Paul was riding the bus. It was quiet. This, of course, was before the invention of portable personal music players that spilled soundtracks in public spaces. In busses and trains these sounds echo & amplify. Paul also did not know any intimate details about the other passengers because this was before the invention of mobile phones.

Paul was cereal: part XV

[this box of Cap’n Crunch was opened on 1 February]

 

Paul was the mirrors installed in busses are a means to monitor student rider activity without taking eyes off the road for too many a second. A well seasoned driver will know how to use the mirror, coupled with the loudspeaker, & a few choice children made examples of to keep the riders at bay.

 

Mornings were mostly sleepyeyed as the children’s sugarcoated cereals hadn’t fully kicked in. As a result, the times when Bus Driver Betty checked the mirror were far less than, say a Friday afternoon.

 

This is how she regularly missed the morning movements of Ralph.

 

Ralph the Mole Murphy daily took to the bus floor to crawl about, scare other students, and make trades. His common entrance signal was grabbing at ankles.

“Why so scared Paul? Afraid of the pop quiz today”

“No, no, we aren’t having a quiz today. We had one two days ago & it takes Ms. Chalafont at least three days to grade anything – if she can even find it in that mess of a desk”

“Well I was just upfront of the bus with Becky Giehl & she is studying her brains out. I actually am on my way back to do a quick review. I’d say do the same.”

“Sure thing Mole.”

& with that Ralph scooted away, crawling over the saltstained floor, coating himself in a fine powdery dust.

 

Will the Mole be right about the quiz? What is the average rainfall for Reading Pa?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part XVI of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part XIII

[this box of Jason’s Camp Harmony Crunch was opened on 1 February]

 

Paul was homework time.

 

Slumped into a brown deflated vinyl bus seat, pinching himself against the cool rattling wall of his transport, Paul broke out his maths binder.

 

Reading & writing are alive in & on the many transit lines of America. Commuters tote supermarket bestsellers about; papers litter the bus floors; children – far less prone to motion sickness than older folks (many adults use the rocking motions of public transport to lull them into sleep, for a detailed survey please see: J. A. Walsleben;  R. G. Norman;  R. D. Novak;  E. B. O’Malley;  D. M. Rapoport; K. P. Strohl,  Sleep Survey of Commuters on a Large US Rail System. Managing Fatigue in Transportation: Proceedings of the 3rd Fatigue in Transportation Conference, Freemantle, Western Australia, 1998, Edited by L. Hartley. Pergamon, Oxford, pages 53 – 64) — use the jolting boxes as study centres for absorbing notes on Commodore Barry, lessons about rivers & cities, or, like Paul, completing the type of busy work maths always assigned in copius quantities (& only odd numbered problems as all even numbered equations had solutions carefully completed & bound in the back of the text book).

 

Paul was struggling over a this problem:

 

 

Will Paul use the square root to simplify? Can he complete the problem?

Tune in tomorrow for Part XIV of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part XII

[this box of Frosted Flakes was opened on 1 February]

Paul was blasted with February air, ice — unable to penetrate the heavy weave of Paul’s wool sweater – condensed in sheets & slivers collecting on his arms & around the waist band. Paul carried coat with mittens, gloves, scarf&hat stuffed into an arm, his fingers reddening as they clamped winterware.

 

Must walk up!

 

The small suburban yard (called a hill by children, but not much more than a slight slope) was not slippery despite a wintry cover. Paul’s feet crunched through snow weeks old punctured with boot craters, walking paths wending digressions, half snowwomen, & the remains of last night’s snow flight.

 

He could catch the yellow tin yet. Maybe it was how fast Paul ran from house to street, maybe it was his orange-brownish sweater bobbing over (mostly) white snow (his sweater an easy sight to see for certain), maybe it was the spirit of Thursday, maybe it was the bus driver who had arrived 2½ minutes late to work because her nightmare of being an orange cat late late late late late trying to pick up birds, tiny birds who kept shifting away, or maybe it was the slight ice coating the roads & requiring extra automotive operational caution,

 

But Paul made the bus he usually missed.

 

How long is Paul’s bus ride to school? What, no cliffhanger?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part XIII of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part XI

[this box of Weis Krispies was opened on 1 February]

Paul was too much 2-percent milk to his cereal, the small rice puffs muffled into a marshy mush.

 

Not musical.

 

Or, the sound of a bus approaching, its steady diesel pumping up the hill…

 

Will Paul make his bus? What is a swift kroger truck images?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part XII of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was printed on the side of a city bus | a constraint | text moving in the moaning motion of diesel accelerating, non-sequitur following a simple route.