March 11, 2007
What Being American Means
I sat beside my sister in the front row of the tour bus, right behind Martin.
His bright tie matched the paint job on the bus and it was pulled tight between his collar and the first button on his jacket. He was a left brained gentleman in his 50's; a soft spoken and well mannered Irishman. His firmly pressed navy tour guide suit jacket was stretched tight across his back. He learned far forward in his seat over the steering wheel and strained to see into the rearview mirror on the left side. The bus delicately lurched forward a few inches at a time; the front of our bus getting closer and closer to the back of the one in front of us. He was silent as the 60 ft tour bus rocked back and forth as subtlety as the ribs of a sleeping dog under a porch.
His suit grimaced. It's pleats and seams bulged and stretched to allow his body the positon he needed to turn the steering wheel and keep his eyes looking in all the angles he required of them. Slowly, the bus began to rock it's way out of the parallel parking spot on the narrow street that spliced its way through the Guinness Store House at St. James Gate. We were in the medieval district of Dublin, and the stone beneath us gave Martin and our bus no sympathy.
Our bus passed by the motor coach in front of us close enough that I could see the hex-shaped heads on the rivets that held the brake lights. But Martin was looking in the other direction into the traffic, and nudging the accelerator to gently roll us all another inch away from the curb.
As Martin calmly pivoted on his seat to look back towards the curb, I was looking clearly into the filaments of the brake light bulbs in front of us. The bus full of fellow Americans behind me began pausing their conversations about Seinfeld episodes and the cost of pet food at their respective hometown grocery stores and take note of our situation.
The man in seat across the aisle leaned up abruptly and shouted over the railing to Martin.
"We should go to the next city council meeting and get these streets made wider!" he said, amused at his idea.
Martin peered into the rearview mirror and slowly turned the steering wheel.
"We don't need wider streets." Martin replied.
"We need smaller busses."