Bus stop post...

It was April or May 1980. I was up on Huntington Ave in Boston just across from Punters Pub. I was broke and in a solemn mood and as often when I felt like that I took a day off and went to The Museum of Fine Arts to get out of my own head.

It was a dreary spring day, the air was misty and clammy and it was a little windy. I was standing outside with a transfer token waiting for the subway when it began to rain a bit. I looked over to my left and saw a very stunning and beautiful older woman waiting also, but she had an umbrella.

She was all the distraction I needed so I started whistling, humming and some singing "Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say Please share my umbrella Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows Under my umbrella" She looks over at me and waves me closer. We wait together and I'm still very gently humming the song a little from time to time until the train comes and we enter.

I only had about $2.30 to my name but wanted to talk to her so I waited for her stop and asked her if I could buy her a coffee. LOL, this was Boylston Street. Coffee even back then could cost $5 a cup back then some places but I didn't have my thinking cap on before I spoke.

She accepted and knew her way around. She took me to a fancy pub that had free orderves for late luncheon crowd and coffee was about a buck each and we talked some.

She asked me about my interests and I told her art, music, electronics and reading. She asked me more about the electronics. I told her that I was now into collecting 1940's through 50's radios in mahogany or walnut cabinets and replacing the insides with newer equipment but still using the original controls so that they looked authentic but had a better sound quality (early 1970's tuners were string controlled so it was as easy as jumping wires and running extra string to use the tuner controls and volume controls and original switches from an older piece on a newer receiver/amp). So I asked her what her interests were. She said "I work as an Assistant to the Dean at Wentworth University" Whew! Huh? I wasn't totally believing her but she gave me her number, I gave her mine and she asked me a few questions about my academics. I figured I'd call her off and told her the truth.

I told her last real grade I had completed was 7th but they passed me in 8th anyway because they really needed me out of the school. That I had just weeks before passed my G.E.D. and that I really had no future in mind to plan for. I figured that autta end it because by now I was very uncomfortable, I felt trapped and way the hell beneath myself. She had a meeting to attend and now I had a city to walk because I had just spent all my train fare on coffee, so we parted with the expectation to talk together again.

Ten steps out of the bar I tossed her number into the trash and walked away feeling a fool...

Christmas time comes and my mother tells me that I got both a phone call and a letter inviting me to attend open house at Wentworth... HUH? "No fukkin way!"
I told her it was bullshit and ignore it.

Next year same thing but this time I called back. My academic records had been checked and I had been granted a $20,000.00 scholarship per year for three to 4 years by the Dean of Wentworth based upon referral. I was blown away. More so because I left her company ashamed of myself and in regret for having been so bold and stupid to ask for her company not even sure I had coffee money. I didn't accept but I did go to the meetings. It was like crawling over a bubble. I could see inside but knew my place was outside.

I regret I never called her again, or even once. My esteem was too low and I couldn't enter her realm again even for a moment.

Point of this post is I met a beautiful Woman with a song and this is the song...