Life As Performance Art 96

Good morning, Gentle Reader. And, Happy Tuesday! It is not yet five in the morning, and following breakfast I am going down for a nap to grab the hour I lost when I woke a bit too early this morning. I am thinking right now of our own public transit system, of how imperfect and sometimes inefficient it still is, even if it happens to be better than in almost every developing country on earth. Compared to other First World countries? Methinks we could find ourselves hauled up short. Not that it couldn't be worse. Things could almost always be worse. I like public transit, for all its headaches, for the way it brings people together. Often very disparate folks who wouldn't be ordinarily seen having lunch or coffee together. It teaches us, in this very fragmented and self-absorbed age we are living in, to coexist. On the Skytrain yesterday, all the seats were occupied, and I was occupying one of them. I offered one lady who must have been at least eighty my seat, but she refused. I respect this, she didn't look frail, but I still get a bit nervous when I see elderly people standing on public transit. I think it's partly the respect factor. They have had to spend a lot of time already during their long lives on their feet and even if some of them are more fit than the selfish wastes of DNA young enough to be their grandchildren, they still shouldn't have to stand on the bus. Unless they choose to. But it is still bad optics. Especially when you think of the fragility of elderly bones, the risk of hip fractures, and the problems from arthritis and similar that can make it all the more difficult to have to hold on, stand and stay balanced. There were also two Asian women standing, elderly, Japanese, I think. I would have guessed them to be around seventy. One of them was clearly having trouble standing, and was really holding on. There were two young women, maybe twenty, if that, absorbed in their little tech toys while hogging the two courtesy seats in front of me. I got up, insisted the Japanese lady sit down, which she accepted with grace and gratitude, and then I said something in rather a loud voice about certain young people too busy to notice. The girls looked at me and I shouted, "Yeah, I'm talking to you!" Mission accomplished. They will probably need their selfish girl butts kicked a few more times, but I am hoping that they are still young enough to learn a new skill, in this case courtesy towards the aged. A bit later, on my way home from my client, I took the bus instead of walking the mile or so from the Skytrain, for the simple reason to save a bit of time. (I would have paperwork and phone calls to make at home, then a Skype appointment with an old friend from Peru, and I would have a window of just twenty minutes to get everything done on time.) As I and a couple of others boarded the bus, suddenly an elderly lady leaning on a walker was needing to get off, so the driver warned us, and naturally we all were going to have to get off the bus to give her room. Except for one. An Asian lady, I think Chinese. Even after we all pointed out to her the lady with the walker, she still refused to budge, so, as the driver and I later commisserated, there was more going on than just a language barrier. He finally had to almost yell at her as he ordered her to get off the bus with the rest of us. My guess is that she is from China, where people with disabilities are not accommodated on public transit, so this was something she simply didn't have a clue about, nor much respect probably. The elderly lady was having trouble positioning her walker, so I gently guided it for her, and stayed on hand till she was safely off the bus, then we all got back on, including the ignorant Chinese lady. I found a seat by the back door, and the young couple in front of me were banging on the window to get the attention of a man standing by the curb. Apparently, his zipper was open, and they were trying to let him know. I joked and said "Gotta be cruel to be kind", and they laughed and then the elderly lady next to me chimed in and mentioned about some small children standing near the front not getting a seat. She also told the young couple in front of us that if she had to shame them into giving up their seat she wouldn't hesitate. It was all good-natured and rather fun, actually, and for me, anyway, one of many examples of how public transit can actually bring people together. The four of us, except for the couple, probably wouldn't have otherwise even given each other the time of day, but here were three generations being suddenly brought together in a spontaneous expression of goodwill and good humour. These small incidents do give me a little bit of hope for us all.