After riding the Cable Car to Fisherman’s Wharf, I decided to look at my watch and see what time it was. My watch was no longer on my wrist. I recalled taking off my jacket when I got on the Hyde Street Cable Car at the Powell turntable. The cuff of the jacket tugged on my wristband and I had shrugged my arm to free the jacket off my body. My watch must have fallen and dropped to the ground or the floor of the car!
I was already walking past Ghirardelli Square and headed up from Aquatic Park when I found the stop for the 47. I hopped on the motor coach back to Market Street with a dim hope of getting back to Powell Station, much less finding a lost and found booth, if it even existed.
When I got back to the turntable, a Cable Car was being rotated on the turntable. After the table was secured, I went up to the grip man and asked if he had seen a Swiss Army watch. He smiled. It was the same operator I rode with–exactly two hours earlier–to the Wharf. He held up my watch.
My dad got me this watch for my birthday on a cruise to St. Maarten’s. No, he didn’t put it up is ass to get past enemy lines, but the miracle of getting it back was just as unique.
Somewhere, somehow, some when, something was looking after me and keeping me on the path to become a Muni Transit Operator. The circumstances of coincidence in getting a double stamped notice-to-report for class one day late–but within the two week time frame of the later date–November 17, 1998 was just but another God shot on my way to my twenty-one year career being of service as a bus driver.
Find out how I got my job by clicking below.
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 