On a heat advisory afternoon, I crouched under the bus shelter on Elm. The rain hit the tin roof like hammers.
I had just spent my last three dollars on shower curtain rings for my mother. She wanted brass. I got chrome.
I was seventeen, a welder's apprentice, trying to get to a job interview across the river.
The bus never came. I waited until my shirt was nearly dry. Then I walked home.
That was the first time I understood some routes don't run. Some beginnings never arrive.
Sixty years later, I still have those rings in a drawer. Wrong color. Perfect reminder.
If I could tell that boy anything: don't sit in the rain waiting for a ride that isn't coming. Walk.