On the Road – Dead Skunks, Garbage Dumpers, Plasma Donors and More
August 23, 2023
Highlights and lowlights from yesterday’s bus trip to the Great State of New York:
1. While waiting for the Falls-bound regional transit bus at Fairview Mall, an older guy in a gray pickup pulled up next to the bus stop, got out and checked his front bumper. “Ran into a dead skunk,” he said. “Could smell it all the way.”
2. My shadow was at Morrison and Dorchester as well . . .
3. Boarding the connecting 110 Niagara Falls bus along with me was a woman wearing a gray golf shirt from Welland Recreation and Culture. They have culture in Welland? Besides sitting on your porch and smoking, of course.
4. During the short ride to Main and Ferry, the driver of that bus was engrossed in a conversation with an older guy with a walker. The driver said she grew up around Second and Jepson and has seen it all. Obviously someone who had never been to Winnipeg. But I digress. One of her favorite things to do as a child was to sit on the porch and people watch. The guy with the walker then talked about how one of his neighbors used to come around on garbage day and dump bags in front of the house he just moved into. One day, he went out and confronted the woman. “What the (expletive) is going on?” he asked. “George said I could do it,” she replied. “Well, George doesn’t live here anymore,” he answered. He went on to say that if she did it again, he was going to take those bags, cut them open and scatter the garbage all over her lawn.
5. This trip marked only the second time I had crossed the Rainbow Bridge on foot and the first time alone. You can put a loonie or four quarters (Ostmarks or American) in the turnstile, and there are change machines available, but sadly, I didn’t notice a place to unload nickels and dimes. As I’ve long since learned, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission really doesn’t like nickels and dimes. In any event, I proceeded across the bridge and went inside the U.S. Customs building.
There’s a locked door and you have to wait to be buzzed in. Again, they took my picture and directed me to the exit, where newly arrived visitors are greeted with this sign. Complete with taxpayer funded political promotion for the governoress.
6. While waiting for the Buffalo-bound #77 bus on Third Street across from Seneca Niagara Casino, the closest stop to the bridge, a young black punk drove past in a fancy car. Call me a racist or whatever you like, but I figured there was a near-certain probability that one of two things was true:
- The car was stolen.
- The car was financed through the commission on sales of white, powdery substances.
7. Outside the Metropolitan Transportation Center, I was accosted by a woman sitting on her walker who asked me, “Can you spare a dollar?” Later, while waiting for the Metro Rail in the Allen-Medical Campus station, some dude named Mike approached me. He gave me a sob story about how he just got out of the hospital, then opened up his wallet to show that he had no cash in there and asked me for $2. When I declined, he said, “It would help.” I’m sure it would.
8. On Ellicott Street, I spotted a woman wearing a T-shirt with the message, “I’m stronger than that.”
9. Seated inside the downtown library was a dude wearing a red dress and covered in tattoos who was teaching little kids how to play the guitar. I wonder what else he was teaching them.
10. Scenes inside and outside the Allen-Medical Campus Metro Rail station:
11. Scenes in Allentown:
12. These “missing dog” signs were plastered all over town. Not that I have any knowledge as to the whereabouts of the dog, but if I did, the offer of Bills tickets would make me less, not more inclined to help him.
12a. Throughout the day, I stood out, not because of my skin color, but because I wasn’t wearing any Bills paraphernalia.
13. Gayness in Allentown . . .
14. Other words of wisdom in Allentown:
15. Only a WHA aficionado like me will get this, but I should have asked if they offer a Racer sub instead . . .
16. In my car on the Metro Rail was a forlorn fellow toting a garbage bag full of cans with his head buried in his hands. At the other end of the car was a scruffy dude telling a black woman seated across the aisle who he had never met before about getting arrested right after he got out of the army. When subduing him, a cop put a knee right in his mouth. “My smile has been f---ed up ever since,” he said.
17. Scenes inside the Humboldt-Hospital Metro Rail station:
18. The astute reader will notice the lack of any people in any of the shots taken in the Metro Rail stations, despite being around noon on a weekday. Yes, I was left feeling a bit, shall we say, uneasy.
19. This storefront must be advertising the monthly rent they pay . . .
20. How dare they assume the workers’ gender?
21. Scenes inside the Metropolitan Transportation Center:
22. This is not aging well . . .
23. I found it odd that several people were posing for a group photo in front of the Erie County Family Court building facing Niagara Square.
24. Sign outside a shop on Niagara Street: This location gives free rides to all shoplifters. In a police car.
25. The passenger who wanted the #40 outbound bus I was on had no right to be angry when the driver didn’t stop for him since only the #5 stopped there. But the two passengers who were waiting at Hertel Avenue, a stop the #40 does serve, had every right to be angry when the driver pulled around the stopped #5 and whizzed past them. For the record, the #40 only runs every hour. There is a #77 which also goes to Niagara Falls, but it’s an express route and doesn’t serve that stop.
26. Farther north, the driver did stop to pick up a couple, both of whom looked to have come out of the shallow end of the gene pool, a common theme I noticed on the day. The male half, sporting a Bills cap, of course, was the more talkative of the two. Soon after boarding, he asked her, “Why you so strange? You gotta go home and get something to eat.” She dug through her purse and seemed pleasantly surprised to find $7.31. He said he only had $4.08 on his EBT card, the most popular payment method in WNY, though he later did scrounge up $23 in his wallet. Despite having so little cash on hand, however, he was apparently able to afford the tattoos on his neck and arm as well as the cell phone he was carrying.
They started planning their next meal, but he wasn’t keen on doing dishes and said, “We don’t got no plastic forks.” They thought of a place to eat, but he said, “Their coffee is horrible. Maybe they got something else on tap.” Then they spotted the Brick Oven on Grand Island. That seemed to intrigue him. So he pulled out his phone and said, “Menu for Brick Onion.” But the search engine on the phone seemed to know what he meant and he learned that they sell pizza. He wanted something else though, and wondered if they served fish fries. So he called one of his buddies and asked him, “You been to the Brick Oven, they got good food there?” His buddy gave it a thumbs-up. Before hanging up, he told his buddy he was on his way back from Amherst, where he had been donating plasma. “You only feel a little poke,” he said. They paid him $100 when he donated the first time, but they only pay $5 for each subsequent donation. “You just have to make sure to drink two or three glasses of water before you go,” he said.
27. More gayness on display in Niagara Falls . . .
28. Walking down Old Falls Street, I noticed that the going rate for a canned drink was between $2 and $2.50, yet in the state park, you’d pay double that and be forced to pay with a card. The private vendors get it. The state doesn’t.
29. The walkway and the gates to Canada Ostdeutschland . . .
30. The line waiting to get onto the bridge was stretching back almost all the way to Stanley Avenue. Yet there were only a few pedestrians waiting to get into Canada Ostdeutschland. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s rather fond of visiting the Great State of New York. Bear in mind this was a Tuesday afternoon, not on a long weekend or some sort of holiday.
31. While waiting for the GO bus at 420 & Stanley, someone with a group of Australian travelers asked me if this was the stop for the 12B bus to Burlington. I told them it was, but the stop, like all the other stops along the route, should be clearly labeled, especially in a tourist town like Niagara Falls.
32. Just before the bus took off, a couple of young women came charging downstairs and asked the driver if this was “the college stop.” Yeah, sure, just look around. See the empty fields? The park and ride lot? The tourist information center? Of course, it’s Niagara College . . . not! In any event, I wondered why they wanted to get off at Niagara College since they were Caucasian.
33. The weird gestures made by an elderly woman seated across the aisle . . .
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