Dec 14, 2013
RAY: Most city buses are ugly, noisy, smelly, big, and slow. (Hey, I just described my brother!) And in Our Fair City, they don't even have the decency to pull over to discharge or admit passengers -- they stop in the middle of the street.
But I discovered something interesting lately. About half the time when I drive to work in the morning, I don't mind following the city bus. In fact, I look forward to it. The question is: Why? Here's a hint: If it's snowing, I don't want to follow the bus.
RAY: I gave this hint: If it's snowing, I usually don't want to follow the bus. I didn't want to mislead anyone, thinking that the bus would be blazing the trail for me.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: And the reason I don't want to follow the bus is when it's snowing, the sun isn't out. Now, everyone knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
TOM: Get out!
RAY: But it doesn't. It only does that a couple of times a year. In the dead of winter it rises the farthest southeast that it ever rises, and it sets the farthest southwest. That is, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. And when I drive to work, one leg of my long, long journey to work is facing the rising sun. And because I leave so, what? Early in the morning, it's right on the horizon and nothing except a big, fat bus will allow me to see well enough. So, he gets blinded. You let him run the pedestrians over.
TOM: That's good!.
RAY: So, who's our winner?
TOM: Oh! The winner is Barry Fisher and his students at Eisenhower Middle School in Rockford, Illinois. Congratulations!
