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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Great and Terrible 358
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I'm honored and thrilled to now be part of The Urbanist, a site dedicated to examining urban policy and expand our thinking on public transportation and numerous related subjects.
Some time ago I posted a massive post detailing what a day on the 7 is like. As the 358 winds down to a permanent close, it's time for some similarly massive thoughts on Seattle's most notorious route.
--
I was at Central Base once when I overheard two other operators talking about me.
"This guy only drives the 3 and the 4. And guess what, last shakeup- he drove the 358. For fun!"
"What?"
"Yeah. He's insane. He went all the way to North Base to pick the 358... On purpose!"
Why did I choose to pick what some call "The Disease Wagon" again? Why was I so adamant about snagging "Jerry Springer" one last time before its deletion, to the point that I took a hour and a half cut in pay simply to get my grubby hands on it? The obvious answer is because I love the route... but why?
By way of more clearly describing what the route is, I offer a few excerpts from the route's Yelp page. The fact that it even has a Yelp page (not to mention songs based on it, and celebrations and condemnations in numerous publications) gives you a notion of the route's continued cultural presence. I can't help but share some excerpted alternative opinions:
We even have a 358 haiku, offered by Jonathan S.:
Honestly - who reeks?!"
In counter to these memories, I offer an ode published in Seattle Weekly, when it was named best bus route in 2013:
A 8 x 10 blow-up of the above is hung on the wall at North Base. Some drivers are planning a party at North to celebrate the route's demise and welcome a new era wherein they'll never have to deal with the route again. In the same breath, a number of operators are planning to ride the last 358 trip, to glory in the last hurrah of a cultural institution that will breath its last breath in the waning hours of this coming Valentine's Day. You can guess which group I'm in!
Nowhere else will you encounter such a group of souls as those I have the pleasure of spending time with on this route. Yes, they swagger on with all manner of questionable and dangerous items peeking out from under their jackets. They hobble around with stuffed garbage bags and needles. Beer cans and condom wrappers share space on the floor, along with strange powders, leaves and pills that defy my understanding. Once, on the same bus, I found a collection of the following: bras, surgical masks, gummy worms, and board games! Materials for quite the weekend in Vegas!
You don't just see increased police activity here; Aurora Avenue is where police cars drive past each other in opposite directions because they're going to separate incidents. The people are cloaked in smells I've never experienced and can't begin to describe. I helped a woman with directions, and as she assaulted me with her astounding breath I was more bewildered than displeased, as in: how did this train wreck of a fragrance come into being? How many ingredients and lab experiments would it take to replicate it?
Before I started this job, I had a tendency to romanticize the poor. I read Tolstoy and liked Millet and Henry Tanner. Van Gogh wrote of the truth he saw in peasants' eyes, and how he found it nowhere else. Being familiar with these works, and coming from the working-class background that I do, I had certain inklings about the poor I believed to be true. After driving bus for several months, and being in daily, close contact with the lower class, I began to realize there were more sides to the story, that some people behave terribly, and as many make crippling life decisions as are simply wronged by bad fortune. I wondered whether I had been superficially romanticizing, when in fact what was actually going on out here was really just a bunch of...no.
I had an epiphany. My epiphany, which hit me after driving the bus a few years more, was that my original inkling was in fact true. These are among the best people I know. When those damaged, craggy, beautiful faces get off my bus and say "God bless you," let me tell you, they mean it. People in Bellevue never say stuff like that. They don't treat me like this. My earlier realizations hadn't been overturned so much as reoriented, grounded and firmed up by the unblinking gaze of reality.
Respect, gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation, empathy- these have incalculable currency out here on the street. I see disabled women getting up to make room for other disabled women. A "hello" from me goes further on Aurora and Rainier than it does elsewhere. It's a simple sound, but with the right tone it's enough to communicate the warm comfort of a judgment-free space. Often you can see what a welcome surprise it is- gestures of kindness are all the more impactful for having occurred in the supposed darker corners of life.
"Thank you," a teen boy said in what was my last interaction of the night. He'd beseeched me for a free ride, and I'd given him one. I didn't ask why. Does it matter if his circumstances are his fault? He turned to me before stepping into the freezing cold. "It means a lot," he said, in a moment of uncool but beautiful honesty. I knew now by experience what Van Gogh was writing about.
"Anyone who drives the 358 part-time doesn't know about the 358," a veteran report operator grumbled at me not too long ago. It was all he could do but tell me I had no right to be happy. Maybe he was tired of seeing my smiling face around the base.
Comments like this amuse me. Anyone who thinks nothing happens on the 358 in the afternoons... well, let's just say that person really just needs to come out for a ride on my bus. Locals will tell you Aurora's drug transport and prostitution activities take place mostly during the daytime, when things are more easily accomplished using discount hourly motel rates and frequent bus service. More importantly, though, that grumptastic vet simply doesn't know where I'm coming from. He probably doesn't ride the 358 and a host of other routes at all hours on all days, and he certainly doesn't know that I do.*
Beyond that, he knows nothing of my background. I was speaking with another operator years ago about why it was she and I both liked driving "the rough routes" so much, and the only commonality we could find among ourselves was that we were both from South Central LA. There are things I've experienced- without the authority and recourse to safety that being a bus driver provides- whose sandblasting negativity have absolutely no place on this blog. For me, they function only as healthy reminders that when something as marginal as a man defecating in his pants happens on my bus, I can recognize that it's not a problem. It's an issue. When boys are fighting in the back, it's an issue, but we get through it. I ask them to continue their fight outside, and they do so.
"Hey, Nathan, I have a question for ya," driver Ted asked me once. We were both doing 358s at the time.
"Sure, what's up?"
"Well, I always see you driving that 358 smiling, all the time, every single time you're smilin.' How d'you do it? We're driving at the same time, we've got all the same people, and they're cussing me out, they're peeing in the back, I'm gettin' the works. How do you do it, man?"
It's amazing what a difference tone makes. When you ask somebody how their day is, they generally keep their pants zipped. Ninety-nine percent of my day is in my control. In my recent post regarding Carlos, I write that his new construction job and resulting station in life has no catch. Is that really true? We could probably find one if we really wanted to. Maybe he has to take three buses to work instead of two, or he gets paid monthly instead of biweekly. The fact is, I think Carlos is happy because he doesn't think like that. If the catch is negligible, why bother contemplating it? I could choose to think my route is plagued with problems, or I could just embrace it all and get on with the business of being myself.
Standing there at the base listening to the aforementioned grumpster tell me I knew nothing about the 358, I thought about calling him out and gleefully tearing apart his argument. I knew exactly how to do so... but I discovered I couldn't. I lack the necessary apathy. The fact is, I sort of like the poor guy. He may be the polar opposite of me in temperament, but he doesn't deserve a telling off. How would it help? One man's passion (love) is another man's passion (suffering), and nothing will change that.
In conclusion, my love for the 358 can best be described by these two pieces- Ode to the 358, and Ode to Aurora. There is an undeniable elation I feel when I see a mob of street people at an approaching stop. It's a mystery to me. Any interpretation I come up with now would merely a supposition, and would fall short of a full explanation. I can only say I feel it in spades, and that, strangely, this feeling doesn't ever fade.
*A suggestion for my newer bus driver friends: if you don't already, ride the bus. A lot. The best bus drivers are those who also ride the bus. There's no better way to learn about your job. In the same way reading all the time makes you a better writer, and acting makes you a better director of actors, riding the bus makes you much more aware of the type of experience you're giving to the passengers, and quickly shows you what works and what doesn't. You might find yourself surprised.
Some time ago I posted a massive post detailing what a day on the 7 is like. As the 358 winds down to a permanent close, it's time for some similarly massive thoughts on Seattle's most notorious route.
--
I was at Central Base once when I overheard two other operators talking about me.
"This guy only drives the 3 and the 4. And guess what, last shakeup- he drove the 358. For fun!"
"What?"
"Yeah. He's insane. He went all the way to North Base to pick the 358... On purpose!"
Why did I choose to pick what some call "The Disease Wagon" again? Why was I so adamant about snagging "Jerry Springer" one last time before its deletion, to the point that I took a hour and a half cut in pay simply to get my grubby hands on it? The obvious answer is because I love the route... but why?
By way of more clearly describing what the route is, I offer a few excerpts from the route's Yelp page. The fact that it even has a Yelp page (not to mention songs based on it, and celebrations and condemnations in numerous publications) gives you a notion of the route's continued cultural presence. I can't help but share some excerpted alternative opinions:
- "The Smell.... Why shouldn't it smell that way? What's more natural than the scent of mildew, urine, and armpits? The odor of the 358 is like the aroma of open pasture contained in a mobile urban capsule - really well-used open pasture. The sooner you realize that the better.... This bus is known for its liberal use of free speech, generally at unorthodox decibel levels and peppered with colorful language." -Wandering M
- "This bus will be driven by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on that fateful day when fire rains down and the seas rise up to swallow this ungrateful earth. As we can never be certain when that day will come, I recommend boarding backward (so as not to cast eyes upon demons) and prominently displaying a crucifix.... This will at least keep the other crazy fuckers at bay." -Victoria T
- "It wasn't until after witnessing a third number two incident on the 358 that I actually moved residences just so I could take a different bus downtown to work every day." -Cami G
- "[A]lways entertaining, sometimes frightening, and with the most hardass-but-full-of-grace-and-humor drivers. If I'm on this line, I generally need to be. Also turns into a dive bar when persons bring their tallboys of fortified whatever into the back and chug en masse until they slump over on the other disaffected passengers." -Chris W.
- "I've yet to ride this route without there being some sort of smelly person/alcoholic/nut job or combo of the 3 riding it there with me. A smattering of the type people you might meet: A man who smells strongly of tequila and a hamster cage...A middle aged gentleman sobbing loudly and uncontrollably next to you...A woman screaming about how both judges and bus drivers are poisoning our children and how they are the same a**holes who shut off her phone and let OJ Simpson walk...A young man trying to convince his GF the woman she just heard in the background is NOT someone he is sleeping with... A Mickey Rourke look-a-like who is so drunk he can't be understood when screaming at the people entering/exiting the bus..." -Kate S
- "I don't care what anyone else says, the 358 is the best dang experience Seattle has to offer. Want a rotating restaurant with a view? Skip the Space Needle - just hop aboard, grab a free half-eaten burger, and watch the city go by. No need to go as far as Pike Place Market for the smell of fish - if you're lucky, you may even get one thrown at you. And if you're searching for the Fremont Troll, you can get your picture taken on the bus with plenty-a-prototype. If you could fit Seattle in a box and put it on wheels, the 358 would be it." -Wandering M
- "I vote for the 358. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy," writes Hernandez, commenting on a 2009 poll in the Stranger for "crappiest metro route."
We even have a 358 haiku, offered by Jonathan S.:
- "What the hell's that smell?!
Honestly - who reeks?!"
In counter to these memories, I offer an ode published in Seattle Weekly, when it was named best bus route in 2013:
- "Oh, route 358, you poor, maligned thing. You course through the troubled water that is Aurora Avenue, serving Fremont frat boys and hard-up motel dwellers alike, packing ’em in and getting ’em home or downtown or anywhere but here. Between 7 and 8 a.m., nine of your green-and-yellow carriages will bear south, each one fuller than the next as you take them 12 and a half miles from Shoreline to the courthouse, Bitterlake to Belltown. And what do you get for it all? Entire Reddit threads, Tumblr accounts, and Twitter feeds about how “sketchy” you are, how “sex acts are common,” and how one guy saw a lady get kicked off for huffing paint while in transit. Listen not, 358. Let coddled Route 26, that conveyor of Wallingfordites and Green Lakers, keep the grime from beneath its manicured fingernails. Yours is to toil for the working man, and you do it mightily."
A 8 x 10 blow-up of the above is hung on the wall at North Base. Some drivers are planning a party at North to celebrate the route's demise and welcome a new era wherein they'll never have to deal with the route again. In the same breath, a number of operators are planning to ride the last 358 trip, to glory in the last hurrah of a cultural institution that will breath its last breath in the waning hours of this coming Valentine's Day. You can guess which group I'm in!
Nowhere else will you encounter such a group of souls as those I have the pleasure of spending time with on this route. Yes, they swagger on with all manner of questionable and dangerous items peeking out from under their jackets. They hobble around with stuffed garbage bags and needles. Beer cans and condom wrappers share space on the floor, along with strange powders, leaves and pills that defy my understanding. Once, on the same bus, I found a collection of the following: bras, surgical masks, gummy worms, and board games! Materials for quite the weekend in Vegas!
You don't just see increased police activity here; Aurora Avenue is where police cars drive past each other in opposite directions because they're going to separate incidents. The people are cloaked in smells I've never experienced and can't begin to describe. I helped a woman with directions, and as she assaulted me with her astounding breath I was more bewildered than displeased, as in: how did this train wreck of a fragrance come into being? How many ingredients and lab experiments would it take to replicate it?
Before I started this job, I had a tendency to romanticize the poor. I read Tolstoy and liked Millet and Henry Tanner. Van Gogh wrote of the truth he saw in peasants' eyes, and how he found it nowhere else. Being familiar with these works, and coming from the working-class background that I do, I had certain inklings about the poor I believed to be true. After driving bus for several months, and being in daily, close contact with the lower class, I began to realize there were more sides to the story, that some people behave terribly, and as many make crippling life decisions as are simply wronged by bad fortune. I wondered whether I had been superficially romanticizing, when in fact what was actually going on out here was really just a bunch of...no.
I had an epiphany. My epiphany, which hit me after driving the bus a few years more, was that my original inkling was in fact true. These are among the best people I know. When those damaged, craggy, beautiful faces get off my bus and say "God bless you," let me tell you, they mean it. People in Bellevue never say stuff like that. They don't treat me like this. My earlier realizations hadn't been overturned so much as reoriented, grounded and firmed up by the unblinking gaze of reality.
Respect, gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation, empathy- these have incalculable currency out here on the street. I see disabled women getting up to make room for other disabled women. A "hello" from me goes further on Aurora and Rainier than it does elsewhere. It's a simple sound, but with the right tone it's enough to communicate the warm comfort of a judgment-free space. Often you can see what a welcome surprise it is- gestures of kindness are all the more impactful for having occurred in the supposed darker corners of life.
"Thank you," a teen boy said in what was my last interaction of the night. He'd beseeched me for a free ride, and I'd given him one. I didn't ask why. Does it matter if his circumstances are his fault? He turned to me before stepping into the freezing cold. "It means a lot," he said, in a moment of uncool but beautiful honesty. I knew now by experience what Van Gogh was writing about.
"Anyone who drives the 358 part-time doesn't know about the 358," a veteran report operator grumbled at me not too long ago. It was all he could do but tell me I had no right to be happy. Maybe he was tired of seeing my smiling face around the base.
Comments like this amuse me. Anyone who thinks nothing happens on the 358 in the afternoons... well, let's just say that person really just needs to come out for a ride on my bus. Locals will tell you Aurora's drug transport and prostitution activities take place mostly during the daytime, when things are more easily accomplished using discount hourly motel rates and frequent bus service. More importantly, though, that grumptastic vet simply doesn't know where I'm coming from. He probably doesn't ride the 358 and a host of other routes at all hours on all days, and he certainly doesn't know that I do.*
Beyond that, he knows nothing of my background. I was speaking with another operator years ago about why it was she and I both liked driving "the rough routes" so much, and the only commonality we could find among ourselves was that we were both from South Central LA. There are things I've experienced- without the authority and recourse to safety that being a bus driver provides- whose sandblasting negativity have absolutely no place on this blog. For me, they function only as healthy reminders that when something as marginal as a man defecating in his pants happens on my bus, I can recognize that it's not a problem. It's an issue. When boys are fighting in the back, it's an issue, but we get through it. I ask them to continue their fight outside, and they do so.
"Hey, Nathan, I have a question for ya," driver Ted asked me once. We were both doing 358s at the time.
"Sure, what's up?"
"Well, I always see you driving that 358 smiling, all the time, every single time you're smilin.' How d'you do it? We're driving at the same time, we've got all the same people, and they're cussing me out, they're peeing in the back, I'm gettin' the works. How do you do it, man?"
It's amazing what a difference tone makes. When you ask somebody how their day is, they generally keep their pants zipped. Ninety-nine percent of my day is in my control. In my recent post regarding Carlos, I write that his new construction job and resulting station in life has no catch. Is that really true? We could probably find one if we really wanted to. Maybe he has to take three buses to work instead of two, or he gets paid monthly instead of biweekly. The fact is, I think Carlos is happy because he doesn't think like that. If the catch is negligible, why bother contemplating it? I could choose to think my route is plagued with problems, or I could just embrace it all and get on with the business of being myself.
Standing there at the base listening to the aforementioned grumpster tell me I knew nothing about the 358, I thought about calling him out and gleefully tearing apart his argument. I knew exactly how to do so... but I discovered I couldn't. I lack the necessary apathy. The fact is, I sort of like the poor guy. He may be the polar opposite of me in temperament, but he doesn't deserve a telling off. How would it help? One man's passion (love) is another man's passion (suffering), and nothing will change that.
In conclusion, my love for the 358 can best be described by these two pieces- Ode to the 358, and Ode to Aurora. There is an undeniable elation I feel when I see a mob of street people at an approaching stop. It's a mystery to me. Any interpretation I come up with now would merely a supposition, and would fall short of a full explanation. I can only say I feel it in spades, and that, strangely, this feeling doesn't ever fade.
*A suggestion for my newer bus driver friends: if you don't already, ride the bus. A lot. The best bus drivers are those who also ride the bus. There's no better way to learn about your job. In the same way reading all the time makes you a better writer, and acting makes you a better director of actors, riding the bus makes you much more aware of the type of experience you're giving to the passengers, and quickly shows you what works and what doesn't. You might find yourself surprised.
All the best to you!
Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad you find joy in the people as I do! And how right you are, that the gems of this city are so often squirreled away, hidden until you go looking for them.
I don't think I ever felt more in tune with my true self than when I rode that bus. That might be strange, but it's true. It is why I switched from driving to work in Lynnwood to taking the bus. I always feel really self reliant when I take the bus.
Also, you're so right about the poor vs the Bellevue-ites. They really mean it. That is why I followed their example, thanking bus drivers when I exit out the front, sometimes thanking them when I get on, even, because I know I will be exiting from the rear doors.
Finding passion in suffering is interesting and I will be musing on that during my ride on the 512 to Lynnwood this morning.
(And, yes, that is my real last name.)
I only wish I had a last name as appropriate as yours! How perfect! On a more meaningful note, Thank you for sharing your thoughts here. Often on this blog I feel like I'm advancing a minority opinion, and it's a great vindication to hear your perception.
I spend a fair amount of time thinking about at what times I feel most myself, during which activities. Oddly enough, driving and riding the bus is very high on that list. I think you hit the nail on the head when you say "self-reliant." I can recall a time driving the 4 down 3rd, slowly. Nothing was happening, but I felt so complete, at once entirely whole and also a part of something larger. So great to hear your thoughts on being in tune with your true self in that environment. I feel the same way.
I loved the 358 because it was so convenient and I doubt that the problems that plague that route will really truly go away just because there will be Transit Enforcers sometimes. (Right? I am assuming they are going to treat it at least similarly to how they do the C Line.)
I find it really alienating when I'm on the 5 up Greenwood from downtown because there are all these sort of young professional people ignoring each other pretty hardcore and it's so freakishly silent because everyone is heads down on their iPhones. When I'm on those buses I make an effort to keep my head up and watch. People watching is so divine.
Not sure if you remember me. We met maybe about a month ago, and I had the pleasure of riding your bus a few times in one week (I get on at Aurora and Denny and get off at 3rd and Main in the mornings). I've been trying to find your bus since that week, but I must have been waking up a little too late.
I first noticed your huge heart the first time I got on your bus. You had a short conversation with the guy that feeds seagulls and it was so obvious that you have the ability to really see past outside appearances. Observing your kindness really brightens up the day for so many of your passengers including myself.
Thanks for sharing your happiness. If you are still driving around my area, I hope to see you soon!
Tommy
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=734
Thank YOU so much for reading, and for responding. It means a great deal to hear that a small interaction can have big results. I agree. It brings me such exuberant and humbling joy to be out there, on routes such as these, to observe, to help, to be... you're making want to go drive the bus right now!
So glad we see eye to eye regarding the insular folk on the 5. "young professional people ignoring each other pretty hardcore" describes it just perfectly. I'm so happy you don't follow their lead!
I went for a ride on the E line yesterday, and yes, the crowd using it is identical (thank goodness). Fare enforcement got on both times, with no real surprises. Both trips I rode were packed.
I'm Harish, the tall Indian guy who was chatting with you yesterday on 49 southbound just past 8 PM (and who loves the 3600 series...)
Thanks once again, I love the attitude you bring to the bus! I happen to live in Greenwood, and regularly encounter the "insular folk" on the 5 whom you refer to :)
Pro tip: Since you enjoy chatting with strangers as much as I do, I'd recommend riding Greyhound the next time you need to travel outside Seattle. I love every minute of it!
cheers
Harish
Thanks for the comment and for your enthusiasm! Good call about the Greyhound- that's one intense way to spend time with a huge spectrum of people. They just relocated the Seattle station to right outside Atlantic/Central Base, as you may know, and so I see them now often.
Hope the expanded service on the 5 on nights and Sundays is proving handy!
cheers,
I sure do miss that 358!
Thanks for such a great comment- we need more operators with perspectives like you! Or just plain more people with attitudes like you, I'd say. I agree, the 358 was the most amazing, bizarre, satisfying thing ever. The kindness you got back on that route, if you put it out there, was truly stunning. Glad you found the blog, fellow kind spirit and wild child!
I do take the bus whenever I can, because I want to remind myself of what our passengers have to go through to get simple things accomplished. One time my car was in the shop, and my mom needed a vacuum cleaner repair, so I took 7 or 8 buses in one day to get to her house, check out the vacuum, go to Ballard to get parts, back to her place, and then back to my house. I started my day off on the 7, and the 358 was toward the end of the day. I learned a lot about humanity that day.