Everything I Ever Needed To Know…
…I Learned on a Bus (A Celebration of 50 Years of Transit) - by hakim bellamy

We learned.

Learned that rounding this mountain is a ritual.
Learned that routine
is something that you can set your watch to, count on,
and those promises we make to each other, in a community,
is all we got.

We learned how to share,
share seats in shared streets.

We learned what we were made of
in the 11th hour of the 12th month of 1928.
In the middle of that night, very first morning of 1929
we were determined to keep the pulse
of our city alive.

We learned how to drive.
We learned the exact number of miles
from Casper, Wyoming to the Westside.

We learned the A.B.C.’s of service
even when riding in coach.

We learned never to bet
against a Motorette
who could get a six cylinder engine
up Central Avenue in the snow.

We learned that getting to work
is a group thing, a public-private partnership
of neighbors and strangers.

We learned how to dance.
Lead, follow and extend a hand.
Do the hustle and side-step
aisle to aisle, sit and stand
rise and set to the biorhythm of the Sun Van.

We learned how to wake up together
In a city that siestas, but never sleeps.
We learned how to rush hour, and pastime.

We learned about livery
and past lives.

We learned about about smiles
at the end of every sentence, long before emoticons
were ever even “a thing.”
We learned that the first GPS
were motor coach operators who knew this city
like the back of their eyelids.

We learned about riding in silence
in the age of earbuds, headphones, iPads and Pods.

We even learned to excuse ourselves,
our butts and our baggage
as we shuffled by.

We learned that transit, is short for transition.
That A. R. T. is short for arteries.
That the altitude does something to the circulatory system,
that allows us to breathe.

We learned,
that the little girl who always sits in that seat
right there, never stops singing.
Whose mother, has learned to sleep sitting up,
while pretending she’s listening…

and everyone under the sound
of that little girl’s voice learned her song:

♪ ♫ The lives on the bus go round and round
round and round
round and… ♬ ♭

We learned that ‘round the block,
‘round the way, ‘round the corner
and ‘round the world were precise measurements
of distance and time.

We learned, that we are all in the same bus.
We learned how to dream sitting up.

We learned how to trust other people with our lives.
We learned that it’s okay to let somebody else drive.
We learned that at 5,352 ft. above sea level
buses can still fly…

and we even learned to call that ABQ Ride.

We learned that every bus, is a school bus.
That every day is a test.
That we are never too old to take naps.
And that public transportation
has always been an opportunity
for you and I
to rest.

© Hakim Bellamy, October 28th, 2015