Bus Report #629

Wednesday evening I waited for the 22 at my usual stop, a few minutes later than usual.
I saw the bus coming around the corner, and at the same time a big delivery truck double parked on the corner across the street.
It was inevitable that the bus poles came down as the bus tried to get around the truck. There was just no clearance for the bus, no way the poles could stretch that far.
So the driver idled the bus in the middle of 16th Street and, shaking her head, stepped down from the bus.
She got the poles back up in just a couple of minutes.
When she was finally able to pull the bus into our stop, she said, "Sorry about that, I almost made it."
I said, "You fixed that pretty quickly. I was impressed."
"Thanks," she said. Then, shaking her head again, "Double parkers."
I sat a few rows from the back door, in an aisle seat.
The driver was great - she greeted people as they got on, called the old folks 'honey' and 'sweetheart', and most impressively, she called out each stop and each transfer point, and where each bus at the transfer point was going.
"16th and Potrero," she said. "Transfer to the 22 going towards 3rd and 20th, the 33 Stanyan to Children's Hospital, the 33 Stanyan to Potrero, the 9 San Bruno and the 9 Limited."
She did this even though most people didn't seem to pay her any attention.
A man sitting near the front of the bus kept smiling when she reeled off the different destinations.
I couldn't help it, I smiled, too.