I suffer from anxiety. Lately, my natural response to anxiety has been to skip past fear and dive headlong into anger. But when my Brewvana brewery tour bus broke down on Interstate Avenue in the middle of a tour, in heavy traffic, I took some time to wade into the fear/panic/holy-shit-why-is-this-happening-to-me side of the pool. I called Thom, my manager, and probably cursed a lot.
However, the fine citizens of Portland couldn’t let me go swimming and cursing alone. After a TriMet driver tried helping me troubleshoot (bless the driver of the 35 that day), we resolved we had no choice but to push the bus out of the way, so she rallied her troops. I hopped out of the bus to check on my guests and saw something beautiful. Transit riders, motorists, bicyclists, and even those cursed e-scooter riders had gathered to push the bus, effortlessly at this point, to a safe place out of the way of traffic. No one was angry or complaining. Everyone just did what they had to do. One guy even looked like he was having fun. Traffic and life moved on. We were only a handful of blocks from the next brewery, and we had a new bus in no time. What began as the scariest moment in my tour guiding career ended up being one of the most uplifting. My guests were amazed, “This would never happen where we’re from.” I can’t say whether or not that’s true, because I’m feeling a lot more faith in humanity in general right now.
The Oregonian posted this blog and the Instagram video has received over 16k views, no press is bad press right? Thanks to the passengers for helping us in a time of need, thanks to the Oregonian for the video share- making sure all of Portland knows how awesome our citizens are!
