Over the River LXXXVI
March 11, 2025
Highlights and lowlights from my 86th two-wheeled trek to the Great State of New York:
0. Before we get started, this is for anyone inclined to give me grief over visiting the USA:
1. In Niagara Falls (Canada), a black guy flagged down the #110 bus in the middle of the block to ask the driver if the #107 was coming. As if buses are mobile transit information centers. And in any event, how would the driver know about another route?
2. No hablo español . . .
3. Boarding the #40 Buffalo-bound bus on Grand Island was a woman who noted all the cars parked at Fantasy Island and figured it was a sign that they were getting the park ready before it opened. Last year, she didn’t see any cars parked there until opening day. A guy across the aisle said he used to work there, but now he works at Tops (that’s Tah-ps in Western New York-ese). The woman said she was last there around five years ago and hopes they extend their hours. They were only open until six last year, she said, and wanted to go at night. She wants to take her son there. She likes Darien Lake, but it’s a bit of a haul.
Then she asked the guy if he was getting a car. “Tired of taking the bus all the time?” she asked. After he lamented having to make such a major time commitment for long trips, she changed the subject and said she had been in Niagara Falls last week. “The weather is good,” she said. “Spring is upon us.” She added that she hopes the people from Canada buy her a car before saying she was on her way to work. She hoped her boss wouldn’t be there because if he is, she can’t finish her morning cigarette.
4. Outside a school at Porter Avenue was a teacher wearing a dipshit mask who was herding kids on the sidewalk near the entrance. Thankfully, however, this was the only DWAM™ I spotted on the day on the US side of the border. In past trips, I’ve spotted a lot more in the US than in Canada.
5. New inside the Metropolitan Transportation Center is the MTC Deli, occupying the spot long since abandoned by Tim Hortons.
6. As I stopped for a bit after reloading my MetGo card, two Transit Police officerettes were going up and down the aisles shooing away the indigents. If you weren’t there waiting for a bus, you need to leave, they said. When they stopped at one guy, they fished a blister pack of pills out of nearby trash bin and asked him, “How much did you take?”
7. In the parking lot at Undergrounds Coffee was a car with plates from the Great State of Washington. It’s not unusual to see plates from across the US in Niagara Falls, but it is unusual in the Old First Ward of Buffalo.
8. I took a seat near a fat woman dressed in a green top who was talking with someone on the phone about a marketing campaign she was working on.
“Social media is too much,” she said. “I mean, like, if there’s something big going on, then we, like, put our best foot forward. Seven posts. . . . So, like, I see this so often, but, like, I really want the news feed to be important content. . . . If you, like, go to the older generation, they’re, like, more into Facebook. . . . You don’t, like, have to make it complicated in a posting sense. Instagram is, like, less complicated. Facebook is more, like, involved. . . . The economy is, like, hard. I don’t, like, have any money for this project. . . . I think that, like, letting people know that their time is, like, important. Just giving, like, your time and presence is important. . . . I think, like, we could make a flyer.”
Then she switched topics.
“I think the cops, like, told the new director that she had to figure out security. Our old director, like, instead of feeding into that frenzy said we need to solve this problem. Hire our own security. . . . I, like, worked at the assembly where we, like, stayed up all night when the bills got passed. . . . There were, like, priorities given to people with certain zip codes, former offenders.”
8a. Yes, people really do talk this way.
9. Trust the skeleton . . .
10. I nearly laughed out loud when I saw this poster. This is akin to asking Jews to stand up for Hitler.
11. This ad from the Girl Guides of Western New York was wrapped around every cup. Since when are they in the business of selling gay cookies?
12. Since when does voting matter to Democrats? It’s not as though they aren’t experts at stealing elections. Heck, they could give lessons to third-world banana-republic dictators.
13. Rest assured, this isn’t a place I’ll be patronizing . . .
14. Free clothing and assorted goodies . . .
15. Get your gay tattoos here . . .
16. This was my lucky day . . .
17. On the outbound #40 bus, a woman seated near the back started talking about some guy. “He stinks,” she said. “He stinks so bad the elevator stinks. The whole floor stinks.”
18. Upon my return to the wrong side of the border, it did my heart good to see that there were long lines of cars waiting at US Customs, but there wasn’t anyone waiting to get into Canada. In fact, I had my choice of three empty lanes.
19. At the Niagara Falls (Canada) Bus Terminal, the GO bus schedule is posted prominently by the entrance and at the ticket counter. Yet an Indian woman walked up and asked when the next GO bus was coming. Because it’s easier to ask someone than to read what’s in plain sight.
20. Spotted at 420 & Stanley was an ad for a health care provider in Niagara Falls, USA. Compassionate care without the wait, the ad stated. Hey, I thought we had the best health care system in the world. Or not.
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