Memories of D.C,

On a recent visit to Washington, D.C. I was struck by how attractive, comfortable, and dependable their circulator busses were. Living in Miami, our busses lack all three of those virtues. Especially now that they have replaced on many routes our ordinary busses with rickety, slow, wooden-seated trolleys. But then Miami, to my mind is a very backward city when it comes to transportation. For instance almost all of our bus benches are without shelters, despite the fact that our city is either blazing hot or being deluged with buckets of tropical rain. So, on most days you have a choice of getting soaked or skin cancer. Also, unlike most other cities, the bus will not stop for you unless you signal it to do so. Many tourists not knowing this are left standing as the bus or trolley leaves them standing there. One of the more annoying aspects of the busses when we had them was that you could not see out the window at night. To determine your stop, you practically had to press your face against the glass and even that wasn't enough. Today I took one of the trolleys to the market, at least I thought that's what I was doing since the previous busses stopped there. But the transportation department, in their infinite wisdom, has made the closest stop to the market a side street from which you have to walk half a block then cross one of the busiest, most dangerous streets in Miami.

I note that spell check has faulted me five times for spelling busses with two esses, which is a perfectly correct spelling of the word, and one I prefer otherwise, to my mind, it would read bewsis.