Elvis on the 1-California

Photo by mediaboytodd

Most of the time when a stranger talks to you on Muni, your first reaction is probably to gaze at your shoes and pretend you didn’t hear them, right? But sometimes you meet someone with a pretty good heart. Muni rider D submitted their own encounter of meeting someone cool on the bus:

I was minding my own business along with everyone else on an inbound 1 California the other day. After stopping at Laure St. I heard a man loudly saying, “GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY I’M A CALIFORNIAN!!!”

I then saw that he was pretty obviously drunk to some extent. He continued his tirade as people tried to ignore him. Then he went up to another guy sitting in one of the senior spots. The guy said something to make the drunk guy laugh and smile. From that moment on his demeanor completely changed. They had a nice (if a bit loud) conversation.

After the second guy got off the bus, the drunk guy began talking with someone else and then came and sat down next to me. As he did he smiled and said, “I won’t mess with *you!* I can tell your another REAL San Franciscan!”

I had to smile at that and replied, “How can you tell?” He said that there’s just something native born San Franciscans have…

We then began to talk about SF icons such as Doggie Diner and similar places and experiences. He told me that a friend of his owned a Doggie Diner or was one of the heads. We also reminisced about places like Fleishhacker pool and Sutro Baths were such amazing places. Actually, Sutro Baths were gone before I was born but it was a nice topic regardless.

He then introduced himself to me saying his name was Elvis(!) and that he was a poet from the North Beach area.

Elvis saw that a young mother was standing while carrying her little one in a chest harness. He offered her his seat but she declined as she was going to be getting off in a few stops anyway. I could also see she was a little bit frightened but after a few moments of him flirting with the little baby who cooed back at him, the young mom smiled and saw he was really harmless.

Once her stop came up and she got off, Elvis struck up a conversation with another young lady and Elvis was just as amiable with her.

His stop came up and he got off with a smile and much friendlier presence than when I first saw him. I was tempted to call out, “Elvis has left the 1 California!” but that would’ve just been too corny.