Bus buddy leaves lasting impression

We could have driven to Montreal last summer, but my friends and I decided to hop on bus instead. After being on the Greyhound for no more than ten minutes, I began wishing we had driven. Once I recognized that was an impossible notion, I began praying.

Why you ask? The bus was packed, so I didn’t get a seat next to any of my friends. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was given the honor of sharing a seat with a short, scrubby man with tousled, thin silver threads for hair, loose skin and heavy, greasy glasses.

Immediately, I picked up on his scent.

It was an odor that could only have been produced after days without showering, applying deodorant, or changing clothing. He wore a tattered gray tank top that sagged at the neck and a worn pair of Levi’s. Sweat droplets peppered his brow and perspiration spread like a shadow across the portion of his gray tank top just beneath his armpit, which was populated with lengthy, intertwined chunks of hair that resembled frayed rope.

The man was a mess. I figured I could just turn my head and plug the old nostrils, ignore him, essentially.

However, I soon discovered that the beast spoke.

I guess you could say it was English that he spoke, but I prefer to refer to it as a hodgepodge hybrid of French, English and slurred jabberwocky.

This was not his fault of course and later I learned that he was actually a professor at Yale on his way home. But, his inadequacies and shortcomings (most notably those pertaining to personal hygiene) made for a most uncomfortable passage.

Perhaps the most repulsive, and humorous, aspect of this man was the blue bandanna that he kept holstered in his belt loop, like a cowboy. At first I wondered why it was there, but then I learned (mid-conversation) that my cute little Frenchman used this rag to wipe under his armpits, around his neck, forehead or upper lip (not necessarily in that order).

Had I needed to sneeze I think I would have foregone asking him for his “hankie.” But that’s just me.

-Submitted by Brian Wraight, a freshman journalism major.

All I want is some warmth

My family and I decided to take a trip down to Florida in late January to escape the snowy weather. It backfired, however, when the biggest snowstorm of the year dropped a foot of snow on Boston the night before my flight was scheduled to leave Logan Airport.

My family and I went to the airport anyway with hopes that they would clear the runways in time, but nothing seemed to go our way. The people at the flight desk were grumpy and miserable after being yelled at by hundreds of angry customers, and we spent the next 12 hours sitting in Logan trying to find any possible way to get out of Boston. We almost made it out on a flight to Atlanta, but after getting on the plane and sitting on the runway for a half hour, the plane had to go back to the airport because the runway was too icy to take off.

Eventually, we gave up and returned home, hoping to catch a flight to Florida the next morning.

No such luck. We headed out into our driveway to start back to the airport only to find that one of the tires on our car was completely flat. So after spending the remainder of the day trying to get our tires fixed on a Sunday, we caught a flight out of Logan and got to Florida around 2:30 a.m. Monday morning. While we were clearly willing to do anything possible to escape the snow, Jack Frost wasn’t so intent on letting us leave.

-Submitted by Jen Nelson, a freshman journalism major.

To Boston from the beaches

Leaving home for college for the first time is a scary experience. Especially if the move is from the sunny Cali beaches to the cold brick streets of Boston. But I, being a restless teenager, wanted to be as far from the comforts of my home as possible.

I excitedly counted down the days before my departure, but as the much-anticipated day approached, I became a little bit more hesitant and frightened. And when I finally boarded the plane for Boston, I was downright terrified.

On the plane, I tried to read but I couldn’t focus, tried to sleep but was too anxious, tried to write but I was just repeating myself. So, I finally settled on staring out the window at the cloudy landscape. Before I knew it, the sky darkened and the pilot announced that we were making the initial descent.

“This is it,” I thought. “I’m almost there.”

But as the plane serenely glided towards the ground, it suddenly shot back up towards the sky, and swerved violently to the right causing all of the passengers to gasp and scream and throw their arms around loved ones. The pilot immediately got on the loudspeaker and announced- in what was probably the calmest voice that he could muster- that we were having a “slight” problem with the landing gear, but that he thought they had solved the problem and we were going to circle around and try to land again.

Well, you can only imagine the tension of the plane after we swerved dangerously close to the ground two more times. People were crying, praying and calling their family to say their final good-byes. When we finally bumpily landed, everyone’s breath was held and loud sighs of relief ensued. I was so grateful to be on the ground again, that I immediately loved Boston’s solid floor and the feelings of safety that it invoked. I forgot about my fears and just felt overwhelmingly happy to be home.

-Submitted by Lindsay Hawkins, a freshman journalism major.