Interview

Interview

I got on the bus Thursday night to attend the Danú concert at Lansing Community College. I had just missed an earlier bus, so I had to wait fifteen minutes for another...

Upon getting on and sitting down in the first available seat, I was greeted with a pretty direct look by a man across from me who looked familiar to me for some reason. So, I said hello to him.

The first words out of his mouth were, "What year were you born?"

Somewhat taken aback, I paused a moment and said, "'55."

"I was born in 1952," he said, then added, "I don't look that old, though."

"You're right," I agreed, "you don't!"

"Where do you get your haircut?" he asked.

"Oh, diferent places," I told him. "Up the street here at Paradise Salon, or in Frandor (Shopping Center), or..."

"How much?" he queried further.

"Too much!" I answered.

"Two bucks? Only two bucks?!?"

"No, no, no," I chuckled... "Too MUCH!!"

He then asked me my name and repeated it a couple of times to make sure he heard it right, "Powers? It's Powers?"

"Yeah," I nodded, deciding not to correct him about the s he'd added.

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I'm often very ill-at-ease when confronted with this kind of situation. I consider myself to be a pretty open, friendly person with people I've never met before, but I think that I tend to be quite cautious in public places — more observant of the people around me than interactive.

This night, however, the bus I got on had three riders that were all quite willing to interact with strangers at the drop of a hat.

When I first got on the bus (and for a good mile of the journey down Michigan Avenue), a guy was standing at the front yellow line chatting away with the driver at the top of his voice about something that seemed quite mundane to me. He did most (if not all) of the talking... I couldn't see if she was even nodding responses to him.

Another fellow got on at some point and sat to the left of the young woman who was sitting to my left... I overheard him talking to her about her fake fingernails amongst other things that no doubt left her a bit squeamish.

I love public transportation... I wish more people would use it. I wish more people would see the value in these experiences, regardless of how uncomfortable we might feel while in the midst of them. I think that this automobile-driven (pardon the pun) world has so reduced our collective ability to socialize.

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