Bus Driver Has Smoke-Screen Answer for ‘Running Hot’ Incident

A man, a bus, a cigarette. Or: Running hot to Clairemont.

Times reporter H. G. Reza was aboard a San Diego Transit bus on his way home when it happened. I’ll let him tell it:

“The bus driver had just made a stop at Old Town, and turned left on Morena Boulevard at a very fast clip. He was driving rather fast, northbound on Morena.

“Suddenly he began honking his horn at a slow-moving car with Maryland plates. The car carried two elderly couples who were obviously lost and were driving slowly.

“The driver ‘rode’ his horn until the car continued north on Morena and we veered right on Linda Vista Road. A passenger wondered out loud about the bus driver: ‘Is he running late?’

“I think we all had this thought in mind, as we watched the bus driver honk the horn and mumble something unintelligible.

“A block from where Linda Vista Road and Morena Boulevard meet, the driver pulled over, at Napa Street and Linda Vista Road. Without saying a word, the bus driver parked the bus, jumped out and lit a cigarette.

“Suddenly, the episode became clear to all of the passengers. The driver was in a hurry to get ahead of schedule so he could stop and get a smoke.”

A honking and speeding bus driver?

Jumping out to smoke a cigarette and not telling the passengers why?

I talked to the public relations woman for San Diego Transit. She talked to a supervisor, who talked to the driver.

She called me back: The driver denies speeding but says he did get miffed when a car cut him off on Morena Boulevard.

He says he stopped at Napa Street because he was running ahead of schedule, “running hot” in the parlance.

As for smoking and staying silent, drivers are only allowed to smoke outside the bus and are discouraged from chit-chatting with riders.

All Around the Town

Here we go.

* How confident are San Diego police that Cleophus Prince Jr. is the Clairemont killer?

The police task force assembled to find the killer quietly disbanded last week. At the height of the community fear, 20 cops worked full time on the case.

* Signs of the times.

Donna Blake, an investigator for the San Diego County district attorney, has been named investigator of the year by the California D.A. Investigators Assn.

Her specialty: serial polluters and other environmental criminals.

* San Diego bumper sticker, on a Nissan driven by a woman: “I Stop for Men and Other Helpless Animals.”

* Tuesday night’s march downtown to commemorate/protest the 46th anniversary of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is called a Candlelight Walk.

But the marchers have gone modern: They’ll carry flashlights, not candles.

* Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan comes to the Cabrillo National Monument today to make an announcement about expanded federal efforts in water reclamation.

Locals hope he’ll be talking money to help San Diego meet clean-water standards, not just promises.

* The aircraft carrier Independence leaves North Island for the last time this morning: on the way to a new home port in Yokosuka, Japan.

Humor With Bad Taste

It’s downright deplorable, of course, but a condor joke making the rounds in San Diego may signify a public backlash to wildlife-correct thinking.

According to the joke, this guy is on trial for cooking and eating a condor (the type being propagated at the San Diego Wild Animal Park).

The guy begs for mercy, explaining that he only did what he did because he was stranded in the mountains and would surely have perished if didn’t eat something.

Otherwise, he would never have harmed a feather of such a lovely and federally protected creature.

“All right,” says the judge, “I’ll let you go. By the way, what does a condor taste like?”

The guy thinks a few seconds:

“Sort of like a cross between a spotted owl and a bald eagle.”