Dark Clouds in the Queen City

I'm sitting in a Greyhound bus in Cincinnati in the pouring rain. And that's the good news… because the skies didn't open up until after I'd boarded.

I got up at 1:00 am this morning to start an all-day odyssey to southeastern Ohio to attend tomorrow's board meeting of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. 

After Susan dropped me off at the Duluth Holiday gas station at 27th Ave in the dead of night, I caught the Groome shuttle to Minneapolis. From there I took a pair of Southwest Airlines puddle jumpers: first to Chicago Midway and then to Cincinnati. From there I rode the TANK (Transportation Authority of Northern Kentucky), an hourly shuttle into downtown. I walked from there to the Greyhound station (before the rain) where I was lined up to take a 75-minute bus ride up I-75 to Dayton, where Kat Walter (AMICS Board President) is ready to collect me and whisk me off to Yellow Springs—where the board meeting will happen.

Kat's still waiting.

While I had been more or less running on time until I got to the bus depot (I'm typing this at 4:15 pm and we were scheduled to depart two hours ago), we're stalled out at the loading dock, with no end in sight. (Remember the movie, The Truman Show, with Jim Carrey and Ed Harris? Those buses never left either.)

The delay was precipitated by an argument between the dispatcher and driver. The dispatcher wanted the driver to make a special stop in Lima OH (package express?) and the driver (already 30 minutes behind because of a snafu in Louisville earlier in the day) refused. Now they’re pulling the driver off the bus (insubordination?) and we are awaiting the arrival of a replacement. 

 

I don't think I ever seen so many unhappy people on a bus, some of whom have already been en route for more than 24 hours and were plenty road weary before being victimized by this pissing contest between Greyhound employees.

Stepping back, I'm wondering, how much this is an echo of the tone set by the Donald. Civility appears to be in short supply in more places than Washington DC these days. What good comes from these assertions of power? About the only thing I can think of is that perhaps southeastern Ohio farmers need the rain.