Trying out the bus in Dallas: 1986

Dallas launched the Dallas Area Rapid Transit when I lived in a Dallas suburb during the 1980s. Before DART, Dallas had a bus system downtown (so I’d heard), but the suburbs had nothing. The idea of taking a bus was foreign to many, reprehensible to some, and frightening to the rest. Come to think of it—just like now, whether you are in Dallas or DC.

I’m a big believer in public transportation, and I voted for the increased taxes to start DART rolling. I vowed I would take a bus to work if ever there were one.

And lo, it came to pass. DART created a bus route from the suburb where I lived to the suburb where I worked. Great!

But even I, a veteran bus taker, felt uncertain, even scared, about doing it. Why was taking the bus in Dallas so hard? I had taken buses in many cities. I had had no sweaty palms in Detroit, in Toronto, in Boston. No trepidation. No planning for three weeks. But figuring out how to take the bus to work seemed overwhelming.

I finally figured out why it seemed so hard: There was no one to ask about it. In Detroit, you approach a bus stop and say to one of the people standing there, “When is the next express bus?” or “Is this where you catch the bus to Jefferson Avenue?” Not so in Dallas. No one was standing at the bus stops I drove past on my way to work. No one.

I decided I would just have to try it.

So I waited at the bus stop closest to my house and boarded a bus that took me to the North Irving Transit Center, where I got off to wait for my second bus. Despite its important-sounding name, the North Irving Transit Center was just a curb where numerous buses converged. It had no building. It had no bus shelter. It had no benches. I’m sure that by now, 30 years later, they have benches. OK, I’m not sure, but one would hope.

All in all, my first DART experience ever was successful: I didn’t have to wait long for my second bus, which dropped me off a half block from my office. 

Other positive things: The drivers were courteous. The buses were really nice—brand new, in fact. No graffiti, no litter, no torn seats. The seats were plush velveteen. There were no drunks exposing themselves. In fact, it wasn’t like Detroit at all.

Of course, I had to compare the bus transit time (45 minutes, door to door) to driving time. When I drove to work, I stepped from my kitchen into my garage, drove to work, and parked in the office parking lot right outside my building. Total time, door to door: 18-20 minutes.

I know what some of you are saying. You’re saying, “What?! Of course you should have driven to work. Driving to work was a no-brainer!”  

Not so fast, Corvette-breath. For me, public transportation had (has) lots of advantages. For one, I hate driving in traffic, and every day I faced more cars and more construction. A lot like driving now, actually.

On the bus, I could read a book, do the crossword puzzle, maybe catch a nap. I knew I would live longer with a little down time twice a day.

And there was another compelling argument for taking the bus. I typically worked late, frantically trying to meet deadlines or somehow get a head start on the next day. Not a healthy lifestyle. The bus schedule forced me to leave work at 5:30, to catch the 5:40 bus. Until 5:40, the buses ran every 20 minutes. After that, the once-an-hour schedule started. So, if I didn’t catch the 5:40 bus, I didn’t get home until nearly 7:30. (Ask me how I found that out!)

Perhaps most important, by taking the bus I was doing my part to save the earth—reducing pollution and highway construction and the relentless northward expansion of Dallas suburbs to the Oklahoma border.

I continued to take the bus to work, and, in fact found another advantage: Buses tend to have the same riders on the same schedule, and a small community of bus riders is thus established. At each stop, one knows who will get on and who will get off. It’s very comforting.

The Crazy Guy on the Bus

I had a racial confrontation on the bus one time, with a psychotic guy. The bus was crowded that morning, and many people were standing in the aisle. I heard a resonant, authoritative voice, not the driver, at the front. “Move to the back, folks. Move on back.”

I always like it when a passenger takes control of a situation, offers some leadership.

The people standing in the aisle did not move—they never do—and a half dozen more jammed into the aisle at the front.

Once the bus started moving, the resonant, authoritative voice started singing. Ah, I realized now, it’s a crazy person. Leadership, schizophrenia. It’s easy to get them mixed up.

As usual, the bus emptied quite a bit at U Street, and no one had to stand after that. I saw the singer/crazy guy take a seat near the front. Quite handsome, with a beard trimmed short. Maybe 40 years old. African American. He occasional burst out with a tune or talked loudly to everyone in general. Everyone ignored him.

Then he moved back to a seat across the aisle from me. I was reading a magazine. He sat on the edge of the seat, facing me, with his feet in the aisle.

He looked at me. “Let me ask you something,” he said. I looked up at him but didn’t say anything.

“Let me ask you something,” he repeated. “How would you feel about this?”

I still held my magazine open, but I didn’t look back at it. I gave him my attention. He didn’t seem dangerous, but then, I didn’t know how to behave with a schizophrenic. I didn’t want to encourage him in this conversation, but I thought I should show him courtesy. 

I began noticing the people around us. They were all women, watching him and me.

The man continued. “How would you feel if, today, now, in nineteen-ninety, in nineteen, in nineteen-ninety and something, whatever it is, how would you feel if I said to you, ‘You go sit in the back of the bus?’”

At that point I felt I definitely should not ignore him. Should not turn back to my magazine. Although his demeanor was not aggressive, we had a hostile situation here. I didn’t think to check for a weapon. This was nineteen-ninety, nineteen, nineteen-ninety and something, and back then only post offices had people who came in with a weapon and went, well, postal. So, weapon didn't occur to me.

His tone of voice, in fact, was that of a preacher who intones a rhetorical question, such as, “If the Lord came today, would you be ready to meet him?” 

I kept eye contact with the man. He continued his questioning. “I’m asking you how you would feel right now, if I said to you, ‘Go back there. Go to the back of the bus.’?”

The women around us were watching us. On the basis of no evidence whatever, I felt they sympathized with me. I thought they identified with me as a woman, and as a sane person confronted by a crazy person. Even though they were black, they didn’t see me as a white person confronted by a black person. They were curious, though. They wondered what I would do.

Thus, in just a few seconds after he confronted me I had mentally constructed an entire social and psychological environment that was on my side. I now realize this probably makes me as crazy as he was, but it felt right at the time.

I was trapped. I knew I shouldn’t respond, but with no response from me he just kept going.

“How would you feel if I said to you, “You gotta go to the back of the bus’?”

I did consider answering him. Maybe he would feel reassured if I showed a willingness to be open, to discuss the issue rationally. Plus, I wanted him to know I wasn’t snooty. I wanted him to realize that he had chosen to challenge perhaps the most liberal white ever to ride bus 52.  Quite possibly the most liberal person in the universe. Did I say “rationally” a couple sentences ago? OK, so maybe liberal, but like I said, not really thinking too clearly.

I rejected the option of talking to him, knowing at a gut level that engaging him in conversation was a no-win venture.

I thought again about turning  back to my magazine, but I thought that might enrage him. And, weapon or no weapon, I was scared, all the nice on-my-side ladies notwithstanding.

With no response from me, he continued to harangue me, repeating the question in different ways. I just kept keeping eye contact and listening to him. Maybe he didn’t really expect a response, but I felt increasing pressure to do something. Like I said, I was trapped.

I felt the eyes of the other women. Why didn’t they intervene? Weren’t they on my side? Were they enjoying this, actually?

Ultimately, the driver came to my rescue. He called out to the man to come to the front. The man rose immediately and ambled good-naturedly to the seat near the driver, where they had a conversation that I believe had something to do with whether the man had paid his fare or not.

Ambled good-naturedly! Jiminy Crickets! My magazine was practically soaked through with the sweat from my hands.

That 52 bus. Ya gotta love it.

The Bus Driver and the New Girl

When I first came to DC I took the 52 bus to work. Most of the riders on the 52 bus were Latinos or African Americans, and I felt like an interloper. It was their bus, and I didn't belong. I was white, new to DC, and new to the bus. I tried to be invisible, just blend in, but I had red hair, so . . . .

What the bus driver said to me changed everything.

The driver on the 8:35 bus, my bus, was an African American with a salt and pepper beard. Well, all bus drivers in DC are African American, of course, but I thought I should put that in there for those of you readers who don’t live here.

I’d been taking the bus for a few months, then one week I drove to work because my boss had given me her parking pass to use while she was out. (Without the parking pass, $15/day; hence, the bus.)

But after a week of parking in the underground lot at work, I was back waiting for bus 52 at 14th and Irving, like always. It was the driver with the salt and pepper beard. When I climbed the steps and shoved my dollar in the slot, it happened. He said, “We missed you lately!” I was stunned. He recognized me? He knew I hadn’t been there?

As I worked my way back to find a seat, I heard his words again and again: “We missed you lately.” He knew me! The morning sang.

Maybe they all knew me—hard to be invisible, after all, being one of the only white riders, and with red hair, to boot. Maybe they thought this was my bus, too. The 52 bus. My bus.

America, my country

I learned a lot when I hosted a 16-year-old German exchange student, many years ago. For one thing, I discovered I felt personally responsible for the United States of America. 

Take our first supermarket trip. As we parked in front of the grocery store, my thoughts started running like this:

Will she be impressed with how big Kroger's is? Do they have bigger ones in Germany? Oh, nevermind big. That's stupid. That's so American. Just please let there be no rude people. Well, at least no people yelling. What about food quality? Probably the tomatoes in Germany are redder and plumper. Will the green beans have brown spots like last week? Maybe we'd better go to the Farmers' Market tomorrow.

So, I headed for the cereal aisle. Now there's an aisle that makes you proud to be an American. But wait. Do they have cereal in Germany? Maybe she doesn't even know what cereal is. 

"Do you eat cereal for breakfast in Germany, Tina?"

She hesitated a little before answering. It was her first day here, and I didn't know yet how much English she knew. Maybe she didn't know the word "cereal." Maybe I should explain.  I looked for a cereal box picturing a bowl of cereal.  Instead, I found pictures of Batman and the Smurfs and Count Chocula. I imagined her letter home. "Americans eat cereal with marshmallows and fictional characters." 

After a couple weeks, I began to understand a little more that the point of the exchange program was to educate the host parents. That is, I didn't know for sure how much Tina was learning, but I sure as hell was learning a lot.

That cereal business, for example.

First we had Rice Krispies. I explained that Rice Krispies were made in Michigan, where I was from.  "Yes, we have Kellogg's in Germany, too." Of course they do. I couldn't have figured out that Kellogg might, maybe, have an international division?

The next morning I held up the Quaker Oats box before I started making the oatmeal.  "Do you have this?"

Tina looked inside. "Yes. My little brother especially likes it. He has it every day." 

Great! I smiled as I heated the water for the oatmeal. Another German-American bond!  Imagine my surprise when Tina didn't want the cooked oatmeal and instead put raw oats in a bowl to eat with milk and sugar, the way they eat oatmeal in Germany.

The next day I brought out the Wheaties—Breakfast of Champions. Tina didn't know the orange and blue box, but after trying some, she announced that they had the same thing in Germany. "But we call it corn flakes."

Tradition Slippage

When I stuff the turkey on Thanksgiving, I use Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing Mix. That's how it all begins. Just a little crack n tradition. One year you don't make turkey dressing from scratch, and before you know it you're ordering the holiday dinner package from Colonial Cafeteria. Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to convenience foods. The Pepperidge Farm stuffing. The Betty Crocker canned frosting. The Sara Lee cheesecake.

Tradition slippage is something I’m concerned about as a parent. I want my Rachel to be part of a heritage that I learned from Mom and Grandma. I want her to use a special Christmas tablecloth, and not because Martha Stewart is promoting an eggplant-and-fern color scheme for the holidays. I want her to realize that buying birthday cakes from Kroger—or even from La Madeleine—is against the rules: real cakes are made from scratch, and on birthdays you use the favorite recipe of the birthday person (pineapple upside-down cake, in Grandpa’s case). I want her to see that rolling out biscuit dough and cutting it into powdery circles with a glass dipped in flour is more fun than rapping that Pillsbury Doughboy on the ass and arranging sticky lumps one inch apart. Will my Pepperidge Farm stuffing shortcut—innocent though it seems—lead Rachel to a life of Tater Tots and Hamburger Helper?

I know, I know. This is the era of cell phones and Starbucks, and you’d have to be seriously underemployed not to use convenience foods regularly. All lanes are the Fast Lane. Convenience foods are made for, well, our convenience. I accept that. I’m neither a Luddite nor an ecofanatic. I do not live in an old farmhouse using a wood stove for heat, buying only unrefined sugar. I live in Washington, DC. I pick up deli food at Sutton Place Gourmet with the best of them. I would not want to give up my morning Eggo Waffle, snatched from the toaster on the way out the door.

But there are times when fast food just won’t do. Our family Thanksgiving is a heritage I have to offer Rachel. I want her to learn to do it “our way.” Isn’t that, after all, the reason we have children in the first place? I’ve lived for many years halfway across the country from my family in Michigan, so to compensate for the absence of relatives at the holiday table, I always invite a dozen friends—waifs, like us, with no family nearby. Waifs being what they are, the guests change from year to year, though there is now a core group of three or four who have come to consider dinner at my house their own annual ritual.

The before-the-day preparations are a sine qua non of the ritual. Ironing the tablecloth and napkins, which have been dampened by sprinkling. No spray starch. No steam. No Permaprest. Making the pies—pumpkin and apple and raspberry, and not with Pet-Ritz pie crust, either, but with real crust, rolled out on a floured countertop. Grinding the cranberries and orange peel for the cranberry relish. Not with the Cuisinart. I clamp the hand-cranked grinder (a garage-sale find) to the table and fill the hopper with the plump red berries, which crunch and pop as they are mashed. Some juice always drips from the bottom of the grinder, so, just like Mom, I place a bowl beneath it on a chair. 

On Thanksgiving day, I get up at 5:30 to make the turkey stuffing and get the bird ready for the oven. Some families have Thanksgiving dinner in the evening, but our dinner is at 1:00. And the turkey is always 20 pounds or more, which is why it has to go in the oven by 7:00, and why I always invite a dozen waifs. That’s how we did it when I was growing up, so there it is.

Except for the stuffing. One year, shopping at 10:30 on Sunday night before Thanksgiving, I stood before the shiny bags of stuffing mix on display at Albertson’s. I picked one up to read the instructions: “Just add water” (which, being translated, reads “Wide is the gate”). I bought two bags. Oh, sure, I sauté celery and onions to “make it my own,” as the package says, but I’m not kidding myself that such tinkering takes the place of laying out bread slices to dry overnight. I started down the broad path, and I never went back.

Stuffing mix aside, so far I’ve held on to Thanksgiving and some of the other celebrations in my jihad against Tradition Slippage. But I have conceded many battles. An entire canon of domestic arts has been surrendered—sewing and knitting and crocheting, for example—skills my mother learned from her mother and passed on to me. The other day I was sewing up a rip in Rachel’s jeans, threading the sewing machine and checking the tension, and I remembered when Mom taught me to sew—on that very Singer Featherweight. I was 10 years old and we made a pair of flannel pajamas for me—pale green with little yellow and pink horses. I learned the word “placket.” But I have not taught Rachel to sew. How could I, when I have quit sewing myself? The maternity clothes I made when I was carrying Rachel is the closest we ever came to sewing together.

Grandma was an expert knitter. Of the many items she made, my favorite was a sweater she knit for me when I was six—dark green, with elves jumping over toadstools. Rachel wore it when she was six, too, and many times I’ve told her how Grandma called me to her side to measure the sleeve against my extended arm, and that’s when I knew she was making it for me. I love that sweater, tucked away now in the cedar chest for some future granddaughter. Grandma told us that knitting socks for the family was one of the things she and her sister had to do at ages six and seven. I marveled at that as the needles cramped my sweaty hands during my first knitting project, at age 13. I was making a pair of bright red booties for my first niece. Quelle ordeal! But how proud I was when my sister folded back the tissue paper and saw my handmade gift!

Some domestic traditions passed down to me were more mundane. Take ironing. Before steam irons, I mean. Now there’s a lost art. Sprinkling takes a special touch to obtain just the right dampness, and each shirt, each tablecloth, has to be rolled up to sit for at least an hour to let the moisture spread evenly. I was the youngest of three girls, and therefore the last to learn each task. My first real go at sprinkling came when my older sisters were at camp for a week. Mom never said anything to me, but I read in the letter she wrote to my sisters, “Marian sprinkled the wash. It was so wet I almost had to wring it out.”

Ironing, sewing, cooking—these are traditions that have slipped during my watch. But why choose the hard way? Mom herself was open to shortcuts. Those great biscuits she let me cut out after she rolled out the dough? Bisquick! And I remember she tried a ready-mix cake or two. They were dry, and whether chocolate or lemon, they tasted something like rye crisp, which is precisely why Mom shunned them. But Betty Crocker has learned a thing or two since then, and now box cakes can pass the blindfolded taste test. Convenience creep is inevitable. No doubt some great-great grandmother of mine dropped churning butter and spinning thread when the packaged products became available. I consider this progress.

For all of the warm memories I have about my inheritance from Mom and Grandma, part of my heritage was also the responsibility for preparing meals. Not just for Thanksgiving dinners and other special occasions, but day in and day out. While Rachel has not learned some of the traditions, neither has she inherited that sense of responsibility. She represents the first generation in my family to be freed from the assumption that cooking and laundry are the domain of the women. She has seen that both men and women can cook and iron. Now that's progress.

I have kept Thanksgiving and a few other traditions as my gift of family heritage to Rachel. Call it Tradition Tokenism. But in truth, repeating the Thanksgiving rituals is as much for me as for Rachel. I like grinding the cranberries because it makes me feel close to Mom. And I like seeing Rachel repeat my childhood jobs—getting out the fancy dishes and stemware to set the table, arranging the relish plate.

“Why do we only have black olives at Thanksgiving?” she asks.

“Just because,” I say, giving her Mom’s answer.

“I’m going to make place cards!” she announces, just as I did, and I smile, just as Mom did.

But still, I wonder. Have I held the line sufficiently? Have I passed on enough of Grandma and Mom so Rachel won’t forget them? Will Rachel want to carry on the traditions?

Deep down, I still have doubts. Maybe I should have taught her how to can tomatoes.