A ghost of Lennonmas present (write of passage number seventeen)

On the Transitway, a temperature of -10C is feeling more like -15 with the windchill. It's just before 9 and I've been on the go since 7:20 and this bus is my fourth of the morning -- so far. I get on at the front of the articulated bus, so by the time I make my way to the back, most of the few remaining seats have been grabbed by those who nipped in by the rear doors.

A woman has a cell phone glued to her ear. There's a pillow in her lap and two large designer purses on the seat beside her. She also appears to be wearing two long wigs. The bottom one is white-blond; the top one is magenta. I pause expectantly by her seat. In Canadian Bus Body Language, this means: "Will you take your stuff off, please, so I can sit down?". Madam Double Wig stares determinedly into the middle distance and mumbles into the cell phone.

"May I have this seat?"
No reaction.
I adopt a cheerful, motherly tone: "Excuse me, sweetie, did you pay for two seats?"
She glances at me, then back into the middle distance. I'm beginning to suspect that no one is on the other end of her phone call. An elderly Asian couple gaze on this scenario in mildly appalled wonder. I look to the very back where there's one seat wedged between two large adolescent males busily texting.
"I see," I say, a shade less cheerily. "You're just rude." I stalk off and carefully dock my butt in the free space.

I'm comforting my wounded feelings with the folk/rock/soul mix of CBC Radio Two's Morning show when I see a large group of commuters board at the Lincoln Fields stop. An elegant and formidable lady spots the seat I failed to get. She's dressed in what I think of as Civil Servant Winter Issue: a long, slim-fitting immaculate black wool coat crowned with a fleece cloche hat. She assumes the traditional Bus Body Language position I described earlier and when ignored, firmly puts the two designer bags in Madam Double Wig's lap. MDW slams them back into the empty seat beside her. Few words appear to be exchanged (I'm several seats back with ear buds in), but Elegant and Formidable Lady isn't budging.

After an impasse that nearly lasts the Transitway stretch of the Ottawa River Parkway, EFL manages to sit down. In honour of the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon's assassination, CBC Radio Two is playing "All You Need Is Love". I listen to Lennon while watching the seatmates conversing, with MDW's gestures gradually growing more extravagant:
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.



Now I can't resist slipping the ear buds out. The two are facing away from me, but a few words make it back, all from Madame Double Wig:

"F*&%#..."
"S#$^&..."
"Ride the f@$@#ing bus..."

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It's easy. (I got the general idea, so I'd slipped in my ear buds again.)

Elegant and Formidable Lady has evidently had enough and transfers herself to a seat that has become available down in the next section. Madam Double Wig is now declaiming to the crowd below, some of whom are energetically remonstrating with her.

"And you can f*&$% off..."

I stick my ear buds back in. Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

Back in my section, people are animatedly discussing the situation in pairs, nodding and smiling. Chatting odd couples: a fellow with a long grey ponytail with a pretty office worker in a bright tuque; a Muslim lady with a baggy-panted young fella. The appalled elderly Asian couple offer their seats to Madame Double Wig's next unsuspecting seat partner as they exit the bus. The unsuspecting seat partner smiles and politely refuses the offer, looking mildly confused.

- My goodness, I think to myself, as the song fades in my ears. Madame Double Wig is actually a kind of catalyst.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these. Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, mama!

A ghost of Lennonmas past

And there went out a decree from the radio station CHUM that all should head down to Nathan Phillips Square with a candle and a black armband. This was tricky because winter had come early, even for Toronto and keeping candles lit was a tall order.

Hundreds of twenty-and-thirty-somethings gathered in front of an outdoor stage where Lennon's music blared and periodically a DJ would holler what one assumed to be platitudes. It was hard to tell so far back. A tall skinny fellow with a mass of black curls glanced over his shoulder, then looked again, sharply.

"Just how old are you?" he challenged a pair of young girls.
"I'm sixteen," said the more confident one, inclining her head toward her friend. "She's fifteen."
"What are you doing here?"
"We're here for John!"
"No, you're not, there's no way. You're too young."
"We are not!"
"You are too. You're telling me you know anything about his music?"
"We know all his stuff!"

By this time, tall curly guy's friends were wandering over to listen in, grinning and shaking their heads.
"Prove it."
"How?"
"Give me the lyrics to 'Happiness is a Warm Gun'."
"And not the obvious part at the end," put in one of his pals.

So the young girls recited them in a monotone, stumbling over each other in their haste to establish their worthiness. Sometimes the young men supplied a word.

The girls stayed. We left. It was damn cold.
I know no one can do me no harm because... happiness is a warm gun, mama. Bang bang; Shoot shoot.

Bloody cold.

...and a cup of coffee?

Someone put the link to this on my mother's Facebook and since Demeter pretty well can't access Facebook on her computer at home (which hasn't stopped her from continually acquiring Facebook friends -- which I have to log in and accept for her), we've been checking her page while she's been here in Hades for Christmas. Last Christmas I got all wobbly and tearful over the viral video "Where the Hell is Matt?" Well, this one put we away again too.

Okay, so it's Starbucks. Just watch it okay?

I'm not sure how John Lennon would have felt about the commercial aspect, but surely this is exactly what he meant.