March 28, 2024

A man of the people

The main reason I chose to be a journalist over other careers that are more financially lucrative is because I love people, I love hearing stories and I love writing.

Not many other career fields could offer a me a chance to garner a wage while still doing something that I love at the end of the day.

What’s funny about my love of people is it seems to be reciprocal and I have no clue as to why.

I don’t know what it is about me, but I always seem to be find myself engaged in random conversations with strangers, who openly want to share intimate details of their lives with me — and this is something that has happened long before I ever got paid to write stories.

A case in point of my ability to connect with folks I’ve never met before took place this past weekend when I took a trip to Chicago. As a person that abides by the “Cheap Life” lifestyle, I found a way to make this trip happen with the lowest amount of cost.

I stayed at a friend’s apartment and rather than take “Becky” —  my beloved car —  I found a round trip bus ticket for $16.50. While that price was unreal, it did result in me spending more than 20 hours on a bus Friday and Sunday.

To truly be a master of the Cheap Life, these are the type of sacrifices you make.

The reason I’m bringing up the trip isn’t to regale you with my tales of me experiencing deep dish pizza or my thoughts on the crumbling infrastructure I saw on the southside, but because of how interesting my time on the bus and at the bus station was.

Spending that much time traveling, I did a lot of people watching and had conversations with a number of folks ranging from a truck driver from the south attempting to get to Omaha for a new job to a guy who was moving to Cedar Rapids from North Carolina.

I think my favorite person from the weekend was an overzealous teenager with a ridiculously sunny view on life from Des Moines. He was going to visit his girlfriend, who is a UNI student, and his plan was to go from Des Moines to Waterloo by bus and then catch a cab to Cedar Falls.

We never exchanged names despite spending a great deal of time together, but I first noticed this kid because he had on a rare pair of Nike Air Force One sneakers that caught my eye.

This nameless young sneakerhead and I first started talking to kill time because our bus was 30 minutes late for pick-up (another consequence of living the Cheap Life) and we shared our travel plans. Pretty soon he was telling me about his dream of buying an old school car one day and restoring it by hand —  and then drag racing it on the streets (he is still a teenager mind you, and we all did things we would shudder at the thought of now).

Once we got on the bus, we were a few rows apart so we didn’t get to talk as much.

I spent a good chunk of the trip to the Waterloo station dozing off, so I missed my chance to tell him to have fun before he departed from the bus.

After having my own weekend adventures in Chicago and on the bus —  I literally shared my snacks with guys who had just gotten out of East Moline Correctional Center — I got a pleasant surprise at the Waterloo stop on the way back.

My Nike clad young comrade got on my bus and had a grin big enough to warm the coldest of hearts.

He and his girlfriend had a great visit. He took her out to dinner, bought her a new sweater and himself some new shorts, went to his first football game —  which the Panthers won —  and plans on going back up there to see her again soon.

I also learned he works at Perkin’s on the weekend and his short-term goal is to get hired by UPS and become a driver.

Although this kid will always remain nameless to me, hearing his story and talking to him were great reminders of why I love doing what I do for a living.

So to the kid with fresh kicks, thanks for the conversation and the inspiration.

Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 Ext. 6532 or trushing@newtondailynews.com