I first became a resident of New Bedford MA on August 1, 2015.
Beyond knowing it existed, having a high school and college friend from there, and having read and taught Moby Dick, I had only been to the city twice in my 65 years at that time, in the 1970s when I was teaching Moby Dick and thought things like whale bone and ambergris, both still legally sold at the time, would make good “show and tell” things along with model whales, ships, and harpoons I bought, and the second time when, after moving to Cape Cod from Oklahoma, I was given a list of museums for that summer’s Free Fun Fridays, a rotating roster of museums of all sorts that each open for one Friday a season free of admission.
When it was time to vacate the home I was sitting on the Cape, a fixed income dictated low rent and the internet introduced me to the city and the apartment into which I moved.
It was an historic three-story, three-winged brick building that was constructed in 1910 by the owner of the Dawson Ale brewery for his employees, somewhat reminiscent of the housing built by the various mills for their employees and the opening of company store, except when it was originally built it had amenities like foyer to apartment intercoms, Murphy Beds for extra space, the phones on little shelves that rotated into the wall when not in use, some of which are still around in whole or part depending on the apartment.
It stood on a plot of land that had been the property of the Ricketsons, an important family in the history of New Bedford and the second to last owners before Mr. Dawson, and being where Elm meets County, was surrounded by historical buildings of which it was one.
The convenience of its location for me was that, having become a volunteer at the Whaling Museum as a way to get involved in my new community, I simply walked five blocks down Elm and took a right.
If I were to go to anything downtown it would start with walking two blocks south of my place and then a left turn that would bring me there. However, as most of my walking would involve going down Elm with a rare turn to go downtown, my basics route and slice of downtown involved a VA and federal building with parking lots, a bus terminal, a post office, a sketchy bar and empty lot, a glimpse off my shoulder of downtown as I walk on with a two block long wall of brick beside me until I am free to take the right turn.
As politically active as I was and as involved as I tried to be in my community, if you were to divide the city into four squares, the bulk of my activity, because of meeting locations, the best rally locations, where people lived, the best elected officials to work with, where the Gay bar is, seem to have favored the upper left square with a bit of seepage to the others.
I also had a car, so going to the locations to which I did, I saw much of the city, generally by way of passing it as I headed to my destination and, although familiar with something I had passed, I was only familiar with it for that reason. I could tell someone where some place was, but I could, more often than not, tell you nothing more.
Then two things happened.
Gentrification rousted me from that building.
There was drama and extreme inconvenience exacerbated by a “series of unfortunate events.”
I found a place on the other side of the downtown area, but, unlike the previous location with the first floor windows facing out looking at the big yellow M of the Mcdonalds nextdoor and with the walk down Elm being as previously described, now, from the third floor windows of my attic apartment in a two-family home built in 1881 that is now, like so many of the stately homes in the Bedford Village section of the city, divided into apartments, some grander than houses, I see the downtown area before me. Most notably I can see the facades of the buildings, the only parts of which my previous location made mostly visible being their plain, flat, unadorned rears.
From my window I look down two main streets whose buildings have historical facades like I am looking down Main Street at Disney, whereas before, in retrospect, I was seeing Main Street but from the maintenance garage viewpoint.
Both are looking at Main Street in Disney but one view is obviously the better.
Although previously a walk down Elm got me to the harbor after a turn or two, now I just walk out my front door and look to my right. The neighborhood is the original area of what would become the city, has a multi-ethnic community, and the downtown and theater district is within a one block walk, and the waterfront three blocks away.
All in all, I may have lucked out.
Now, when I had to move, I had made financial arrangements where I was paying rent at both the old and new place which afforded me the time to move without panic or added expense, and without having to ask people to inconvenience themselves to help, something I eventually had to do because of my previous use of the plural in the phrase “unfortunate events”.
Each day, beginning when I was still in the old apartment moving to the new and later being in the new and removing from the old, I would make three round trips in the morning and three in the afternoon, intending to do so until done, carrying the contents of each trip up the three flights to my “atelier”. It may have been equal to carrying 18 overweight toddlers up three flights of stairs each day for almost two weeks, but with rests and other non-moving activities, it was working.
I was down to the final heavy objects that would call for the last four trips, when during the first of the final trips, I managed to find a pothole, the encounter with which was increased by the weight of what was in the back of the VW, and apparently the clunky sound that followed me the last block home was part of the brake trying to hang on.
So, having to rely on friends in the end, I was fully rehomed in the new place with a clear view of my now useless car illuminated across the street by the historically accurate street light below my window.
Along with what was a simple two apartment rental plan that would be covered by certain funds promised by the new owners of the old building to aid in moving, another ongoing situation in the process of being resolved made the convenient repair of the car out of the question for the moment, but, with the downtown right there in front of me and the view of it so welcoming, the one block walk to be downtown is like being in a whole new city as my approach to it is so different now.
I can walk right into the missing end of the shoe box without having to walk on the outside of it to get to the opening.
Trips requiring more than just a short walk are taken care of by the bus system.
With the car you go where you want, when you want, and how you want. On a bus, you will get where you are going, but you have no control over how you get there. As a result, after having lived in the city and traveling everywhere by car, in the last few weeks I have been driven down streets I did know existed and have seen some interesting sights I may never have seen otherwise.
At the mercy of the system, getting the original bus may be a certainty only if starting at the terminal, but as the route maps only list major stops with intended departure times, all the minor stops not listed call for good timing and luck to catch the intended number bus or, if on the inbound trip, get whatever bus besides the one you intended that comes by..
A number of times I have found myself getting on an inbound bus after waiting for my bus at the stop, assuming the arriving bus was the one I was waiting for and have arrived at the terminal having been driven through a whole new neighborhood.
Because of having to get to a particular stop after taking care of business or needing to kill time if there is a lot of it before the next anticipated bus arrives, I have done a lot of walking in places I have up to this point just zoomed by in my car. Sometimes I will attempt to kill that time by walking to the next bus stop covering a surprising distance in that time,
In Boston I used public transportation, in Los Angeles I had to go for a while without a car as was also the case in Oklahoma, and in each place I saw parts of the city I was glad I saw, but otherwise would not have if I had not had to make all the connecting busses and trains to get to what a short ride in a car would have taken.
During the time I lived on Cape Cod, like the other locals in the dead of winter I could plan my week’s worth of chores and appointments according to my mood, all on one day, a few each day or. Maybe tomorrow, but in tourist season that choice is removed and you must pick the one chore traffic will allow you on any given day.
Knowing I cannot accomplish a number of things all over as quickly as possible in the shortest time possible because realistically I must time everything according to bus schedules, the panic of a surprise delay, or having to postpone one thing to do another rather than being able to do both, no longer comes with that panicky fear of failing to succeed somehow if things aren’t done in a manic way.
The next bus is coming.
I might have missed the bus I intended to get because on the walk to the station something caught my attention along the way in an artistic sense like a window display, not a distraction like a dog and a squirrel thing.
If I am going shopping, I take the bus to the large grocery store and come back. Mission accomplished, done for the day, the rest of the time is my own. Sometimes a second thing happens because there was time and it made sense, like leaving the Ziterion Theater after watching Miracle on 34th Street as part of the 100th anniversary of the theater’s existence and needing coffee creamer and eggs. Without having to rush off to something, I strolled to the closest grocery store in my end of town, made my purchases, and sauntered home in a very Zen like state of not caring about anything but that with which I was engaged, getting it all home.
And along with the unexpected adventures, wandering around killing time between busses is a lottery as to whether the trip, in whole or in part, is a good or bad one. I found a great place for GuatemalanTamales.
On a recent day with blustery winds and heavy rain, the only reason I left my apartment to walk to the bus station and catch the bus to a bar I frequent was because I had come in possession of a 12 pound frozen turkey that was useless to me and I was delivering said turkey to the person who two days before at the bar, when it was warm and sunny, volunteered to take it off my hands and as she said she would be there on that Friday as she and I often are, the delivery was to be so simple.
The rain was heavy and the winds strong, so I threw on my western duster coat, a wide brimmed water-proof, faux leather hat, grabbed my umbrella, and headed for the bus toting a 12 pound turkey in an old plastic, heavy duty shopping bag. By the time I got onto the bus and took a seat, I saw my reflection in the opposite window and saw I had become that strangely dressed older gentleman on the bus hugging something the size of a baby in a plastic shopping bag from whom young mothers keep their children from getting too close.
At the correct stop I went into the downpour, walked the two blocks to the bar only to find it was not open yet because, as it would turn out, a scheduling snafu. Uncertain why the place was not open and hoping it was not a death related thing, an inquiry on social media brought the situation to the attention of someone who could do something while I stood in the driving rain with it pouring off my umbrella and water-proof duster as I stood outside the locked door waiting in case the person pulled up and I could pass on the turkey and, perhaps, get a ride home since the bar was not open.
Eventually someone came and opened the bar and I went inside as they set the bar up for business and I had a beer. The bartender took the phone call from the turkey’s intended recipient saying she would be arriving much later. This had me check the bus schedule and calculate the best time for me to leave in order to be at the nearest minor bus stop with enough time to not miss the last bus home. I left the turkey in the care of the bartender, braved the storm, and got to the bus stop just as, surprisingly, the bus I intended to catch arrived way early and me just in time. However, when it turned at what for the intended bus would have been a mistake, I realized that I had gotten on an inbound bus that shared that stop with the other bus only because their routes crossed there.
My bus would have come from Fairhaven by way of the major supermarket at which all northbound buses seemed obligated to stop like a Nun with the Vatican if she ever got to Rome, and that would have favored a ridership of suburbanites and those whose lineages were from various lands connected to Portugal. This bus had come through a particular section of the North End, and that meant a more Portuguese and Guatemalan ridership as we were heading toward where a large number of Guatemalans worked at the fish plants along the waterfront.
The four other passengers and I sat quietly as a middle aged man stood near the bus driver after having pulled the cord for his stop and moving up near the front door to wait, doing his best to suavely come on to the driver in Portuguese while she remained calm. Although I do not speak the language I can recognize it, and the gestures were obvious enough to be understood in any language.
When he reached his stop, he made one last attempt at making a connection before exiting the bus with as much swagger as anyone can muster getting off a bus and was swallowed by the wind, rain, and night.
When the door closed and the bus moved on, although I cannot speak it but can recognize K’ichi spoken by many in the city’s Guatemalan Community, it was obvious that those quietly sitting riders had listened to it all and all became comedians throwing jokes about in near competition with each other, complete with gestures and body movements while the driver joked back in the same language.
It was like the teacher had left the room and even the good kids cut up.
At the next stop as people got on, the insult comics assumed their expected roles as quiet Guatemalans who always seem so shy.
Having nothing scheduled I had to rush off to, upon arrival at the terminal I walked over to a bar whose prices are not for elders on fixed incomes, joked with the stranger on the bar stool next to mine, and then took the leisurely walk out of the shoebox of downtown and into my apartment thoroughly soaked, but relaxed and 12 pounds lighter than at the beginning of the trip.
From now on, if you need me for something, I will get there in the length of time it takes to walk, or according to the bus schedule.
If you want it fast or now, come pick me up.
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