𝐀 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟐𝟐 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐁𝐮𝐬.

As a kid I liked taking the bus to get back and forth to school. No matter how empty the bus was, I made my way to the last seat on the back of the bus.  This row of seats were slightly elevated because they were located on the top of the engine.  This was like stadium seating for the show that was unfolding daily in front of me.  An additional benefit is that in the winter these seats were often warmer because of  their location to the engine.

Decades before cell phones and noses buried so deep in cell phones, there were people participating in life, even if it was in a short trip on a bus.  Men with newspapers stretched open in front of them so wide that the neighboring passenger could also read it. Often, this sharing of the newspaper made the person who bought the paper offer a section of it to the neighboring passenger without the ask.

Restaurant workers on their way to the plethora of Greek diners that lined Clark and Broadway in the 19070s.  Black women on their way to the homes on North Lakeshore Drive who worked as maids every day at these homes and commuted from the Southside for work. Laborers carried their lunch pails that were the size of small toolboxes. For those of us who were financially challenged in the parlance of my children, there was a way to sneak on the bus. Sometimes, you did not have any money or spent your bus fare. 

As the bus pulled up to the stop, you waited by the rear exit door, and as people exited, you held the door open and entered the three to four stairs and stayed low. Now there was a mirror that pointed down to this rear door so the driver could see that there was no one still getting on or off as they pulled away.  On occasion, the bus driver would see you do this and stop the bus and throw you off. More often, they saw you and let it go.  Sometimes a few people would actually give you cover as you did this. Believe it or not, conversations would start between perfect strangers. 

From mundane comments about the amount of snow and how could it possibly get any colder?  (see Chicago winters in the 1970s ) More often, these could turn into real discussions regarding Watergate, unemployment, inflation, strikes by the CTA and the teachers union. Chicago was on the verge of becoming the world-class city it is today.  Tensions were high as the city made plans in the south loop and rolling out urban renewal, which displaced many of the city's most vulnerable. 

I was on my way to school one morning catching the 22 Clark north to Belmont from Dickens and Clark.   The bus was nearly full, so I had to sit close to the front of the bus, where there were rows of seats that faced one another before the seats turned two by two. 

There was a black kid from the neighborhood that I knew, and he was a grade below me at school, and we often were on the bus together.  He sat next to me, so we were side by side.   The bus filled up more as we traveled north.  There was standing room only.  

A middle-aged black man was standing in front of us, and soon, there was an older white woman who found herself next to this black man. Before too much time had passed, the black man looked at my school mate, and he said, “Get up”.  My schoolmate looked at me and then looked back at the man.  The man raised his voice slightly and said it again. This time, he added. Get up and let the lady sit down.   The older white woman said Oh, that’s not necessary.  The kid got up, and the man pointed to the seat. She reluctantly sat down but then said Thank you.  

I was eleven years old and had realized what had just transpired.  The heat of embarrassment for my schoolmate being displaced and me not knowing what was expected of me rose in me as a wave that turned my cheeks red.  It was clear as two city kids taking the bus to school this rule of decency was not taught to us.  It took a stranger to both of us to teach us the hard way on what we were supposed to do.  Now I knew, but there were a few things that confounded me in this lesson. Why didn’t the black man ask me to stand up and give my seat? Why was this black man advocating for an older white woman?  It appears got more than a lesson in chivalry but in grace and race relations as well.  

This was six short years after Martin Luther King was murdered.  Chicago was on the national stage as it attempted to deal with economic and social justice for black people in 1974. Did this man not feel he could ask a white kid to give up his seat?  Maybe he wanted this teaching moment to go to someone of his race.  I had more questions, but this moment was far from lost on me.  

I awoke the next morning to take the bus with one mission in mind. I had to give my seat up to an older person.  I could not wait for this moment in which I could be as chivalrous and courteous as that black man on the bus.  I was so enthusiastic to display this trait that if there was not an older woman, I was offering my seat to any woman regardless of age.  I was turned down so many times, but that did not stop me. More than a few times I was successful, and the woman took my seat.  The feeling I got when the woman accepted my gesture was one of tremendous pride for being just this kind of a young man.  Sometimes, the woman would comment just how nice it was for me to offer my seat.  

Maybe this lesson was not meant to be taught to me by my mother.  There is no way she could have made the point as poignantly and powerfully as did this black man on the 22 Clark.

Comments from Readers on my last piece.

1. Mike,

   You struck it out of the park once again with this article.  

   I am amazed at your ability to write so descriptively and will never tire of the stories of growing up in Chicago.  

   The European details are particularly heartwarming  :)     

   Felt as if Mike Royko would have published similar experiences, sprinkled in between his tales of political corruption. 

   Please keep the stories coming!

   K.
   

2. Mike,

   I don’t think we’ve done a deal together or even met in person but I read this story and it was so heartfelt and powerful. I currently live in Irving Park and am familiar with this neck of the woods and chose to live in it for its diversity. Lifelong Chicagoan here.

   Thank you for sharing! Hope to see you on another side of a deal.

   Congrats on your Chuck’s :)

   J