So I started thinking about Sanford and Son, and Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page – two of Saint Louis’ finest – and All in the Family and Roseanne and a few other shows, and I started wondering if it’s a symptom of declining IQs – in real life, not in a movie – that a show about three white, male characters who are nothing more than unimaginative mouthpieces for the most tired, unoriginal gender jokes is the most popular program on the air. Were the 1970s really that long ago? Or are we just really good at lowering our standards quickly? Then I started wondering about the actor with the lead role on the sitcom. I’d done my best to ignore the story, which was easier than it may seem. I have not watched the Today show for a while, and in the evenings, instead of subjecting myself to the stupidity of Katie Couric I’ve been reading Thomas Hardy for my book group – I’m a fag! – and waiting until 7:00 to turn the television on. That’s when Jim Lehrer steps in and demonstrates that “we are not in the entertainment business” is not a talking point but a policy.
On Thursday morning a friend of mine pointed out that the television star seems to have entered the manic phase of his descent into the bleakest pits of mental illness. Which was interesting because my main source of information on the spectacle was, up until then, Facebook, where there have been pictures and video clips and comments galore and quotes that concluded with a question: Is this Muammar Gaddifi speaking or is it …? And then the news that this particular television star is breaking records for the most followers on Twitter, which inspired me to come up with a new tag line for that particularly odious technological invasion: Twitter: Now We Can All Be Stupid. So I posted a little Facebook status update on Friday morning, something I rarely do, expressing my shock that mental illness, alcoholism, child abuse and domestic violence appear to have become spectator sports. And the first comment was from a most successful PR woman asking me if someone was camped out in my front yard again. Isn’t that funny? There is a certain type of person who laughs, really laughs, when someone trips and falls in public. There are people who think it’s funny, and those people have always, up until now, struck me as mean spirited. Now, they seem almost civil.
Another unusual thing happened recently: It snowed in Portland. In late February. When it comes to snow accumulation, I just rely on sex logic: I don’t get worked up over anything less than five inches. Not so at Portland Public Schools, which cancelled classes, or at KGW, which preempted bad network programming for worse extended storm coverage. After the snow, it got really cold, so there were some slick roads, and that’s when I started wondering about the amount of direction passed along to the general public for situations and circumstances that should not, in my opinion, be too difficult to manage. Be careful when you drive. Give yourself some extra time to get where you’re going, meaning, if it took you 20 minutes to drive to work yesterday, it might take you 40 minutes today … even if you take the exact same route. Be careful when you walk. Try not to slam on the brakes. If you’re on a bike avoid making sharp turns. If you’ve already put delicate plants in the ground, cover them. Wear your mittens, and if your window is open, close it.
Do we need to be told, over and over again, that driving on a dry road is a fundamentally different experience than driving on a road – even if it’s the same road – that has snow on it? Does my 13-year-old niece need to be told five times, in January, in Missouri, to put her shoes on? Is the collective IQ already stuck in an irreversible decline?
One of the best things about Portland, I think, is the public transportation system. We’re amateurs compared to the cities in other countries where I’ve spent time, but in the U.S., with the possible exception of New York and Washington, I think we’re at the top of the list.
And one of the best parts of our public transit system, I think, is the fact that each bus is equipped with a wheelchair ramp. When a person in a wheelchair needs to board the bus, the driver has to activate the ramp, which emerges from the floor right between the driver’s seat and the front entrance to the bus. The ramp – a platform – then extends out and gradually declines to the ground, creating a bridge between the sidewalk and the bus.
And that’s when it gets tricky. When the ramp is being extended or pulled back in, it is physically impossible to walk on or off the bus via the front door. There are bright yellow arrows painted on the ceilings of most Tri-Met buses. The arrows point to the rear doors, which are located, if you measure from the front, about 2/3 of the way back. The aisles on a Tri-Met bus are wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs; they are not wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic when one of those ways is occupied by a wheelchair. When a wheelchair is entering or exiting the bus there is not room for other passengers to walk, sit or stand in the section of the aisle between the front entrance and the place where the person in the wheelchair will be seated. The reason the area in front of the rear entrance is painted bright yellow, and the reason there are signs that say DO NOT STAND HERE is that it’s an exit, not an area to stand in while the bus is moving. In three languages, written from back to front, which is the direction you’d read in if you were standing in the aisle facing the front, are the words: Go With The Flow. I think the reason the arrow points to the back is to illustrate – illustrate, meaning to make a point with a picture – the principle that it’s much smoother for everyone if, when people are …
What I do at this point is visualize. I visualize rocks worn smooth and shiny by millions of years of rushing water. I visualize pale blue sheets hanging on clotheslines on a sunny but cool afternoon in early April. I visualize 6:00 in the morning in the depths of January: just-brewed coffee in a big white mug, a soft lamp, night-black windows. The reason I visualize rather than respond is that I honestly cannot trust myself when I hear bus drivers beginning to explain that which should never have to be explained, or even mentioned. And so far, I’ve yet to witness the explanation taking hold in the mind of the recipient on the first telling.
