse and all without strings.
Track Three
Outer NW: The inner part of NW is very crowded but as you move out away from Portland you can catch a glimpse of this pile left on the side of the road. Half has slid down into the drainage ditch but it’s still there.
Items Remaining
1. A dozen hot rod magazines
2. A box of mixed kitchen items, knives, forks large plastic cups
3. What looked like a small desk with a broken legs
4. Small TV with the words free written on it.
5. Box of lighters and ash trays, Lighters don’t work
6. Four shot glasses from Vegas casinos
7. Two large wool blankets like you would buy in Mexico
8. Two extension cables with the male plugs broken off
Track Four
Outer NE: Located by the airport I knew right where to go for this one. I grew up in this neighborhood. Most of the fields have been filled in with the type of ugly houses you used to only see in Southern California but are now everyplace.
Items Remains
1. Box of gardening tools, mostly rusted
2. Five different winter jackets
3. Three board games, Risk, Parcheesi and Connect Four
4. A huge pillow
5. Two dinner table chairs, bleached by sun and rain.
6. Hatbox with an old hat in it. Black with a vial.
7. US Flag all faded and torn
8. A shovel with a handle cut short
9. Orthopedic shoes with brace for right foot and ankle
10. Two walking canes one wood and one aluminum
11. Old box of national geographic. Stuck together.
12. Picture frame, unused.
13. Box of VHS tapes marked with vacation spots.
Side note: I have an old VHS player. It sounds strange to me to say old VHS player. Can you believe that back in High School there was a store that rented not only movies but VHS players as well because no one owned one?
Mine has be gathering dust for a long time so I hooked it up and gave it a try with the VHS tapes I found. The family was racially mixed, maybe Philippines and African American. There was four or five of them. They loved to go places with water. I could only watch a few minutes of each I felt like I was spying and did not like how it made me feel.
I keep an eye out now. I keep watch and see what I can find, like a challenge. I try to find the most ugly couch, the biggest poster, the oldest book. Sometimes it breaks your heart like when you find a personal photo album.
I like to think that all these people were on their way to someplace better. They were on their way and shed what they could not bring with them like a snake shedding its skin. I try to imagine them all living in some nice upscale condo laughing about how they used to own the checkered green couch, or an end table made out of bamboo. Maybe wondering what ever happened to that old box of national geographic.
I always hope for the best even if I know it’s not the most likely outcome. Sometimes you can see the writing on the wall in the tracks left behind. You can see notices of evictions, collection notices, repossession notices. I have found release documentation for prisoners. I have seen pass due bills for Credit cards of monstrous proportions. Then again I know that is only what is left behind. It may not tell the whole story. The story’s are in the lives of those people who forge on, not in what they left behind.
I no longer get mad when I see a pile of debris, they are common now. I keep thinking to myself what does this tell me? What do I learn form this? Maybe I hope deep down inside that through some Sherlock Holmes like deduction I can figure out what not to do. As if the travails of a life can be avoided by not buying a green leather recliner chair or collecting Christmas cards, a bitter hope I know.
I keep looking for clues and answers but until I find them I’ll keep rolling.
I’ll keep my eyes out for signs of life, for tracks left behind by those on their way to someplace better. And avoiding looking at anyone in spandex, just in case
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