On the Canal Line

Every Friday and Saturday I walk down to Veterans Memorial Boulevard and wait for the bus that comes at 8pm.  I board the bus and am sometimes the only white face.  After 20 or so minutes we arrive at the cemeteries at the base of Canal Boulevard in Orleans Parish where I wait for the Canal Street Car to come and take me into downtown New Orleans.  When it arrives I am never the only white face, although sometimes the only white face with anywhere to actually go.

The Canal Line was completed after Hurricane Katrina and comes with a unique line of new red cars.  Occasionally one of the green cars traditional to the St. Charles line will be used on this route, and vice versa, but the red and green cars both have their usual niches.  I prefer the green cars-- the red cars have been made wheel chair accessible at the expense of aesthetics (although I suppose practicality is more important than beauty), and their seating arrangement, in turn, resembles more a usual city bus than a trolley. 

None of this is really the point-- instead, over the past two weeks I have seen two (2) things on this car that have moved me.  As follows:

An elderly black man, worn and withered by age, boarded the trolley and sat on the bench-style seats near the front.  Several stops later another, much younger black man boarded with his son, around three or four.  They were standing in the front of the trolley, next to the elderly man, paying the fare, when the car started with a jolt.  The boy stumbled, almost fell.  The elderly man, in a natural, habitual way, caught and steadied him.  The father, distracted by the operator, hadn't noticed the boy nearly fell nor that he was caught.  Once finished in the front, they went and sat down.  That was all.

A woman and her son boarded the car.  The boy was about 25, 26, challenged-- wearing a pink 'Hannah Montana' sweatshirt designed for, I assume, a pre-teen girl.  It was two or three sizes too small, but seemed to make him happy.  It was his mother though, that I found the most appealing-- she was in her mid-forties, with the worn, weathered beaten-down face of someone whose lived a hard life of loving something very deeply that was tiring, time-consuming and difficult.  I watched her until they departed, both of them waving goodbye to the driver with drama and excitement.  I assume they ride that route often-- it is possible they do not.

Sometimes I ponder how I can feel such cynicism and despair at one time and such love and appreciation at another.  I usually shrug it off-- it's a wonderful life.