Grandma in a candy store
My grandma, who is from a small town in Iowa, was coming back from a trip out East to visit her daughter. She had left her car at my place while she was gone. I was supposed to pick her up at the airport, so I thought - why not leave the car at home and pick her up on the train?
Back in Iowa, my grandma is known to drive a block, from her house to the library. Walking isn’t exactly her forte, as she often gets her toe stubbed (invariably by some unsuspecting young child). She’s also overweight. I had known this, but still I forged ahead.
I rode down to the Humphrey terminal, and when I stumbled across her she was being pushed around in a wheelchair by an airport employee. She always has a lot to say to people she doesn’t know - so he looked like he was ready to push her off a cliff. Fortunately I had arrived. I took her wheelchair and pushed her along as far to the station as I thought I could go. Then she got out of the wheelchair, and I ran it back to the terminal.
When I returned, we still had a ways to go. By the time we were halfway to the train station my grandma was huffin’ and puffin’. Meanwhile I was shuffling along at turtle speed. I was pretty sure that I would be the butt of many of her stories for years to come for making her walk “so far.”
We made it to the station, got on the train, and rode up to the Franklin Avenue station. She seemed to like the train ride. At Franklin, we transferred to the 24. My grandma was like a kid in a candy store by this point! She loved seeing all of the characters on the bus, and she made a point of telling me how much she enjoyed the bus ride when we got off.
I queried all of my relatives, to see if she bad-mouthed her train-bus-walking experience with me. But to my surprise she didn’t! If only my grandma lived in the city, I think she’d be the quintessential “bus lady.”
Mar 18th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Hmm, I remember last time I ride the train on the 14th of March, headed to the Mall of America and just saw an airport’s loaner wheelchair abandoned at the HHH station.
About 4 hours later I got back on the train heading to Franklin station, still noticed an airport’s loaner wheelchair abandoned at the HHH station.