From Portland, Oregon: "So this is what crazy looks like" [a Top Ten Bus Stories nominee], by Bill Reagan (posted on Trimet Diaries)

As the train lurched and halted at the various tops, the woman addressed various people individually with a big smile and warm greeting, no apparent goal except to be friendly in tight quarters. These are the type of people a few of my friends imagine when they justify not riding public transit: rubbing elbows with “the great unwashed” (one friend’s quotation,) sudden conversations with people who put the strange in “stranger,” trapped in a box with someone eager to volunteer their opinions without prompting.

(Read the whole story here.)