Or… Where to Find the Best Seat on Earth
I really dug 
Eric Nuzum’s theory on crazy people riding the bus on a new favorite blog, The Prince of Petworth.
My pal Cathy lives in this area of Washington D.C. and introduced me to this fab blog about a, at best, up and coming, and at worst, dodgy-Dodgeville neighborhood in one twisted city.
Petworth is lovely, old and filled with spunky characters: that which makes for great life and great blogging.
In this particular story, Nuzum ponders why there seems to be so many more crazy people on the bus than there are on the subway. After three years in public transportation land, I think he left one critical issue out: The View.
Not Barbara Walters’ View, but the season-changing, hormone shifting view of LIFE that one can see from the bus, and step in and out of. In the subway, the view and everything associated with it is quashed. But on the bus, people are still vitally connected to life in the city. And that connection keeps people’s hearts dancing, right at the same manic drumbeat they will dance to on the sidewalk.
I love the bus. I loved it in Kansas City (as sparse as the lines were). I adored it in London, the swaying of the top deck through the narrowest passages, brushing treetops. I love the fact that on the bus, I am alone in a crowd, outside in the world, yet inside my own mind, experiencing everything in just my own way: everything including all my bus mates.
People in America don’t ride the bus. They float around life in the boring-old car islands– talking into the Bluetooth ether. They are missing out. They are missing their feet on the ground, the sound of live voices, missing out on reading a good magazine, only to glance up and see an old woman and her young companion walking on the street, leaning into each other sweetly. Or a dog being carried for its walk. Or, as Nuzum reports, getting to participate in the honor of a call out on Kevin’s birthday.
You could ride the bus to save the earth and avoid searching for a parking space. But there are much better reasons than that.
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