Thursday, December 13, 2007

Kids cont...

"As kids when we got on the bus we used to add up the number on the transfer and it they added up to 21 it was considered a 'lucky transfer'." - Logan Mein - SF, CA.


"Working in the Presidio last year, I would pick up the 43 at Haight and Masonic. Waiting for the bus one morning, I sit down on the bench next to a young, straw-haired boy, maybe 3 years old, and a round, pleasant woman who appears to be his daytime caretaker. The kid is learning colors. The bus is brown. The scaffolding is green. The car is yellow. He has been showing signs of a musical gift for drumming. He is slapping out rhythms on his knees with an uncanny sense of timing. The kid goes to some kind of school for musically gifted children, somewhere on the 43 route. He is on his way to school. We have been waiting for the bus for a long time. I am late for work. The little boy is going to be late for school. He is still pointing out things he likes, and naming them. This kid doesn't have a care in the world - more so than most kids. Finally, the bus arrives. We are happy. The kid blurts out, "That's domino!" I stare in amazement at this little boy who has just uttered the coolest expression of joy I've ever heard, who has suddenly presented to be the hippest drummer since Art Blakey. I look at the boy's caretaker, but she just shrugs. "I don't know where he came up with that, he just started saying it one day." I am picturing musically gifted children sitting around the playground eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and playing dominoes, betting the unwanted items their parents packed them for lunch.

Clearly, I went to the wrong school." - Jeffrey Blumenthal - SF, CA.

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