More Tales of a Portland Streetcar customer service rep, 2017

Here’s the roundup of tales from my adventures and observations working for Portland Streetcar in 2017 . . . . 

Jan. 16:  I don't live to terrorize toddlers, honestly, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

A family of four got on the streetcar at NW 23rd and Marshall: young couple with what looked like a pair of twin boys about 2-1/2 years old. The one with the father was Not. Going. To. Accept his Dad’s explanation that he had to sit on his father’s lap during the streetcar ride, and was winding up into a sizable shriek when I leaned down to him, nose to nose, and said, matter-of-factly,

“Them’s the rules.”

That shut him up.

March 8:  I could not get the on-board fare machine on 006 to accept either of the rider's two dollar bills or the one I pulled out of my billfold. So I went up to the operator's cabin to obtain a warning sticker.

As I selected an "Out of Order" sticker sign, the driver advised, "Don't put it on you."

Just Don’t Look at Him

It’s been a comparatively pleasant year of avoiding the news since the incumbent was installed in the Oval Office.

I had a good excuse to direct my attention and psychic energy elsewhere in 2017. But I also made a conscious decision to click away from headlines, and photos and memes about the president . . . and to switch channels on the remote whenever he came onscreen during those rare occasions when I watched the 11 o’clock news (typically for the next day’s weather or an occasional local breaking news story).

As I said ’way back in mid December 2016, I do not regard the occupant of the White House as a proper public official. Time and again throughout the campaign, he demonstrated utter ignorance about or disrespect for the U.S. Constitution and basic tenets of the law . . . not to mention the truth in general.

Every other president has undoubtedly lied to the public, but usually for a strategic reason: to get Congress and/or the American public to go along on a policy initiative sought by the administration, or to distract enemies and allies. During the campaign and in office, this president has appeared to lie effortlessly and repeatedly, for no strategic policy reason . . . but to entertain, to divert our attention, to grab headlines, to shock, to look great or effective when he is neither. And he has lied multiple times a week, even per day.

He’s an entertainer who has treated the highest office in the land as just another TV show or business. (And I have observed little skill or honor in his business practices, which too often employed the tactics of a playground bully.) Doing so was enough to put him in office, but it’s insufficient to govern.