Sputterpub's Blog

One day, probably 20 years ago or more, I was riding a rowdy bus. I can’t remember if it was an AC Transit vehicle or a San Francisco Muni, but I recall it as an afternoon event, traveling eastward in a rather full conveyance. As is my preference, I had a seat near the back of the bus, on the starboard side (that’s away from the sun during my regular commute).

The riders were a fair reflection of Bay Area diversity: white, black, Latino, Asian, other. But the rowdiness was all black.

There was a group (or two) of adolescent males aboard, with complexions of varying tones, but all looking darker than white and sounding culturally black. They got louder as the bus proceeded, and ruder too. They were classically obnoxious.

I didn’t feel unsafe but I sure felt annoyed. More than anything else, those boys needed to hear some stern mama-talk: Sit down back there and behave yourselves! You oughta be ashamed. Act right or I’ll slap you silly. Something like that.

But I sure wasn’t going to say it. I wouldn’t dare. I’m not black.

So I looked forward in the bus, to where some mature black people sat, and I wondered why none of them stood up and dealt with the loud jerks.

Whoa!

No sooner did I harbor the thought than I saw my own idiocy. What was I thinking? Why was I trying to make anyone responsible for the rude kids but the rude kids?

I sure don’t feel like I get the credit or blame for how a white jerk acts. Or a loud Jew. Or a wussy woman. I’m not the defender of white collar workers or an apologist for Berkeley extremists.

I was amazed at my own stupidity but I got it right away. And although I contain prejudice still, no matter how much I despise it, that was the brief example, the amusing one, the one that illuminated the issue for me like a parable.

I find it quite annoying when the bottoms of my shoes acquire stickiness. It can happen from picking up sidewalk gum, or if I pass under plum trees that have dropped their fruit (my brother Steve refers to those plants as prunus obnoxious).

I become aware of it when I walk from the carpeting to the tile-floored bathroom in the office, in a restaurant, on the sidewalk. Even after removal of any visible sticky object, the sole of the shoe continues to make a little sucking noise whenever it leaves the ground.

All of which reminds me:

When I was 21ish, shortly after completing college, I visited Israel with two girlfriends and landed for several months on a kibbutz. It was a poor place in a desolate area (we chose it for its political party, because we wanted to check out Socialism). The quarters for us volunteers were uninsulated wooden barracks with a cold water sink, outside, at the end of each row of six rooms. The accommodations felt slightly sturdier than cardboard. Rooms were warmed with open portable kerosene heaters.

The fuel tank was down the hill on the way to the showers and kitchen. Of course there were always puddles of kerosene on the paths near it.

This was 1971-72. One of the most popular shoe brands then were called Wallabees. They were desert-boot style tie shoes, sand-colored suede atop gum soles.

Let me tell you: if you want to permanently ruin a gum sole, just step in some kerosene. The fuel immediately seals the pores of the gum so it becomes a stiff, slick, ungiving plane beneath your feet.

It was back when I was early married, and we were commuting out of San Francisco in the Corvair, so it couldn’t have been later than the mid-1970s. Those were the old days, when bridge tolls were all paid in cash, so if you wanted you could hand the tolltaker double the fare and be the anonymous payer for the folks in the car behind you (who then broke speed laws catching up to you so they could smile and wave thanks). It was so long ago that people didn’t have phones with them, or personal music players, or use car air conditioning much. In other words, on a nice day they drove with their windows open, and it was possible to hear shouted comments and relate to the other vehicles as if they contained persons.

We were navigating around the old Transbay Terminal on our way to the Beale St. ramp to the Bay Bridge. That meant crawling up Fremont from Howard to Mission before waiting to turn right on Mission to line up for the final right that would put the car on the desired street.

Fremont was a mess. It was always chaotic at that afternoon hour; several lanes of traffic were narrowing to two toward Market, and all of us waiting to make the right turn had to insert our maneuver between crosswalks of pedestrians. Total confusion. Fraying tempers.

It was a temperate afternoon. I’ll never forget how that one driver took the initiative to guide us all. He was behind us and to the left. He opened his car door and stood on what would have been the running board if his vehicle were older. He raised a strong deep voice and yelled out to us through a smile: “People! It’s easy! Make like a zipper!”

I looked around. He was dark-skinned and handsome. I think the entire block laughed.

Of course he was right. And he made me notice something. For all the complaints we voice about how stupid and incompetent and self-destructive people can be, is anyone noticing what a good job we do at NOT running into one another?

I had to pass through security at SFO on July 14. I was a little concerned about the two water pistols I was packing – sure they were bright plastic, obvious, empty, and bearing their “for ages 4+” labels, but they were gun-sized and gun-shaped.

So I asked the gate-tender about them. You know: the guy who looks at your ID and boarding pass, and paints the cryptic symbol on the pass. He heard me, smiled, and advised me to pull the toys out of my bag: “so the guys don’t find them by X-ray.”

I placed the water pistols on top of my jacket and sandals in the gray plastic bin. I passed through the detection gate without a buzz, but that gate-tender directed me behind him, into the glassed corridor-cage, for a “skirt check.”

As I was trying to watch my stuff on the belt, Crystal entered my cage. She offered privacy if I wanted it, but I told her I was mainly concerned about my possessions. While I assumed the lunge position she requested, and as she started to frame my thighs with her hands, I watched the gear on the belt beside me. “I’m sure you’re stuff hasn’t come through yet,” Crystal opined.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to her grope to enjoy it. “It’s some water pistols I’m concerned about,” I replied.

Just then, about when Crystal was getting set to feel my other-leg-lunge, here came the guns. Carried by a big Samoan-shaped dude and still in the gray bin, which he held before him like it contained nitroglycerin.

What a kick: Crystal was the supervisor. She looked to be maybe 30, perhaps 5’4″, slim. This seven foot tall gorilla approaches her with colorful toys in a plastic bin, and asks her whether the water pistols can pass through. He requires that she “personally” okay the items.

She picked one up, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. A sardonic expression fleetly visited her face. “They’re okay,”she said.

Then Samoan man turned, went back to his station, and informed his colleague that “Crystal passed these guns – these are allowed.”

I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but the vignette was a farce and no one witnessing it, passenger or security, mistook it for safety.