Taking the Bus

Tuesday is when I drive the Help of Ojai bus.

It’s usually a little nippy at 8 in the morning and Help has hardly enough time to warm the place before my arrival. I stand in my hall closet at home checking the temperature on my iPhone and debating my alternative garb. Shall I wear the sleeveless Patagonia vest, or the one with arms? Is the Cal baseball hat that I stole from my son enough, or should I wear my Carhartt wool beanie that covers my ears and holds the warmth streaming from my bald head, but wreaks havoc with my hearing aids?

I decide to go light this morning and slip on my vest, plop the Cal hat on my head, kiss Jackie good-bye and make the five-minute drive to Help. I could have walked there in 20 minutes, but I had already done three miles on the treadmill. Still recovering from my kettlebell induced back strain, I decide not to be macho and I drive.

Help moved a few months ago from their old location next to City Hall to a building that housed the Ojai Café Emporium for many years. A vacant restaurant seemed like an odd choice, and I sometimes mindlessly drive to Help’s old location, a habit formed over eighteen years of driving the bus.

The Emporium had a separate coffee shop that offered delicious pastries. They had four kinds of coffee but no Splenda sweetener; an odd omission that perpetually annoyed me. But I was particularly fond of their cinnamon rolls and the occasional pumpkin muffin. I wistfully remember the sugary sweets as I turn left off Montgomery and into the parking lot now festooned with a temporary looking Help of Ojai sign, but no muffins. Too bad.

The pandemic has slowed Help’s offerings at the new site. The communal gatherings are limited to avoid mass exposure to Covid. The interior of the building needs some glitz and glamor along with the now silent sounds of people being helped. The staff is getting used to the new digs and doing the good work that makes them a community gem.

My aging eyes take longer to acclimate to dark spaces after being in the sunny outdoors and I carefully make my way to the men’s room. It’s dimly lit and needs more concentrated light over the urinal; wearing a face mask contributes to the obfuscation of doing my business and leaves me wondering if I’ve hit the target. I make multiple prophylactic trips to the men’s room during my shift since I don’t want to be caught without a potty while driving the bus. Other than that, I think the new digs are coming along quite nicely.

I retrieve my rider list from Tina and make my way to Bus 8, a nine-passenger sheet metal behemoth that’s been sitting in the lot since yesterday afternoon. Hoisting myself into the sub-zero driver’s seat produces a shiver. My glasses immediately fog up because of the Covid mask and I find myself blindly searching for the heater controls. Removing the mask results in the loss of one over-priced hearing aid that had twisted itself around the elastic straps that held the facemask in place. I decide to forego the pleasure of the hearing aids until summer.

Settled in, I drive to my first pickup. Ralph is recovering from a stroke and needs a little help boarding. He’s exceptionally happy today, which he attributes to the half-jigger of bourbon that enhanced his morning coffee.

Dottie is my next client. With a tendency toward procrastination, she shuffles to the bus seemingly unaware that she is ten minutes overdue. Her delightful, “Good morning” makes me forget about her being late.

Steve has balance issues that he tries to mitigate with two walking sticks. He needs help loading his groceries from the Vons shopping cart onto the bus. Usually silent, his “thank you so much” brightens my morning.

Stephanie has been physically challenged for many years. Today’s trip to the doctor requires a wheelchair. It takes me awhile to hoist the chair on the lift and fasten it to the floor of the bus. I drop her off at the doctor and when her visit ends, I reverse the process going home. I don’t mind the effort, and I think about what it would be like if it were me in that chair.

Last pickup is Jan.  Her husband died a few weeks ago. It was only a month earlier when I regularly took them both to Swanner for physical therapy. They were like a duet. Now she is alone.

I bring the bus back to Help, hand the manifest and keys to Tina along with the five dollars of donations that hardly cover the gas I used driving forty miles.

I’ve been at it four hours. In and out of the bus, hauling groceries and doing other things that make it possible for people to do what needs to be done.

I should be tired. But I feel refreshed.

Healdsburg

We spent two days in Healdsburg three weeks ago, a town that I had not visited for over twenty years. Located in Sonoma County, it’s about seventy miles from the Golden Gate Bridge and light years from crowds, traffic and other traumas that make my chest tighten up.

We didn’t just wander into Healdsburg. No, it was part of a plan to soften my resistance to an over-60 community that is slowly taking shape two miles from the center of town.

Called Enso, the senior-living project two miles from the center of town will include 220 apartment style units that range in size from 800 to over 2,000 square feet. For a substantial up-front payment and a hefty monthly fee, Enso promises to house, feed, entertain, and take care of us until our minds and bodies call it quits. With Enzo’s close connection to the San Francisco Zen Center, we should be in good hands. I’m already letting my hair grow into a ponytail and will change my name to something like Whoisthisguy.

We were met at the Enso sales center by Leslie, a low key, pleasant woman whose job is to convince us to join the Enso circle. A three-dimensional scale model of the project rested on a table that reminded me of my friend Marty Kessler’s 4×8 model railroad platform. Using her iPad, Leslie lit up the various components of the project, including the last available living units (95 percent of the apartments are committed). We saw the activity center, dining rooms, pool, and exterior amenities. It was so real that I swear I saw a bunch of tiny Lilliputians sitting in the dining room.

In addition to housing our bodies (including assisted living and memory care), Enso will fill our lucid hours with the usual activities that one expects from an adult community, including a bent toward Zen, lessons in mindfulness, a hefty serving of spirituality…and maybe a pickleball game.

Our visit made me feel much better about Enso. Positive enough to select one of the few remaining apartments and plunk down a ten percent deposit. Enso will not open until construction is fully completed, maybe late 2023. Until then, we can change our minds, get our money back, and find a new adventure that also makes our friends wonder if I should be committed. Meanwhile, I’m wearing this silly Enso ring that looks and feels much like the rubber washer that adorns your bathroom faucet. Now that’s what I call commitment.

When I last visited Healdsburg, it was a sleepy town; maybe comatose is a better description. Sporting a little over 11,000 people, it’s about the same size as Ojai. And that’s where the resemblance ends. The town is surrounded by door-to-door wineries and populated with lots of good restaurants, high-end boutiques, and grocery stores that rival Gelson’s and Whole Foods. The usual citizens’ battle to maintain the town’s sleepy, rural character has been waged and lost. Surprisingly, the result appears well planned and, thankfully, underwhelming.

We stayed at the Trio, a new, slick, comfortable hotel. Jackie, my expert in judging hotel accommodations, found our room pleasing, the availability of extra toiletries exceptional, and the fitness center populated with the right equipment. We used the free hotel shuttle to get to restaurants, an especially useful amenity to avoid the intermittent heavy rain. The free afternoon wine tasting at the hotel was a surprise bonus.

Thursday, we got up at dawn and visited the fitness center. No one was there and I could adjust the thermostat to my liking and dial up Netflix on the treadmill screen. The Great British Baking Show was in its next to last episode of its ninth season. I marvel at the culinary creations of these amateur bakers and love the double entendres offered up by the two judges, Paul (intentionally naughty) and Pru (unknowingly). I completed an hour of treadmill marching without getting anywhere, and Jackie did the same on the elliptical and stationary bike.

It was late morning before we were ready for some sight-seeing. Healdsburg is the home of a gaggle of wineries including the Preston Winery, an older establishment that’s taken a lot of my money because of my membership in its wine club. It’s my only wine club membership, delivering six bottles of wine four times a year. I like their wines, or maybe it’s just because of old mushy memories of my last visit.

Ila and I had accidentally stumbled on the winery many years ago and I hadn’t been back since. I asked Jackie, “Could we go to Preston? I’d like to see if it’s changed since I was there with Ila.”

Jackie is very understanding about my memories of Ila and encourages me to express them, “Of course we can,”, she said. “it’ll be fun.”

Siri said we were only five miles from Preston when we began our adventure. My stomach rumbles encouraged us to find something to eat before we had gone very far. The Dry Creek General Store had been recommended by the hotel and appeared before us at the half-way mark. Its website highlighted the following tasty message…

Health & safety: Mask required · Staff required to disinfect surfaces between visits · Safety dividers at checkout · More details

What could be more appetizing, a bagel with Lysol? We stopped, masked up and found the entry. A fully stocked bar met our gaze. A single unmasked customer was nursing a drink of suspicious origin while having a lengthy unintelligible conversation on his cell phone.

We made good use of the restrooms, as though we might never see another before dark. We followed the path leading to the main store and found gold, or at least a surprising array of food. We went with a safe choice, a cheese-less turkey sandwich on wheat bread. I found the cashier behind the web-heralded safety dividers, paid with a contact-less Visa card, and grabbed a relatively uncomfortable high-legged table outside. The cashier promised she would find us there, but I had my doubts.

Five minutes later the safety-first turkey sandwich arrived, cut neatly in half as though the chef had used a laser ruler. More amazingly, it was delicious. I could have told you that it would be if you’d only asked.

Back on the road we were surrounded by wineries, all beckoning us to drive in, taste their wine and join their wine club. But we were on a mission to Preston that could not be altered.

The two-lane Dry Creek highway made an abrupt left and slowed to 15 miles per hour. We followed Siri’s prompts regardless of how silly they seemed, pssed more wineries, and finally found a sign announcing our arrival at Preston.

It was around noon on a weekday, and we were the only customers. Who drinks at noon, anyway? The buildings had changed from my long ago visit. Bigger and more of them, it all seemed grander than the last time. Too bad.

We spotted the entry to the tasting room and found three masked people, apparently employees, behind the tasting bar. One, a young lady, was writing something in a journal. Perhaps it was her memoir, an activity that obviously could not be interrupted to acknowledge our arrival.

A young man, who we later found out was beginning his employment with Preston, was staring into a computer that could have been displaying something forbidden to employees.

A third man stood facing me. I felt that he was waiting for me to say something. So, I did. “Hi, I haven’t been here for many years. But I’ve been a wine club member for a long time.”

Silence. So, I continued. “I really don’t know how many years I’ve been a member. And I’m curious. Could you check it for me?’

He moved in the direction of a computer, a good sign that he was still paying attention. Checking the screen, he said, “You’ve been a member for twenty-one years.”

Expecting some sort of trumpet blast, I waited for him to say something like, “Wow, twenty-one years. That’s amazing. Great to see you. How about a free glass of wine?”

Instead, he said, “Your credit card is expired. You missed getting the last shipment.”

I realize that he must have been a busy guy, what with trying to entertain the only two customers in the place. Or maybe he gets lots of people visiting Preston who have been wine club members for say, forty or fifty years. And I was a relative newcomer with only twenty-one years under my belt.

So, I asked him how much Preston wine I had downed in the last twenty-one years, maybe giving him a kick-start that would recognize my importance.

He said, “Let’s see, six bottles every three months for twenty-one years. That’s 504 bottles. Each bottle has six servings. That comes to 3,024 drinks.”

I thought that would shake him up and generate some atom of admiration.

Instead, he said, “Well, do you want me to update your credit card?”