O Driver, My Driver

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. In the case of writing, literary nods are also forms of acknowledgment. “O Driver, My Driver,” has just appeared at Exterminating Angel Press: The Magazine. And it is a nod to Walt Whitman.

I realized that “O Captain, My Captain,” was a tribute to Abraham Lincoln. I understand Lincoln to be, perhaps for the last time, a president who stood for the common man. Few after Lincoln would rise from humble beginnings to the presidency. Soon it would become the office of the rich and high born.

For many of us, life is work. In my particular case, it is a life of commuting as well as working. I sent this little story out to a few places that didn’t understand the pathos involved. I make no fun of Lincoln; in fact, the drivers of my buses are in many ways literally and figuratively, my captain.

Climbing aboard a bus before dawn many months of the year, a passenger cannot help but feel indebted. At least I can’t. On the bus, however, I see other passengers verbally attack drivers. This is sometimes a problem in a more physical way. My transit company puts warning posters on buses stating that physical attacks on drivers will be prosecuted. I’m on the side of the driver.

The small people, it seems to me, are those who seldom receive acknowledgement. Abraham Lincoln knew that small people count. His own drive to become president, in no small measure, reflected that. We seldom find politicians who care about the rest of us any more.

Will any bus drivers read my little story? Likely not. Will any fellow commuters? I doubt it. Tributes are funny that way. We write to honor someone, but the voice of the honoree is not expected to be among those nodding back to the writer. Good writers, I hope, sometimes disappear in the the background.

“O Driver, My Driver,” is a true story, in one respect. It offers a profound truth from the point of view of the passenger, the one who is out of control. Too often, the point of view of the common person is forsaken for that of an action hero.

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