Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Muni drivers are all too easy a target. And like every group of human beings, some of them probably do suck. I know I’ve encountered my fair share.
But @avolberding just posted a photo of the flipside of Muni driverdom:
Muni driver of the year? Bus driver helping old lady onto bus. #5574.
Happy Easter Friday, or whatever it is, y’all.
Photo by Art Institute of Chicago
Over the Twitter wires, via @ErinNorton, comes this gem from Media Bistro about how the Art Institute of Chicago has placed thrones on various rail lines around town. The institute then asked riders to take photos of themselves sitting in the decorated seats and submit them to the school’s Facebook page for a chance to win a free museum tour.
ErinNorton asked the obvious question: “can someone please do this for SF muni?” Hear that, SFMOMA?
Instead, Muni riders have been taking the matter of creative seating on public transit into their own hands. And god bless them, too.
Photo by Telstar Logisitcs
Muni rider Brian overheard this gripping tale on the 67-Bernal Heights.
A mugger shoots and murders the parents of a young Bruce Wayne, who studies for years to become Gotham’s dark knight. A space ship crashes on a farm, and inside is a baby boy wrapped in a red cape adorned with a letter “S” emblem; this boy grows up to be Superman. After being kidnapped by Vietnamese terrorists, scientist Tony Stark constructs a powerful iron suit to destroy his captors and escape, and Iron Man is born. Every great comic book character has a memorable origin story. But no superhero can top the story I heard about the man who drives the 67 bus.
At one red light, a young woman standing near the front of the bus notices his bible, too, and can’t hold back her curiosity. “Hello, sir. If you don’t mind my asking — how did you become religious?” the girl says. She sounds Dutch, and she’s holding a basket in her left hand, the bus pole in her right.
“Oh, I’m happy to tell ya,” the driver says. “God saved me when I was very young. You wanna know how he did that?”
“Of course.”
The driver looks pleased. The light turns green, and he starts his story as he hits the gas.
“So back when I was a teen, I used to always drive really fast. I’m talkin’ stupid fast, OK? I had a sports car, and I would take that thing up to maybe 120 sometimes on the freeway.”
The passengers sitting near me begin shifting their eyes in the driver’s direction, with concerned looks on their faces.
“So this one night at like 2 in the morning I’m speeding down the freeway and I hear a voice in my head.”
Slow down. Stop.
“I say to myself, that’s ridiculous, why should I stop? This is an empty freeway, it’s 2 in the morning. Ain’t no one out here. And then I hear the voice again.”
Slow down. Stop. There’s a car up ahead.
“So I hit my brakes and stop. And sure enough right in front of me there’s a car that’s been in an accident. Its headlights are shut off, and it’s sideways across the freeway. I came so close to driving straight into it!”
“Wow,” the woman says.
“So I’m stopped there on the freeway and I’m in shock, and I’m asking, how can this be? How can this be? And I started crying right there. God saved me! God saved my life that day. And so then I decided I would stop driving so stupid fast, and I would become a bus driver to take people places and keep them safe.”
He ends the story with a short sermon: “Thank the Lord. Praise Jesus.”
The bus comes to a halt at a stop. “Wow, that’s so amazing,” the woman says. “Thanks so much for sharing that with me. I’m getting off here, but would you like a date?” She takes a date out of her basket, hands it to him and hops off the bus.
The bus continues through the rest of the route, and I’m the only one left with the driver as we approach my stop. I shoot him a quick thank you as I step off.
The driver takes his right hand off the steering wheel, extends it toward me and says it again: “Thank the Lord. Praise Jesus.” The doors shut behind me, and the lights flicker off as the bus drives away.
Got a Muni story? There’s a website for that. Submit your story to Muni Diaries!
A few days after we posted a roundup of various Muni tattoos, one of the tattoo’s owners contacted us to tell us more.
Julie is the proud owner of the Muni neck tattoo. Here’s what she had to say upon discovering it on Muni Diaries:
That is me 3 years ago, at the fresh-faced age of 18 when I first got the tattoo. The day after, I was in Costco with my mom, and three dudes stopped me to ask if it was really the worm, and snapped this picture.
Here’s what Julie said about why she got the Muni worm tattoo’d on the back of her neck:
At 15, my mom kicked me out of the house, and I was out on the streets. I would sleep on the 90 or 91 when it was extra cold or rainy out. The drivers, despite their rough exterior, showed me ultimate compassion and sometimes would give me food or hot chocolate. The entire experience of being a street kid had a huge part in the chick I am today, so I got the worm.
Plus, it’s unique to San Francisco, and I’m a city kid to the core.
And the reaction she gets to the tattoo?
It’s always fun. Usually a laugh or two and then a question of why I got it. A lot of tagger kids think it’s pretty cool which always amuses me. Muni operators get a good laugh out of it too, and cable car drivers always tell me it’s my life pass and I can ride their trolley for free any day.
So much awesome is happening on the nape of Julie’s neck and in her story. Thanks for sharing, Julie!
This and other posts are being corralled over on our 100 Days, 100 Muni Stories page. Check out these tributes to the Muni experience, and send us your best Muni memories.
Image courtesy samsast
Let’s take this opportunity to usher the beloved Fast Pass to the netherworld, as we once did with Muni routes that were about to be taken out of service.
A few tidbits about the paper Fast Pass:
Check out these photos of the Fast Passes through time (presented mostly in chronological order) and how San Franciscans have incorporated images of the paper Fast Pass into our favorite holidays. Long live the Fast Pass!
Photo by Cranky Old Mission Guy
Image courtesy samsast
Photo by Joey Yen
Muni rider Adam vocalizes a frustration:
Okay, I get some people have issues with fare-checking, but my problem is: Doesn’t he realize he’s holding everyone else hostage, because the bus isn’t going anywhere until the fare inspector’s done? Does he realize how selfish he’s being?
We doubt it, Adam. What do you think? Is it cool to argue the legitimacy of Muni’s Proof-of-Payment policy, all the while holding PoP in hand?