Quick Stopoff

I've written plenty of times about using public transportation, saying no small amount about its strengths and weaknesses both in my own specific situation and in general. I believe I may have alluded to something that strikes a small amount of sadness in me each time it happens, and that is the regular spotting of a specific place I'd like to get off and look at, but can't. Typically, I'm on a very tight schedule while traveling on the bus. A small disturbance in it can throw the whole thing off- should I reach a certain intersection at 12:02 and not 12:01, that may mean waiting an hour for my connecting bus instead of a minute. My agenda seldom can bear that.

The result is that my commute takes on certain characteristics held by an airplane flight. When the pilot calls your attention to some item of interest out the window, you can do no more than look as you pass. It's the same if you see something on your own. I guess that really only happens when your plane makes its final descent, but the point is that you're really not in control. As I said, it makes me sad when I see some point of interest and know that I probably won't ever be at liberty to examine it more closely than I can from forty miles an hour on the street. It could be anything from a park to a restaurant or theater. The likelihood is that will be it for me. It's especially the case when I find myself on an especially lengthy and arduous ride that may last as long as an hour, reaching as it does into the far reaches of the county somewhere.

Sometimes under more favorable circumstances I may finally have a closer experience with the thing. After passing by many times, I finally got a closer look at the Campo De Cahuenga. Right there by Universal Studios and a major subway station is the exact place where the Mexican-American War formally ended, and most people probably don't even know what they're walking past- nor do I imagine they would care. I have always cared, but never managed to break my rigid public transportation itinerary in order to see it closely until one day when it became possible. I found it to be closed, but felt I had satisfied the spirit of my urge.

A more recent example happened the other day. It's not quite the same thing, as this was a place I had been to plenty of times before, but now can go to only with difficulty after having moved to Glendale. It's a 99 Cents Only store, and they are one of the really beloved retail operations out here. I knew that going over there from that same subway station I described a moment ago would disrupt my plans for getting home, but I felt that I just had to do it, and so I did. As a matter of fact, the world didn't end at all when I meandered from my planned path. Perhaps I'll make the effort to do so more often, as might you too.