I’ve only had a car about ten years which means that for a large part of my adult life I relied on the kindness of friends and relatives and public transportation to get around. When you live in a the city — as I did the first seven years after leaving home — it’s no big deal. Everybody uses public transportation. But after leaving San Francisco to live 45 minutes north in Sonoma County, transportation became more problematic.
I often used Golden Gate Transit buses to get around. Golden Gate Transit’s primary function is get commuters back and forth from Sonoma and Marin Counties and the city. I used it to travel around Sonoma County as opposed to using Sonoma County buses, which while cheaper, seemed to carry an extremely high percentage of mentally challenged passengers and homeless people. Well, live and let live, right? I lived in the city. I rode the Muni, the BART trains. I lived South of Market, the Tenderloin, Hayes Valley. Talked to homeless people, crazy people, ate in soup kitchens, used to watch bargain matinees with the bums in the movie theaters on Market Street back in the day.
So what’s the big deal with Sonoma County Transit? I’ll tell you: the last time I rode a Sonoma County bus a homeless man crapped his pants intentionally and then smiled with glee at the discomfort of all the passengers around him. Pulling my shirt over my face, I thought, Look what the extra dollar for Golden Gate Transit protects me from.
Golden Gate Transit buses were white on the sides with green trim and the Golden Gate Transit logo in red. There were two exceptions. One bus had a Concorde-looking jet painted on the side, promoting San Francisco Airport. The other bus was covered in blue, with waves and breaking surf and the enormous profile of a humpback whale on the side, promoting the Monterey Aquarium. If you’d never seen it before, you’d definitely be nervous about boarding it, thinking you’d end up in Monterey, hours away, as opposed to your job in Santa Rosa, Petaluma or Novato. I distinctly remember asking the driver the first time I boarded, “This is Golden Gate Transit, right? The 80? “ He just nodded, in that resigned bus driver way.
I have a buddy, J-Cat. That’s not his real name but the pseudonym he’s asked me to use for him. It’s a bit over-the-top but so is he. ( “J-Cat “ is Sonoma County Jail slang for a difficult prisoner) I first met him riding the bus to Petaluma. He worked at his uncle’s restaurant, I was working at a drugstore downtown. Later we worked together at a liquor store in Cotati where we became friends. He was an on-again, off-again speed freak when I knew him. We used to drink together at his grandma’s trailer in the trailer park across the street from my house. Late at night, he’d cook up eggs, potatoes and sausage and tell me his outrageous drug- and alcohol-fueled escapades. Often hilarious, sometimes disturbing, always riveting.
One night, somehow, the subject of the bus with the humpback whale on it came up. I was telling him how it confused me the first time I saw it.
“Dude!” he exclaimed. “ Don’t you know?”
“Know what?” I asked.
“That’s the Whale Bus!” he said.
“The ‘Whale Bus’?” I shook my head. “So? So what?”
“That means it’s good all day”, he said, grinning. “ I always have good luck the day I ride the Whale Bus.”
Okaaay…?
A week or two later, I’m waiting at the bus stop with a young Hispanic day-laborer. The Whale Bus starts to pull in. The guy looks at me questioningly, gesturing towards it as if to ask, Is this the 80? I nod, smiling.
“Si?” he asks.
“Si, si,” I tell him, having to restrain myself from saying, Dude! That’s the Whale Bus! That means it’s good all day!
Years go by. I get a car. I hear they’re retiring the Whale Bus. It’s parked for a week or two by the toll booth plaza on the Golden Gate Bridge on the San Francisco side so people can catch a last look. Commuters were upset. Apparently, the Whale Bus affected all of us the same way.
A few more years go by.
I’m downtown last Sunday morning for an early morning run. I hear the sound of the Golden Gate 80 passing. I look up to see there’s a new model bus with a humpback whale painted on the side. The Whale Bus Rides Again!
Dude! That means its good all day!
Nice!