For Cellar Door and Francesca

#7 Haight

James, revisited.

Last Thursday, I went to Wake Tech to speak with the head of the culinary department, but that's a story for another day. I got to take one of the shuttles to campus. Turns out that the bus I was on was one of the two new electric buses the city just bought to become the Downtown Circulator. The buses are so cool. Most of the seats in the front are sideways and it has a small tv in the front. Riding sideways usually makes me sick, but this was a very smooth ride. Ironic that I take public transportation so often when I get vertigo at the drop of a hat. Anyway, a gazillion 18 year olds and I pile onto this bus and head to campus. When my meeting finished, I went to wait for the bus to take me back to downtown. Guess who came over to catch the bus? James. Remember James? In this post, I talked about seeing James and his menagerie of paper buses. Due to the number of people who take the Wake Tech bus, they run two buses all day. The first bus that arrived was one of the old red and white Wolfline buses the city bought from NCSU. James declares to me and the other passenger waiting, "I am not getting on that bus." I asked him why not. He responded simply, "because its ugly." He correctly sensed I was not satisfied and went on to deliver a laundry list of reasons why the city needed to give up that bus. He delightfully advised me the bus was made by the Blue Bird Corporation in such and such year, it has a propensity to break down more often that the others, it rattles, etc. etc. etc. His final argument as to why CAT should retire permanently that bus...because he's been telling them to. Upon completion of his soliloquy, I said, "hey, I know you. I mean, I don't really know you, but I've seen you before," to which he started grinning like Rupert Grint being seen in public for the first time after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone's worldwide release! I get the impression he thought he was a local celebrity. Naturally, I got on the electric bus with him as I was not ready to end my observation. After all, I have readers to think of. This guy is a bus fanatic. He stood in the front and gabbed with the driver the whole time. I was even able to get a photo for you. I asked him where he got the paper buses. He told me paperbuses.com. I looked on the site and can't find what he has, but it's a cool site anyway. Maybe he belongs to the Yahoo Group.

I have to say that I found James to be a very intelligent young man, very well spoken and rather quirky. I rather enjoyed my conversation with him and hope to engage him in a transit related conversation in the future.

James, in his natural habitat. We found the subject to be most gentle, willing to interact with us. It appears he does not spook easily and was eager to display his plumage of paper and school glue.



By the way, I just joined the Paper Bus Yahoo Group and will keep you posted!