I took Thursday and Friday off work, and just stayed home with my 9 year old son, and 14 year old daughter.

Thursday we just laid around and did NOTHING! It felt great. I felt bad that it was too cool and breezy to go to a local lakeside beach. Oh, yeah, we all got haircuts.

But Friday my project for the 3 of us was to take the city bus to the downtown Minneapolis public library.

I grew up without a car. My mom couldn’t drive. My dad had a car, but made it clear it was just for him, and unless we were on some kind of all-family outing, he wasn’t taking us to after-school events or any personal activities in it. My mom and sometimes up to all 7 of us kids would take the bus together. The big kids would help the little kids. I was taking the city bus, in my small home town, alone, by the time I was 12. In fact even after college and for the first few years of our marriage, my husband and I couldn’t afford a car . We lived near downtown St Paul, and took the bus or walked everywhere.

I had no patience or respect for people who would tell me that they’d just refuse to ever take the bus , and that they were all “too dirty.” I had no choice. And it was my everyday life.

My daughter is 14 now, but she doesn’t remember how I used to take the bus home from work, pick her up from her day care lady’s house, and go right out to the bus stop to catch the bus for that last mile home, in all kinds of Minnesota weather. She nearly caused some accidents, as we sat at that bus stop, smiling, and bouncing, and waving her baby-wave at all the people stopped at the nearby stop sign! Now, in our two-car, suburban lifestyle, she has no memory of those days, at all.

What used to be an ordinary part of my daily life, up until about 8 years ago, became an elaborate ordeal! I used to know all my local routes, but now I had to go online to print the schedule of the bus that stops closest to our home. And our printer was busted, so I just had to remember. I had to find change enough for the 3 of us, and nowhere on the web site could I find what the price is, these days! So I just loaded up on quarters and hoped it would be enough. It was.

They both whined that we had to walk a whole 4 blocks to the bus stop, and whined about the heat while we waited. I was disappointed that the bus, once we boarded it, didn’t have copies of the schedule that I could take with me, as I remember they used to. It did have a box of schedules…of the number 10. Why are there a box of number 10 schedules, and no 25’s on the number 25 ?

Every time someone seated near us raised their voice, my son would whine, “See? I told you we shouldn’t have taked the bus.” He also informed me that we shouldn’t have paid money to ride the bus, because the car is “free!” Oh , good lord, my son has a lot to learn. The car is free. I’ll have to remember that. He also reminded me, as the bus stopped a for each rider boarding or getting off, and as it rambled through the city streets rather than taking the highway, that we were losing too much time, because the car was faster. He has a valid point. I’d forgotten that this one rambles around and takes the scenic route . I felt like telling him, “Did you know that when you’ve never had a car, you don’t care about stuff like that?” But we all know how much kids love “when I was your age” stories, so I kept that one to myself.

My daughter was thrilled, when we found the “teen” room at the downtown Minneapolis public library. This library was another one of my “fun” hangouts in my no-money aimless youth. But the’ve entirely rebuilt it since then, and neither of my kids has been to it, possibly not even before it was rebuilt. My daughter had been complaining that she’d read ALL the Japanese Manga at all the local suburban libraries I drive her to, so that’s part of the reason this was my destination. She found a stack of Manga she’d never read, and waved us away with her hand.

I was disappointed, however, to notice that they no longer had a wall of hanging bus-schedule-holders as I remembered they used to. I couldn’t find any at all! I suppose they want everyone to use their computers to go online like I did from home. And I should have. But I did’t for some reason. My son, with his obsession with technology , didn’t want me to read to him. He never does, in a library. He wants to go on the library computer, even though we have one at home. But the computer needed a Minneapolis library card number. And I only have a Ramsey County library card number.

So I was able to go to their children’s librarian to ask what I should do. The children’s librarian had me go to a library computer, type in my Ramsey County Library card number, write down the account number that displayed, then take it all the way over to the other side of the first floor, to a customer service librarian who kept saying he couldn’t find it in the computer until he tried about 10 times. Then he did. Then he needed my drivers’s licence and about 5 minutes of typing time until he assured me that now my library card number would work on their computers. This allowed my son to play on Postopia .com, and to notice that the children’s library computer considers newgrounds.com to be “adult content” and was blocked! OK, it kind of is, if you think about it.

One thing that is “new” (to me) since my bus-riding days, is that when you pay your fare, and remember to ask for a transfer, the back of the transfer ticket has a time stamp on it about 3 hours future to when you boarded. If you get on a return bus before that time, then your return trip home is free! If your board after that, you have to pay again. Of course back then I always bought an all-you-can-ride pass at the beginning of every month, so I didn't used to have to worry about things like correct change all the time. But I did insist we leave the library about 90 minutes after we got there, even though my daughter waved me away again every time I checked on her. But here’s a complaint I remember people from Chicago making to me , frequently, back when I was a frequent bus rider. Our bus stops don’t all have the list of what busses stop here, and their schedules. Some do, but not all. And even those that do, sometimes list some of the busses that stop here, but not others. I still had no idea which street our return number 25 stopped on, downtown, or at what time!

So I called my husband on our cell phone. Another invention not in common usage when I was a frequent bus rider. I called him from the Caribou Coffee in the library lobby, where I had broken down and bought both kids a treat, as I had promised my son I would , as a bribe, at home, before we left, so he’s come willingly. I don’t remember libraries having snack bars in them, as a kid, in the 70’s. My husband was at his desk at work, and I made him go on the bus company web site and read us our stop and our departure time! It was directly across the street from the library, but it was RIGHT NOW! We just made it! I texted him from the bus to tell him, “We just made it, thank you.” I love the 21st century.

I hope my kids got out of the experience that they do have options. My daughter is 14 now and I want her to know the bus is viable transportation for her now, especially here in Minneapolis and St Paul and their close suburbs. Obviously I ‘m not suggesting she take it alone now, but she’s getting to an age where she can. And I want both kids to know that cars are optional. They’re not mandatory to own. I tried not to force the point that cars are a luxury and that I think they take cars for granted, as do all the kids in the suburban neighborhood where we live now. It’s my fault as a parent if they think that way. But I did show them the bus alternative on Friday, and I need to make sure we take it more, so that they don’t see the bus as a novelty, but as part of our urban structure, available to us all the time.