People Are Talking

Pittsburghers have been talking, commenting and arguing about the G20 Summit happening here for months. PAT bus riders are no exception. Especially when we learned that our bus service would be curtailed.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a conversation on the 71C outbound. The screen on the front of the bus still read “Go Steelers!”, instead of “Pittsburgh Welcomes the World”, which most buses now boast. Three women, two young women and one who was older, sitting in the front where the seats face one another, were discussing the city's G20 plans with the driver, and here is how it went:

“My aunt works at a building Downtown and they are closing her building and they ain’t paying her for those days. And that’s not her fault.”

“It’s not a matter of fault, it just is what it is.”

“Obama’s gonna be here speaking to the unions on the 15^th- you heard about that? And you ain’t even gonna see him. You think you are going to see him? It’s all going to be no problem.”

“They trying to stop the violence- there’s a difference between free speech and violence. In other places protesters burned shops.”

“When MLK was murdered, we burned it down. We burned everything in the Hill.”

“Why would you burn your own neighborhood? We don’t even have anything.”

Laughter all around, and then the older woman got off at her stop saying, “Have a good day, ladies.” I hope they all did. And I hope they are checking their bus schedules this week.