single317dad
Senior Member
Picture, if you will, a country boy new to the big city. Said big city has the idea that all people need to go downtown, that no one could possibly need to go from, say, northwest to northeast directly. Meanwhile, said country boy lives on the northwest side and lands gainful employment on the northeast side, 15.4 miles away as the Google-crow flies (his great-great-grandpappy was fond of that saying).
The journey by bus is nearly 3 hours each way, 6 days a week. Point A is conveniently located 15 feet outside his apartment door, with Point Z a mere 9 blocks from the gainful employment. Hours of employment are 2p-9p, Monday-Saturday. Bus service gets very sparse after 11 p.m.
The route requires an exchange downtown, as all routes run through a glorious place call "Penn and Ohio", which the country boy comes to know as the Grand Central Station of Indiana. Rather than golden halls and polished terrazzo floors, this central hub of transportation consists of four glass bus shelters, positioned one per corner, each with convenient bench seating. Little does our protagonist realize, but each bus is not available at each corner; rather, one must await at the proper corner if one wishes to catch the bus going his direction (imagine that!)
Follow now our country boy as he dutifully sets off to work, his smile broad and his mind open to the possibilities that lay before him in his youth and vigor. Once across town, without a hitch, as bus A drops us at just the right corner, and bus B picks us up and delivers us, as promised, with the assistance of our friendly driver who knows exactly the spot we're headed. Later that day, we return much as we departed, but something's a little different: we're not on the same corner; we're on the opposite side of the shabby corner, it's dark now, toward the end of the bus schedules, and there are more other people, more car traffic, and our country boy has become confused.
Not to be easily thwarted, he pulls out his handy bus pamphlet, including various routes and schedules. With the help of his trusty Timex, he confirms that, indeed, there should be one more bus arriving at this very intersection any moment which will bear him home to a well-earned meal, shower, and slumber. He looks up from his study just in time to see that very bus (!); alas, it has arrived on the corner opposite our hero, and cannot be reached before it has resumed its journey without him.
Cue dramatic score.
This has left our beloved country boy in quite a quandary: he has little in the way of currency, an empty belly, tired feet, and greatly diminished morale, but he has right and might on his side, and by the gods, he will get home tonight! (or, early tomorrow, probably) So, off he walks, into unfamiliar territory, with only his bus map and faint memories of Rand McNally as a guide. He visits the charming burgh of Haughville, where he learns what that one black kid he went to school with must have felt like to be "unique", learns about entrepreneurship as young men do business from their car windows and young ladies offer their wares from dark places, broadens his musical palette to now include the newly emerging genre of "gangster rap", which is apparently properly played at full volume, and discovers that there aren't enough sidewalks along city streets.
The final lesson this boy (who had, by the end, taken another step toward manhood) came away with was that in all things where one is to face the unknown, a little extra research and a practice run sure can't hurt.
The journey by bus is nearly 3 hours each way, 6 days a week. Point A is conveniently located 15 feet outside his apartment door, with Point Z a mere 9 blocks from the gainful employment. Hours of employment are 2p-9p, Monday-Saturday. Bus service gets very sparse after 11 p.m.
The route requires an exchange downtown, as all routes run through a glorious place call "Penn and Ohio", which the country boy comes to know as the Grand Central Station of Indiana. Rather than golden halls and polished terrazzo floors, this central hub of transportation consists of four glass bus shelters, positioned one per corner, each with convenient bench seating. Little does our protagonist realize, but each bus is not available at each corner; rather, one must await at the proper corner if one wishes to catch the bus going his direction (imagine that!)
Follow now our country boy as he dutifully sets off to work, his smile broad and his mind open to the possibilities that lay before him in his youth and vigor. Once across town, without a hitch, as bus A drops us at just the right corner, and bus B picks us up and delivers us, as promised, with the assistance of our friendly driver who knows exactly the spot we're headed. Later that day, we return much as we departed, but something's a little different: we're not on the same corner; we're on the opposite side of the shabby corner, it's dark now, toward the end of the bus schedules, and there are more other people, more car traffic, and our country boy has become confused.
Not to be easily thwarted, he pulls out his handy bus pamphlet, including various routes and schedules. With the help of his trusty Timex, he confirms that, indeed, there should be one more bus arriving at this very intersection any moment which will bear him home to a well-earned meal, shower, and slumber. He looks up from his study just in time to see that very bus (!); alas, it has arrived on the corner opposite our hero, and cannot be reached before it has resumed its journey without him.
Cue dramatic score.
This has left our beloved country boy in quite a quandary: he has little in the way of currency, an empty belly, tired feet, and greatly diminished morale, but he has right and might on his side, and by the gods, he will get home tonight! (or, early tomorrow, probably) So, off he walks, into unfamiliar territory, with only his bus map and faint memories of Rand McNally as a guide. He visits the charming burgh of Haughville, where he learns what that one black kid he went to school with must have felt like to be "unique", learns about entrepreneurship as young men do business from their car windows and young ladies offer their wares from dark places, broadens his musical palette to now include the newly emerging genre of "gangster rap", which is apparently properly played at full volume, and discovers that there aren't enough sidewalks along city streets.
The final lesson this boy (who had, by the end, taken another step toward manhood) came away with was that in all things where one is to face the unknown, a little extra research and a practice run sure can't hurt.
