Passengers frequently leave items on Island Explorer buses, things like cell phones, cameras, wallets, very occasionally a child, never a dog, but this week some one left something on another bus.
It's now on our refrigerator.
I was heading into the Village Green during a trip to Ellsworth, when over the radio came a request for me to wait at the Green. Someone was going to give me something to be delivered. Not an unusual request.
I got to the Green, and an Island Explorer worker reached in with a two-foot long canvas or some such fabric tube of some type.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know," came the answer.
"Where do I take it, and to whom shall I give it?" was my next question.
"I don't know," was his next response.
Then I saw the supervisor crossing the street, and I opened my window.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know," came the answer.
"Where do I take it, and to whom shall I give it?" was my next question.
"I don't know," was her next response.
A week a passenger on another of my runs told me he was the one who had found the fabric tube.
"If it's not claimed in thirty days, I'll keep it," he said.
Having no objection, I said to this passenger who also happens to be a neighbor, "Okay with me. It'll be on top of our refrigerator. Just come in an grab it."
"Okay," he said.
"And," I said, "if you want, you can grab a raccoon, a deer, or a bear. Our yard's getting kind of crowded."
"No thanks," he responded. "I have plenty of my own."
And that is how we handle lost and found when no one in a supervisory capacity wants the lost and handed-over item.
Once a couple left a bootie on my bus. After a young couple with a baby got off the bus in Southwest Harbor and I was driving away, a passenger handed me the bootie. I thanked him and laid it in my "office," an unused drawer Dolores and I had found in our Final Resting Place house when we bought it. I carry bus schedules, Acadia National Park maps, and a few brochures in it. Awhile later someone handed me an abandoned cell phone, which I didn't pay too much attention to except to wonder if it worked as badly as the one I carry on the bus for emergencies. If it did, I didn't blame its owner for "losing" it.
When I got back to the Bar Harbor Village Green, I debated whether to place the bootie in the Island Explorer lost and found box. It was clean and pretty, and I wasn't sure it should be dumped in with a bunch of other stuff, such as cell phones.
The supervisor took the cell phone, looked at the bootie, and left it in my "office."
As my last trip ended, a couple on the bus asked if we would be at the Green on time to make the next campground bus to Trenton Marketplace, and I said it didn't matter because they could ride up to the Trenton Marketplace with me while I deadheaded the bus back there to get Ellie Echo and head home. They stayed on the bus.
At Trenton, as the couple were leaving the bus, the wife saw the bootie and exclaimed, "Oh, there's our other baby bootie, the one we lost somewhere today."
After making sure they were the same couple who had exited the bus in Southwest Harbor, I gave them the bootie. Case closed. Bootie back where it belonged. Nothing suspicious afoot.
Earlier last week, a family was on the bus and one of them mentioned that they were from Portland. They mentioned the neighborhood in which they lived. At mention of that neighborhood, a woman a few seats back said, "Oh, I know just where that is."
In the mirror, I saw a man turn and look at the woman.
"Of course, you do," he said. "We bought our house from you."
And so an old non-acquaintanceship was renewed as we drove down into Echo Lake.
You never can tell who's on your bus, so it's best not to talk about anyone.
Anyone, that is, except the woman who had been sitting behind me on a trip down Ocean Drive. At Otter Cliffs, the woman said, "Oh, look, there's some otters."
Glancing down, I saw a group of lobster buoys riding the waves just below the cliff.
"No, Mama," I said, "those are lobster buoys."
"No, no," she insisted, "they are a different color. They are otters. There are fifteen of them."
"Mama," I said, "every night I keep a little log of interesting things that happen during the day while I drive the bus. Tonight I'll add the entry that today we saw fifteen otters at Otter Cliff."
That apparently satisfied her and gave the passengers behind her a bit of unexpected entertainment. In the mirror, I saw many of them holding their hands in front of their mouths, as they laughed but tried to keep their laughter silent.
I tell that story and hope the Otter spotter is not on the bus when I do.
Otters have never been reported seen at Otter Cliffs or in Otter Creek, a village of Bar Harbor, or any other place on Mount Desert Island. A park ranger once told me that there used to be an otter-like animal on the island, but it wasn't an otter.
He didn't say whether it was a lobster buoy.
I saw one otter on MDI, in Bass Harbor, when it crossed the road in front of my bus. I've never seen a bass in Bass Harbor.
Last September a lady wanted to take a photo of the deer. Every fall when Seawall Campground closes, leaving me extra computer-GPS time before my departure from that stop, I drive the tourists across the road instead to the Seawall Picnic Area. The tourists love it, and it drives the computer nuts. It's always nice to drive a computer nuts instead of having it drive you nuts.
As I turned into the picnic area on this trip, two deer were posing for mug shots under an apple tree.
"Can I get off and take their picture?" the woman asked.
"Sure," I replied, "but you'll need to take off that hat first."
I said this, being in one of those not-cynical moods. I'm not cynical at all, believe me. Just ask Dolores, if you don't believe me. She might tell you I have an antenna tuned for such times, but only for fun, not because I'm cynical. I'm not cynical.
The would-be photographer chuckled, got off from the bus, and the two deer ran away. The woman returned to the bus, and I drove on into the picnic area, around the circle in which the drive is shaped, and started back out to the road.
"Oh, look, they're back again," the woman said. "Can I get off again to take their picture?"
"Sure, why not," I answered, stopping the bus. The woman got off again, but not before removing her hat. She snapped the photo of the deer and got back on the bus.
I must be an expert on deer dislikes in head gear.
"Where are you headed," I last week asked another passenger with a group, probably his family, because at that particular stop buses going either direction pull in and stop facing the same direction.
"Anywhere," one of the group responded, "we just want to see what's here."
In the fog? And pouring rain? That's what's here. That's what they'll see. But they got on, as lots of folks do on a bad-weather day. That's been this year, bad-weather days.
And then they talk, usually asking a question or two to let me know they are expecting a tour-guided ride. As often as not, I play tour guide a bit and then ask them questions. I get tired of hearing my own stories, even the ones that are true.*
When they are from Minnesota, I always ask tourists how far they live from Lake Wobegon, the fictional town in Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show's fictional tales -- tales that are so like all of ours they might as well be true.
In several years, all but one couple from Minnesota have told me how far they live from Lake Wobegon. That couple apparently had never heard of Lake Wobegon. It strikes me as odd that anyone from Minnesota has never heard of its fictional town that is so popular it basically identifies Minnesota for those who have been there via the Prairie Home Companion.
I always have fun with this. They are probably bored with hearing the same stupid meant-to-be-funny question from anyone they meet who listens to the public radio show Saturday evenings. Just drive the bus and be quiet.
This year there's a young man from Pennsylvania, who rides my bus every couple of days or so. He told me he has moved to Mount Desert Island from Pennsylvania, is a male nurse, and is having trouble finding a job. I suggested that if he was willing to change careers, the wind-power business has begun and is quickly expanding in Maine. He said that sounded interesting.
Not as interesting, apparently, as hiking Acadia's 150 miles of trails. He tells me which trails he hikes, which carriage roads, he bikes, and his other adventures in the park. When I quiz him about his job search, he tells me he hasn't had time because he's having too much fun.
Ah, wait til winter. Like the winters in Lake Wobegon, it is designed by someone out there with a good sense of cynicism to keep us humble and make us wish we had a job with which to buy heating fuel. "It's what we deserve and what we expect," say the good Lutherans in Lake Wobegon of Winter.**
Or, in a much shorter time, 31 days, we'll see if that fabric tube is still on our refrigerator after, say, a trip to the supermarket.
No, we don't lock our door. Why should we? If anyone broke into our house and it were locked, they would probably do some damage getting in.
And they still might miss the fabric tube on the refrigerator.
* Maine history is best told with variety to keep it from becoming boring. After all, we live in an interesting state, so my idea is to keep its history interesting by varying its telling from time to time. Once as I was stopping in Southwest Harbor, I had just said, "And some of these stories are even true." A woman, who was at the front preparing to get off the bus, turned to the other passengers and said, "Don't listen to him, they're all true." Imagine that.
** This quote I just made up, but it resembles what those Lake Wobegoners say on the Prairie Home Companion show. They call this kind of creative quoting writer's license. I call it a habit learned in journalism. If you don't know and can't find out because you can't get through to the person you're quoting or haven't bothered to call or e-mail, make it up. Any good reporter knows truth is over rated.
Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.
Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011
