Sunday, March 07, 2010

Taking the bus...

Yep, that's me, sometime around 1963.

The snow is melting. It’s still getting cold at night, but is up in the low 40s in the day time. All around the county, folks have buckets (or tacky-looking blue plastic bags) attached to taps on Maple trees, collecting sap to boil down into maple syrup. They say it takes 40 gallons of sap for a gallon of syrup. Memoir writing is a lot like that, distilling all our experiences down to the good stuff… Here is another story from my childhood.
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We had moved to Petersburg, Virginia. This was the beginning of my family’s three year exile from North Carolina. We lived in a rented house on Montebello Street, where we stayed for nine months before moving to Bishop Street. I started school this year at Walnut Hill’s Elementary. There were no regular school buses for those of us living in town. If you wanted to take a bus, you had to take the city bus, something I only did once, early in the school year, in the weeks before John Kennedy was shot. I know this because we were moving into a new house, one closer to school, on that fateful day. So this happened sometime that fall, before November 22nd.
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On this day, I got to ride the city bus. I’m not sure why, maybe my father was out-of-town, and a younger brother or sister was sick so my mom couldn’t take me. On this day, I got to ride the bus with Ellen, a neighbor and the first older woman I took an interest in. She was in the fifth or sixth grade. Although the school was only a couple of miles away, riding the bus with Ellen was a grand experience for a six-year-old kid. Together, the two of us walked down to the end of the street and waited for the bus to arrive. I had a change in my hand, which my mom had given me for the fare. Ellen, who was a pro at this, had a monthly bus pass. The bus pulled up in a haze of diesel exhaust, and we got on. I dropped my quarter in the slot, as Ellen had told me to do, and then started to follow her back to a seat when the driver stopped me. To my horror, the bus company had raised the fare and I was a nickel short. I asked if I could run home and get another nickel, but the driver said he couldn’t wait. I pulled a nickel out of my lunch pail, the one my mom had tucked in there for milk, but Ellen wouldn’t let me give it. The driver told me to take a seat and to give him the nickel the next time I rode the bus. I took a seat, but felt like a criminal riding the bus without paying full fare. My grand adventure no longer seemed so grand. I rode in silence and shame.
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This turned out to be my only trip on the bus when living in Petersburg. Our new home wasn’t that far from the school and as I got older, I found myself walking with friends. But I never forgot my debt to the bus company. Whenever I saw a bus I felt guilty. I’d look and see if it was the same driver and it always felt as if the driver was starting at me, as if he knew I’d stiffed the bus company out of a nickel. I was ashamed of my actions, but for some reason, I never told them to anyone. At least not for a good many years.
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In time, we left Virginia and moved back to North Carolina and the guilt slowly faded. But occasionally, something would ting it and shame would again sweep over me. Finally, years later, I think I was in high school, I recalled the incident to my mother. I was surprised that she remembered. In fact, she was the one who reminded me of Ellen insisting that I not use my milk money and told me that not having the full fare was no big deal to the driver and that she’d sent a nickel with Ellen the next day to pay the driver. I couldn’t believe it. All this time I was carrying around this guilt for a debt that had already been paid.

16 comments:

  1. What a wonderful story. Very easy to relate to

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  2. Hey man...really enjoyed this story. Decades have slipped into history, but not from from the diary of your mind. Voyage into the past always has its own sentimental values, along with detrimental feelings..like being guilty for the settled debt:). Your writings always lighten up my heart.

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  3. Great story. It just goes to show that confession and repentance truly are good for the soul, inasmuch as the consequences we foresee from such a course of action are usually 100 times worse that what actually occurs.

    Cheers.

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  4. What an excellent story and reminder to never wait too long to repay those debts because carrying the emotion baggage around for all those years just isn't worth it. I have one of those debts that I never repaid and by the time I wanted too, I no longer had the chance.

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  5. I can relate to that guilt; maybe not for a bus ride, but similar stuff from childhood. Too bad you didn't know she had paid it sooner. How cute you were!
    I think I told you that I almost moved to Petersburg in 1963 - to work in the hosp, but Norfolk won out.

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  6. Pia, thanks!

    Cyclops, your words are too kind

    Randall, you right, the consequences are often a lot less worse that letting our debts/sins fester

    Ed, I have a few of those debts, too. it's always nice to know you've settled them, but when people move away or die, it's sad to realize that you can apology or take care of a wrong committed earlier

    kenju, I don't remember you mentioning the hospital, but I don't think we would have meet because somehow I managed to stay away from the hospital at this time in my life! Norfolk was probably a better choice, but at the time i didn't realize it. Petersburg seemed so idyllic; later I learned that it only seemed that way. There were lots of turmoil going on there in the early years of the 60s.

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  7. Great lesson, thanks for reminding us! Cute pic by the way, I suppose that part of the reason your wife married you was those cute little cheeks. Thanks Sage.

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  8. Great story. Shows the innocence of youth, and the basic goodness, that you would feel guilty about that. I've got a story or two sort of like that. I'll relate them some time.

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  9. What a beautiful story, Sage. Kids are so cute sometimes. So pure and innocent...

    I like the picture!

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  10. Wow. All that worry for just a nickel. Now I feel really bad for taking a couple of extra ones out of my mother's purse more than she had agreed to.

    Just for the record, when that picture was taken of you, I was a -8. ;-)

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  11. How much of life is like that, with us believing we owe a debt that has already been paid?!

    Pearl

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  12. Came by way of Randall's blog. Great story. I could totally see it happening. It says something good about you as a person that you worried about that nickel for so long. I'm not surprised at all that you came from a woman who paid that nickel back the next day!!! It's just too bad you worried about it all those years...but maybe it's something like that small nickel that contributes to the kind of person you turned out to be? Interesting.

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  13. I love that... neat way to reflect and remember. I wonder what my son worries about like that?! (I just saw a delicious looking pizza advertisement, after coming over from Ed's posts about BBQ! Ugh, they're on to me!)

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  14. A six year old with a guilty conscience (and a fondness for older women)...I love it!! :)

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  15. An incredible story that touches the heart about many adult situations. A happy ending!! :)

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