Over the River LXXXIII
October 12, 2024
Highlights and lowlights from my 83rd two-wheeled trek to the Great State of New York:
1. Spotted under a light post in the middle of the parking lot at Fairview Mall was a DWAM™ wearing a high-grade N95 mask fiddling about with a few of his worldly possessions. Outside. His biggest problem isn’t a virus, rather mental illness.
2. The officer who served me at U.S. Customs asked, “Where are we going today?” I wasn’t aware he was planing to come with me. Then again, as loyal readers are well aware, the CBP have followed me before.
3. It hadn’t been that long since I was on Grand Island, yet during that time, they had put a fresh coat of asphalt on the entire length of Grand Island Boulevard and added rumble strips as well. Further proof that this is not the Old Country, where such a project would have taken an entire summer, perhaps longer.
4. Spotted on Niagara Street in Buffalo was a pickup truck with a message on the back which read, “Lying Kamala Tampon Tim NOT for President.”
5. Near Carolina Street, I noticed a Muslim woman waiting at a bus stop which serves the #40 route (not all stops on Niagara Street do). As the driver clearly wasn’t slowing down as he approached the stop, the woman began waving, yet the driver still kept going and blew her off. I smell a juicy human rights complaint coming.
6. Some dude in the washroom at the Metropolitan Transportation Center spent a lot of time at the hand dryer before going to take a piss. Wrong order of operations if you ask me.
7. At Canalside was a black DWAM™ wildly gesticulating with his arms. Just the mask alone told me that the guy had some serious mental issues.
8. No, the mayor doesn’t care. Because he’s a politician. None of them care. At least not about you.
9. Please tell me this isn’t part of some special gay-themed housing development . . .
10. Views of the Coast Guard lighthouse:
11. And here I was so looking forward to rummaging through the bins . . .
12. Skyline view from the tower at the Erie Basin Marina:
13. Door art . . .
14. While waiting in line at Tim Davinder Hortons at Canalside, I spotted a disheveled black guy munching on a breakfast sandwich. A white woman in front of me asked him, “Do you want me to buy you a bottle of water?”
“I buy my own shit,” he replied.
“I was just trying to help,” she said.
14a. The fact that I was at a Tim Davinder Hortons location deserves an explanation. No, I haven’t crossed back to the dark side. I maintain my steadfast resolve to never again give them another dime of my own money. But I was gifted with a card preloaded with 50 Davinder Dollars. So I’ll make them work for it. That said, it was still very difficult to go in there. Part of me wanted to put a bag over my head.
15. While there, I was hoping to order oatmeal. But they don’t offer it anymore. So with few other acceptable options, I ordered a hashbrown oval-shaped hunk of grease held together by tiny chunks of a potato-like product. Rest assured it’s not something I’ll be trying again.
16. Seated behind me was a mother and father with their two children. The father was talking to his son about baseball and how St. Clair, his son’s rival team, hasn’t lost in, like, four years. “They’re, like, good,” he said. “We played them, like, in a tournament.” For a moment there, I thought I was at, like, Balzac’s.
17. On my return trip across the bridge, I found it especially odd that there were longer lines waiting to get into Canada than into the United States. On the Friday before Canadian Thanksgiving, I had expected the opposite, with Canadians looking to get a head start on their long weekend.
18. On the GO bus that took me back to St. Catharines, someone boarded at 420 & Stanley and asked the driver if he was going to Welland. While the driver indicated that he’d need to go to Niagara College and take a local bus from there, he should have instead asked why he was going to Welland at all.
19. This guy was taking advantage of the captive audience at 420 & Stanley to solicit roadside donations to his favorite charity:
20. A scarecrow perched at Niagara College . . .
21. After unloading my bike at Fairview Mall, I cringed as I listened to an exchange between the driver and a confused elderly passengerette who wanted to go to the Hamilton GO Center. Rather than instructing her to take the bus to Stoney Creek and take the HSR Barton bus, he was giving her some convoluted route via Burlington to connect with the #11 (née 18K) GO bus. I wanted to intervene, but I feared it would only have added more confusion for the poor woman. Nonetheless, she should have done her homework before getting to Fairview Mall in the first place instead of expecting the driver to plan her itinerary. It’s not as though resources aren’t available online or over the phone.
| Previous post | Next post |