Sugarput

I rarely have anything good to say about Port Authority, but today something happened on the bus that positively brightened my whole day.

Sugarput was driving the 71C.

Back in the early '00s I shared an apartment with my sister in Shadyside. We were both students, and since neither of us had a car at the time, we spent a lot of time on the bus getting to and from campus and work. At the time, I thought Port Authority was the greatest thing ever. Having formerly been carless in the suburbs, and now empowered by my student ID which allowed me free passage anywhere in the county, I was suddenly liberated. For some reason, I didn't even care that the bus rarely arrived on schedule and even occasionally passed my bus stop completely without stopping because it was already filled up. I took these minor inconveniences as something one just puts up with when relying on public transportation. Eventually I got there, wherever there happened to be, and that was good enough for me. (Although I must point out that there are many places in the Burgh where "you can't get there from here" applies. But I digress.)

Anyway, one of our favorite things about riding the bus was the exhuberant and talkative bus driver, we affectionately referred to as "Sugarput", her signature phrase. Some drivers seem gruff when they admonish you for paying at the wrong time (PAT has a very strange system of payment which alternates according to time of day, route number of bus and phase of the moon), but this driver attached a friendly "sugarput" onto any instruction and she just sounded like somebody's loving auntie. No matter how crowded the bus was, you could always get on...she made everybody move to the back of the bus like no driver I have ever seen, and she made them love it. If you somehow missed the charm of her banter when you entered the bus, you would immediately know she was driving by the smiles on the faces of all the passengers.

I had completely forgotten about this lady, until today. I was feeling grouchy because school is starting again and now the bus is polluted with CMU and Pitt students who don't understand proper etiquette, and fill up the seats on the front of the bus, where the, ahem, old people and pregnant people should be sitting. Ahem.

Anyway, as soon as I sat down I noticed the running commentary of the driver and something about it sounded familiar. She greeted every passenger as if they were a long lost friend. She complimented a baby, and helped a young Asian couple figure out how to get to the right bus stop. She got a very old man to pick up some litter on his way onto the bus. She made everybody move to the back when it got crowded.

En route, she told a story about how some lady left a baby on the bus when she first started driving, and she had to call the police. This was followed by another anecdote about a passenger stripping off all her clothes on the bus. All stories and commentaries were punctuated by "lord have mercy" by both Sugarput and the old ladies sitting up front.

And then, the signature move...a girl tried to get on the bus before everybody could get off, "Hold on, sugarput," she called out, "Let these people out."