Over the River XCVI
August 7, 2025
Highlights and lowlights from my 96th two-wheeled trek to the Great State of New York:
1. While waiting for the regional bus downtown, a older mentally disturbed woman went up and down the platform accosting people, asking them for a dollar. When she finally exhausted her options, she lit up a cigarette. No money for basic essentials, but she’s got money for smokes. Stop me if you’ve seen this movie before.
2. My first time using the new “no mall” regional routing proved to be a head-scratcher. The #55 route to the Falls came as scheduled at 7:05, but the #45 was nowhere in sight. In its place was the #45B, which only serves Niagara College and was supposed to have left at 7:00, but didn’t until 7:05. So I took the #55. And yet when I got to Morrison & Dorchester, some of those who had piled on the #45B were already there, despite the fact that, even if the #45B was really the #45, it was scheduled to get to the Falls seven minutes later than the #55. Someone at Niagara Transit needs to explain how this is “simplifying my ride.” And for the record, I’d happily pay the extra buck to have the #45 serve Fairview Mall again.
3. At U.S. Customs at the Rainbow Bridge, I had my choice of two open lanes. After asking where I was going, the CBP officer who served me asked me if I do this often. “I’m a regular,” I said.
4. On account of how quickly I got through customs and how late the #77 was, I was able to catch the express bus to Buffalo. And because the fare box wasn’t working, I was able to ride like a Winnipegger.
5. Already on board the #77 with his bike on the rack was a fellow cyclist whose seat was heavily wrapped in about a dozen old plastic bags and all tied up with electrical tape.
6. Four Asians with luggage in tow boarded at John Daly Boulevard, and the driver kept pleading with them to go to the back, where there were plenty of empty seats, in order to clear the aisle of their luggage. Meanwhile, despite being told that the fare box wasn’t working, one of them kept waving a $20 bill at the driver. We were kept there for several minutes until they finally figured it all out.
7. Ahead of me in line at Undergrounds Coffee in the Old First Ward was a 20-something woman with rainbow-colored hair and her legs covered in tattoos. Not long after came someone wearing a nose ring and a flimsy pink halter top with a rainbow pin stuck to her purse.
8. As they say in Texas, El Paso . . .
9. Not long after I took a seat came this hotshot who left her sunglasses and protein drink behind while she waited several minutes for her coffee and thick breakfast bagel, oozing with cheese, egg and some sort of sausage. It was so thick, in fact, that she had a hard time getting her mouth around it. She must have paid an arm and a leg for it, but they sure didn’t skimp on the ingredients. But she only took occasional and small bites of it and didn’t even touch the coffee as her attention was laser-focused on her phone. What’s so damned important? I want to ask such people. Of course, she had a tattoo on her arm as well. With all the tattoos I saw on the day, it made me wonder what makes me more unusual. That I don’t have a driver’s license, a smartphone or a tattoo.
10. If you need to put up a sign telling your employees to wash their hands after using the toilet, they shouldn’t be working for you.
11. Sadly, far too many willingly comply . . .
12. The Great Lawn in the Great State . . .
13. More gayness on display . . .
14. Sidewalk art . . .
15. On my return trip, boarding the Falls-bound #77 bus on North Division Street was an older woman wheeling a suitcase. Perched on it was a wooden cross and a sign proclaiming herself as Erika Schwibs, Prophet of God. With genius by His grace. Jesus is coming back!!! A modern-day Rasputin? I wondered. Later, I discovered she has her own blog on Wordpress, where she stated it took her 23 years to begin identifying as a prophet after God first brought that word to her. “It’s humbling,” she said. “A prophet must not, in the wrong way, think of himself or herself as ‘special.’” She also frequently posts on Reddit, where she said she has been homeless in the past and that she’s spent decades studying our economic system, finding conservatives to be much more knowledgeable on financial topics than liberals. Much of what she learned, she said, came from conservative media and discussion.
16. Just north of City Hall, a black couple boarded a bus with a big lighted “77 NIAGARA FALLS” sign out front and proudly proclaimed to the driver that they were going to the Falls. You don’t say. I thought they were headed for Amherst.
17. I’ve seen a lot of encampments, but this is the first time I’ve seen one here at Checkpoint Charlie at the Rainbow Bridge . . .
18. While digging out my change for the toll, a heavy-set guy approached me and asked where the pedestrian crossing to Canada was. After showing him the way and explaining that he’ll have to pay a buck toll on his way back, he asked, “If you don’t pay, do they keep you there? Do you have to wash dishes?” It’s an interesting question and I don’t know the answer, but it did bring back how galling it is to actually have to pay to return to Ostdeutschland Canada.
19. When going through Canadian Customs, the CBSA officer who served me took my passport and asked, “What are you bringing back with you?” “Nothing I didn’t bring with me,” I replied. After thumbing through my passport, he handed it back to me without even scanning it on the reader inside the booth and said, “You’re all set.”
20. Seated nearby at the Niagara Falls (Canada) Bus Terminal was an Asian girl with blue hair, a nose ring and wearing a black T-shirt with the message, “Public Enemy” written on it. She soon began applying more lipstick, making her even more unattractive, if that was possible. Then she began talking to her traveling companions, a Caucasian girl around the same age with dark red hair and a heavy-set Caucasian guy. “There’s literally, like, nothing wrong with my purse,” she said. “My mother is, like, f---ing watching me put money in the machine. Like, go somewhere else!” Regarding one time she was going inside a store, she said, “I’ll be in there for, like, 25 minutes.” Then her mother comes in soon after and asks, “Are you, like, ready?” “No,” she replied, “I’m just, like, getting started.” Later, she said, “I’m, like, so dialed in for my birthday.”
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