In honor of the busblog I wish to write about the bus I took for a year here in Eugene.
It's the 40 line.
The 40 line reminds me of once when in Davis, I went with a girlfriend to Safeway to get ice cream, and the scrawny fellow in front of us had three 40s and a bottle of baby oil, and we giggling sang that 1970s Hot Chocolate song "I believe in miracles since you came along you sexy thang..." for the rest of the night.
Except Eugene is not Davis, and so the 40 I'm talking about is the one that carries all the stinky bums from their daily panhandling jobs downtown to the Eugene Mission, not so they can stay there and take a shower and sleep in a bed and get fed and pray and maybe get a job, no.
So they can meet the other bums and exchange contraband goods and get together with their "friends" who would steal from them and leave them for dead but together they can buy more booze and go drown their sorrows in a bottle.
Probably in a couple of 40s.
Not that I have a problem with contraband goods or drowning sorrows.
Hold those bastard sorrows' heads under until they stop kicking.
But the bus, the bus the bus.
Standin on a corner, waitin for the bus
Hey Mister Driverman don't be slow
I got somewhere I gotta go
and thank you Violent Femmes for making that song a daily part of my life. Morning and evening,
you got the mother and the kid you got the guy and his date
we all get mad we all get late
You got the stinky old hippie bum in the seat next to you trying to find one thing just one reason to talk to the cute girl and then
*gasp*
he spies a beaded necklace. It's in cahoots with him, no doubt, as it spills out over my collar and he pokes-points at it, exhaling a great rush of booze-flavored breath and the obvious absence of deoderant, and with a lurch of the bus comes dangerously close to my eye, which I am still trying to avert because to look is to smile and to smile is to invite conversation and pretty soon there's a stalker who follows you to your stop, who wants to walk half a mile oh no it's not out of the way, I need the exercise, and now I know where you live...
No I'm not as young and naive as I was in Davis when I rode the P and Q lines. And I sure wish sometimes I weren't as cute. I honestly considered affecting a limp and getting some Billy Bob teeth. Instead I started reading everything, just under my breath, like in that Billy Crystal movie Forget Paris when her father repeats in lazy old man mindless speak, "You want it, you got it, Toyota."
Drove them away like a bullwhip to cattle. Especially effective was the vacuous stare and letting my tongue rest between my teeth.
Tony, if my car weren't on its last legs I would share it with you. You could have it six months, I could have it six months. But it's got nearly 200,000 miles on it and I doubt it would make it over the Siskiyous, much less the Tehachapis and the San Gabriels.
I once drove the Grapevine with a frayed fan belt and failing brakes, and I swear if I thought my 12 year-old Mitsu Mirage (no you can't see it and neither can the semis) would make it I'd donate it just so you don't have to ride the bus no more.
Last time it broke down was very convenient.
It was on the bus line.
It's the 40 line.
The 40 line reminds me of once when in Davis, I went with a girlfriend to Safeway to get ice cream, and the scrawny fellow in front of us had three 40s and a bottle of baby oil, and we giggling sang that 1970s Hot Chocolate song "I believe in miracles since you came along you sexy thang..." for the rest of the night.
Except Eugene is not Davis, and so the 40 I'm talking about is the one that carries all the stinky bums from their daily panhandling jobs downtown to the Eugene Mission, not so they can stay there and take a shower and sleep in a bed and get fed and pray and maybe get a job, no.
So they can meet the other bums and exchange contraband goods and get together with their "friends" who would steal from them and leave them for dead but together they can buy more booze and go drown their sorrows in a bottle.
Probably in a couple of 40s.
Not that I have a problem with contraband goods or drowning sorrows.
Hold those bastard sorrows' heads under until they stop kicking.
But the bus, the bus the bus.
Standin on a corner, waitin for the bus
Hey Mister Driverman don't be slow
I got somewhere I gotta go
and thank you Violent Femmes for making that song a daily part of my life. Morning and evening,
you got the mother and the kid you got the guy and his date
we all get mad we all get late
You got the stinky old hippie bum in the seat next to you trying to find one thing just one reason to talk to the cute girl and then
*gasp*
he spies a beaded necklace. It's in cahoots with him, no doubt, as it spills out over my collar and he pokes-points at it, exhaling a great rush of booze-flavored breath and the obvious absence of deoderant, and with a lurch of the bus comes dangerously close to my eye, which I am still trying to avert because to look is to smile and to smile is to invite conversation and pretty soon there's a stalker who follows you to your stop, who wants to walk half a mile oh no it's not out of the way, I need the exercise, and now I know where you live...
No I'm not as young and naive as I was in Davis when I rode the P and Q lines. And I sure wish sometimes I weren't as cute. I honestly considered affecting a limp and getting some Billy Bob teeth. Instead I started reading everything, just under my breath, like in that Billy Crystal movie Forget Paris when her father repeats in lazy old man mindless speak, "You want it, you got it, Toyota."
Drove them away like a bullwhip to cattle. Especially effective was the vacuous stare and letting my tongue rest between my teeth.
Tony, if my car weren't on its last legs I would share it with you. You could have it six months, I could have it six months. But it's got nearly 200,000 miles on it and I doubt it would make it over the Siskiyous, much less the Tehachapis and the San Gabriels.
I once drove the Grapevine with a frayed fan belt and failing brakes, and I swear if I thought my 12 year-old Mitsu Mirage (no you can't see it and neither can the semis) would make it I'd donate it just so you don't have to ride the bus no more.
Last time it broke down was very convenient.
It was on the bus line.
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