On Living In A Bus Station

I live in a bus station.

I can prove it.

The carpet in our entrance foyer used to be a tapestry hanging on the wall of a Greyhound Bus Station; it features the familiar red, white and blue swirl and bounding greyhound logo of that company. When they were closing a nearby substation they were actually going to throw the tapestry in the dumpster but I asked the manager and he gave it to me for our floor.

(I’d post a photo but I’d have to vacuum it first, so just picture it in your mind).

No more appropriate carpet could be found for our house because although we live on a cul de sac and I work at home alone like a hermit, yet the world winds its way to our doorstep. An amazing number of people pass through this house.

Friday morning I drove a neighbor to the hospital. He had a heart thing installed recently and can’t drive himself yet. I don’t know what the doctors did to him. It’s a thing implanted in his chest, not a pacemaker, but it goes by initials which are not the first letters of the words the thing is called. I keep wanting to say it’s an IUD, but I know that’s not what they put in his chest.

Anyhow, it has initials something like that.

As soon as I got home, Jennifer and Pat came over to deliver a mirror Ginny needs for work and to bum some money. Ginny needs the mirror because in the new building her desk faces away from the door and because she’s so deaf, she does not know when people come up behind her. She plans to put the mirror over her desk so she can tell when someone is there.

Jennifer and Pat were still parked in the drive when Wes came by. I went with him to deliver some clothes and household goods to the Lord’s Store Mission. I teased him that any one shirt he donated would serve to cover five normal-size poor guys!

Wes just returned from a few days driving the full length of the Blue Ridge Parkway from West Virginia on down stopping at little mountain towns to absorb the culture. I think he found it very refreshing.

He treated me to lunch at Kosta’s and we gossiped about a friend, who… Well, never mind.

Back home I caught up on phone calls and e-mails.

With so much human contact today, I got to remembering how the house swarmed with activities back when the kids were in college. Most weekendws and every holiday they’d sweep up all the foreign students stranded on campus and bring them home. Sometimes we’d have as many as 18 holiday guests sleeping on floors, sofas, chairs, everywhere.

And they’d all bring in their laundry!

We’ve had Koreans and Haitians and Jews and Arabs and yankees and Nigerians and Peruvians and … some out-right crazies straight off the streets that our kids drug in.

And I remember once Jennifer’s then boyfriend, a fireman, brought the whole shift from the fire station, six or eight guys, over because Ginny was cooking BBQ. They parked the fire truck in front of our house and left the engine running in case of an emergency call while they ate.

See why the Greyhound rug seems appropriate?

But, anyhow, back to yesterday:

Ginny got home from work exhausted. Both of us felt peevish and actually snapped at eachother, an unusual occurrence.

She got an intimidating e-mail from a supervisor recruiting “volunteers” for a political rally sort of thing this councilman is piggy-backing onto a legitimate agency function. And, especially, since Gin has applied for a promotion, she finds this letter disturbing and does not know how to best respond.

For our Friday Night Date, we went out to a restaurant we favor. After the waitress took our order, Ginny commented on the girl’s new hair style. I told Ginny that I had not noticed because I’d focused on two of her other attributes at eye level. Then the girl passed the table again and I said, “You’re right. She does have hair”. Ginny started giggling. She says I’m pathetic.

Must be tough being married to a dirty old man. But she’s managed for 37 years. Personally, I think that’s what attracted her to me in the first place.

After supper we strolled out in the parking lot to a pile of logs where we sat smoking , watching the full moon rise, and talking.

She tells me that Saturday we are going to a store that sells cloth things. Unfortunately it is not the Victoria’s Secret store. No. It is just a regular cloth store where she intends to buy new dresses for the office.

Goody! O Goody.

I get to go stand around a cloth store.!

I can hardly wait.

Is there a bus coming yet?