“Back Then, Muni Terrified Me”
Funny how something as small as riding the bus can serve as a marker of a period in your life in San Francisco. We found this mini diary on Tumblr from Anna Takes Photos:
I want to share this rather crooked, boring photo because I found it hidden on my flickr and it’s kind of sentimental now. I took this in June of 2008, five years ago, while waiting to get into a show at the Fillmore. I was in high school, I lived in shitty suburbia, music was the only good thing in my life. I remember my friend and I would sit outside that post office and these buses would keep going by. Back then Muni terrified me. Five years later, I live in San Francisco and ride that very same bus that goes past the Fillmore almost every day.
Do you also remember parts of your life by the bus you rode at the time?
I definitely remember parts of my life by which Muni lines I was taking regularly at the time. In elementary school I was taking the 55 Sacramento (now part of the 1 California) or the Powell-Hyde cable car. In Junior High School I was taking the 19 Polk and the 30 Stockton, or the 47 Potrero and the 30X, or the 22 Fillmore and the 80 Leavenworth. In High School I took the 19 Polk. In City College, I took the 19 Polk and the K Ingleside. Sometimes I would change to the 10 Monterey (now the 43 Masonic) or the 36 Teresita at Forest Hill. Sometimes I would take the 12 Ocean and the 19 Polk (that later changed to the 49 Van Ness – Ocean) home. And on rare events I would take the 43 Masonic and change to the 1 California.
I grew up riding Muni, so taking it is not fearful. Some of the passengers otherwise, when I was a CCSF student riding home, I found a young punk playing with the bell cord. When I asked him to stop, he challenged me to a fight. He was only 10 years old and acted like he was 21! So I told to take it outside at the next stop. As he left I pushed him out and let the door close. End of problem.