Vancouver Drift

i was on the bus yesterday, and i saw something that broke my stereotype of a bus driver. there we were, driving along, he was bitching to an old crone (if ever there was one, this was an examplar). The old crone, with her fishing hat confining her mousy eyes, was constantly reiterating to the bus driver about how kids don't respect bus drivers.

after a few stories here and there, snippets picked up in between ipod sessions, we came up past a private catholic school in kits (the pricy part of town that i pretend to be a part of). the bus driver wails on his horn in the school zone. the kids in their plaid green skirts all turn their heads, the traffic assistants (aspiring cops in the making, kids in orange vests). i thought he was tramatized, but then he started waving out the window. a small girl turns, puzzled. yells out "daddy!! that's my daddy!!!" and starts running after the bus. all the little girls, barely 8, start waving and smiling.

i see a proud look in the corner of the large bus rearview mirror. that's my kid, that's my daughter, he proclaims with proud eyes. it was a movie moment.

but what shocked me, was that a bus driver could afford, or let alone want to, send his child to a private catholic school in the most expensive part of town. it just didn't add up for me. my mind is too small. i started to question what i expected out of a bus driver. i questioned them as bus drivers and as people. in our society, i think we start to see people more as tools than as people.

the bus driver brings me as close to home as the route allows.
he is an engine. he is there because life has thrown him the lower middle class card and he is a product of his circumstance. he goes home to his slightly overweight, pale skin oprah loving wife, where his only solace from a hard day working the streets of vancouver is the drink beer, eat nuts on a dinner table watchin the canucks beat up the visiting team. this is the bus driver.

who is the student?