Photo by Marianne Giesemann

On my commute home I notice an old man, head-to-toe cowboy in boots, worn jeans, plaid shirt and hat. You get the feeling looking at him that he’s been wearing the exact same outfit for years and years, as if upon opening his closet you’d find a neat row of plaid shirts hovering over pairs of boots, unchanged since the 1950′s. He looks like he’d be more at home on the wide-open country of a Montana ranch than a packed Muni train full of hipsters and people in business clothes, and it makes me wonder whether he is a stranger to the city or in fact a long-time local, refusing to change his manner of dress throughout decades of surrounding change; an aesthetic rebel to societal averages.

It would seem he’s not accustomed to the underground; he hovers as close to the door as possible, seemingly anxious to be released, one slightly shaking hand ignoring the pole altogether and instead tentatively reaching out to its reflection in the window for support. Yet stop after stop he stays put, dodging the swarm of people boarding the N during rush hour. Or maybe he’s not unused to Muni at all, maybe he’s just claustrophobic, or in a hurry. Either way, I salute you, Cowboy, Muni can be a scary enough place even after years of riding it.

Have you ever imagined a backstory about a fellow passenger you’ve seen on the bus? Tell us more.

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