Another One Rides the Bus Joining the don’t drives, the dreamers, the everyday folks and the schemers on Humboldt Transit’s finest Story and photos by Heidi Walters
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wo tatted-up guys sit at the 11th and N bus stop in Fortuna, passing a pretty glass pipe. Eyes shuttered. Coughing. “We’re traveling hip hop artists,” the taller one tells me. He’s wearing black and white pinstriped duds, and has strips shaved out of one eyebrow. He’s Jordan Marozine. This is his best friend, Vince Moen (who’s wearing a cartoony hoodie and an A’s hat). They’re both 22, from Sacramento. They’ve been in Fortuna a week — did a couple of impromptu performances, at the Oyster Festival and at a graffiti shop in Eureka. “I like to write really prideful music,” says Marozine. He says he lived a lot of places as a kid, with different people (his dad was in prison, and his mom somewhere else). “If I can help anybody through the pain God got me through, I want to do it. Our lyrics are positive and uplifted. People see me and expect me to do bad. But I prove them wrong. I like to push happiness.” Moen is smiling as Marozine talks. So, uh, what do they think of riding the bus? “The Greyhound buses are terrible,” says Moen. “The bathrooms smell. City buses are fine.” And here comes the Mainline bus. Heading north.
Last year, people made 6 billion
trips by bus in the United States, according
to the American Public Transportation Association. I wasn’t one of them. But in mid-April, I joined the party, becoming one of thousands of Humboldt residents and visitors who rely on the county’s seven public bus transit systems (not counting paratransit, the direct pick-up system for those who can’t get to bus stops). Sometimes I’ve ridden on the Redwood Transit Mainline, sometimes going around in circles on the wait-forever-forit or dash-to-catch-it Eureka Transit. Before, I drove everywhere. Or walked. I ride the bus now because I have to,
SACRAMENTO-BASED HIP HOP ARTISTS JORDAN MAROZINE AND VINCE MOEN RODE AROUND HUMBOLDT THIS SPRING PUSHING HAPPINESS AT IMPROMPTU GIGS.
after shoulder surgery. Still, if you can’t drive — too poor, too broke, too disabled, too young, too whatever — having a bus to take you places is downright freeing, in its own regimented way. To rely on the bus is to be ensnared by time and space constrictions. You need a lot more time. Time to walk or roll to and from the stop. Time to sit on the bus as it makes umpteen other stops. In Eureka at least, you’d better hope your day’s work or appointment schedule
REDWOOD TRANSIT’S MAINLINE GETS YOU UP AND DOWN THE HUMBOLDT COAST CORRIDOR, AND ITS WILLOW CREEK LINE TRANSPORTS YOU INTO BIGFOOT COUNTRY.
12 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com
melds well with the hourly intervals that the bus arrives at any given stop. All it takes to screw it up is for the bus to be late — or leave early. It happens. And if you live in Fairhaven or Samoa, forget it — closest bus stop’s in Manila. And then there are the people on the bus. That rude boy in the red shirt and torn white socks, destination DMV, who wouldn’t move his feet out of the aisle for me to get past. The lady on her phone buying a fluffy white kitten from someone on Craigslist. Bus people can be weird. Or wonderful. Either way, you’re sitting right next to them. This temporary, throwntogether proximity requires a certain etiquette. In fact, there’s an official sign on the inside of the bus that spells it out. The gist of it is, respect other people’s space. Imagine a bubble of protection around each of them. If you pop it and they mind, and you don’t stop bugging them, the driver will boot your butt off the bus. And no swearing, either.
To rely on the bus is to be ensnared by time and space constrictions. You need a lot more time. Time to walk or roll to and from the stop. Time to sit on the bus as it makes umpteen other stops.