Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon Buns

Saturdays are usually pretty laid-back, especially in the mornings. This particular Saturday was no exception. I was driving Route 4 a.m. dragging my feet all the way around. I left late and went slow and still I was getting to all my time stops too early. On LePort Ave., I crept up to Taft Hill Road in order to get caught by a red light. While I was sitting in the left turn lane waiting for the green, a little blue car coming towards me turned onto Taft Hill. As the car turned, I saw a small object slide off its roof and plop down into the middle of the intersection. Seeing as how it was Saturday and very few cars were out, I completed the turn onto Taft then stopped, walked back to the intersection and retrieved the item. As it turns out, it was somebody’s cell phone. Me, knowing very little about cell phones, tucked it into my bag and continued on my way.

I couldn’t really turn the phone into TransFort as it wasn’t left on a bus, who would think to call TransFort? My wife had been working with cell phones at her work, so I figured if anybody had a chance to extract the owner’s number from the phone, it would be her. After my shift I took the phone home. It was still early in the afternoon; my wife and daughter were out shopping. As I sat down for lunch, the mysterious cell phone started to ring. When I answered it, the little voice at the other end said she had lost her phone and wondered if I had found it? I thought to ask her if she had dialed the correct number but knowing how worried she might be, I told her that I’d found the phone and that she could come and get it at her convenience. To say she was pleased would be an understatement; she would be over at 3:00 to retrieve it.

When she finally came to get the phone (sometime after 4:00), I was working out in the garage. My daughter came rushing out to tell me, not only was the owner here, she brought cinnamon buns! I came out to the sidewalk where she was waiting, handed her the phone and sent her on her way. As she climbed into her car, she thanked me and said she left some cinnamon buns for us. After she had gone, I went back into the garage to finish the task I’d been working on. That evening after dinner, we each had one of the cinnamon buns (luckily, the lady had thought to give us three). I’ve never seen cinnamon buns this big before, each one had to be 8 to 10 inches across! It took me three sittings to finish mine.

Wildlife

When you drive a bus, you are just a rolling witness to life happening all around you. I get a lot of joy seeing the wildlife co-existing with people in the city. Spring always brings the most rewarding sights like the families of Foxes living in dens under the shrubbery or the mother Raccoon being followed by her babies, looking like a long wiggling bottlebrush in the busses headlights. Every now and then I’ll catch a glimpse of a deer munching in somebody’s back garden. These beauties of nature don’t always survive the impatience of someone late for work.

The local flocks of Canada Geese like to move from place to place looking for greens as well as water. When I see the lines of geese getting ready to cross the road, I slow, put on my flashers and wait for them to cross the road in front of the bus. The other day I was made witness to a car driver too impatient to allow the geese to cross the road. Left behind was a goose flopping about the shoulder in agony while its mate stood on the grass calling to it. I made a call to animal control but next time past it was dead and its mate had abandoned it.

When driving Route 6, at the intersection of Stuart and Heather Ridge, lies an irrigation canal that is a favorite of geese and ducks. The canal borders a retirement village with trees and juniper bushes. In the spring it’s not uncommon to see families of ducks and geese with their little fuzz balls in tow, either swimming in the canal or sunning on the grass. As the season marches on, I find it enjoyable to watch the fuzz balls grow into duplicates of their parents.

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