Over the River LXXVI
May 11, 2024
Highlights and lowlights from my 76th two-wheeled trek to the Great State of New York:
1. Free comforter and grocery bag at the Fairview Mall bus stop . . .
2. Running after the regional bus at Niagara College was a black woman who asked the driver of a bus with a big lighted NIAGARA FALLS sign out front if he was going to St. Catharines. Sigh.
3. The CBP officer who served me at the Rainbow Bridge was surprisingly friendly and asked me, “Where are you going today, Curtis?”
4. For the benefit of those who need to park an aquarium . . .
5. More scenes that just scream “Niagara Falls, New York” . . .
6. Early morning lineup of people waiting to get into the Niagara Falls City Courthouse . . .
7. 400 years we worked for the government. But the U.S. government hasn’t even been around for 400 years.
8. Take a smile, leave a smile . . .
9. Or neither . . .
10. Behind me in line at the Orange Cat in Lewiston was an older guy wearing a suit jacket and a skirt.
11. The loudmouth named Wendy who served me asked me if I wanted honey in my tea, something I can’t say I’ve ever been asked before. Later, I learned that she really wants to take piano lessons.
12. Also behind the counter was a teenager who said her friend Heather had a new boyfriend named Colton. A new flavor of the month, she said. Then she went on another rant. They just said, like, write down your payout, she said. I didn’t know I was, like, supposed to subtract from it. I didn’t, like, think about it. When we were in school I never, like, understood numbers and stuff. Like, numbers are so confusing to me.
13. One customer came in and ordered a latte. Surprise me, she said. I’m feeling adventurous. Another customer then ordered a mango smoothie for herself and a peanut butter smoothie for her friend. The teenager behind the counter, however, explained that it’s not, like, real peanut butter. It’s, like, syrup, she said.
14. One guy came in, placed his order, then dropped his backpack on an empty table across from me and went outside to make a phone call. And his backpack and all its contents were still there when he got back. Once again, this is not the Old Country.
15. Home made jell. Whatever that is.
16. An older chubby guy came in, took a seat nearby and began talking to me. “I don’t know where that is,” he said when I told him I was from St. Catharines. He also didn’t know the name of the winery down the road he lives next door to.
17. After another customer had ordered, an older woman near the counter pouring cream into her coffee said to me, “They always ask, ‘Can I have this or that?’ They never say no.” But that depends on what the customer asks for.
18. But it’s OK to trespass while the business is open . . .
19. Is this how they teach their students to park at Oklahoma?
20. That’s a cop out . . .
21. The leaning pole of Niagara Falls . . .
22. Passing the Whirlpool Bridge, I spotted a CBP officer leading a drug dog around a car with Ontario plates.
23. Not far from that scene was a chubby woman puffing on a cigarette and wearing a black hoodie with the message FREE HUGS on it. As they say in Texas, El Paso.
24. It is astounding to think that Canada was once a place people fled to instead of fleeing from . . .
25. More words of wisdom in the ’hood . . .
26. Reserved parking for the modern-day equivalent of SS officers who had told the Jews coming off the cattle trains that they were just going for a shower . . .
27. Boarding the GO bus at Stanley & 420 was a couple of Asians who flashed their Niagara College student IDs, figuring that would get them free fare. No dice, the driver said. Debit, credit or go buy a ticket at the machine. So they turned around, took a seat in the shelter and moseyed off down the street after the bus took off.
28. Boarding at Niagara College was a black woman who asked the driver of a bus with a big lighted BURLINGTON CARPOOL sign out front if he was going to Burlington. Stop me if you’ve seen this movie before. She then showed the driver the weekend pass she bought on her phone. But even though it was a Friday, the driver let her on anyway.
29. Behind this black woman was an older woman with two dogs in tow and a younger female companion with Down’s syndrome sporting a nose ring and wearing a sparkly silver skirt. The older woman insisted that the driver lower the wheelchair ramp for her. “I can’t walk,” she said. “I just got out of the hospital.” So the driver did. But when she went to pay, her card was rejected. “Must be something wrong with the machine,” she said before repeating that she just got out of the hospital and asking her companion to “watch for the babies” as she passed by her precious dogs. While arguing with the driver, she made sure to tell him once again that she just got out of the hospital. Just in case he missed the first two times she told him. Which apparently qualified for free fare, as the driver let her on. Freed from that pesky burden of having to (gasp!) pay and able to ride like a Winnipegger, she had little difficulty making her way to the back of the bus, where her companion was seated across the aisle. I never knew about the magical healing powers of not having to pay fare.
30. Getting off a Falls-bound GO bus at Fairview Mall was an older woman pushing a walker. In tears, she exclaimed, “I’m done with public transit!” If she thinks GO is bad, she should try taking the bus in the Old Country.
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