THE SAVANT
There is a guy that rides my bus sometimes that amazes me. His name is Eltune. Actually, I knew him before I started driving the bus. My last job was driving a forklift and running injection molding machines in a plastics factory. Eltune worked there as a temporary worker. He worked a little slower than most, but his work was always done to perfection. One thing that used to drive everyone nuts was his thing with clocks. Each machine had a clock you could program to show all the time. He would put the clocks on all the machines in his area. It made time go by very slowly to be staring at the clocks all the time so most people would turn theirs off.
In talking to Eltune on the bus, I noticed he is somewhat of a savant. His specialty seems to be dates. He'll ask you when your birthday is and can usually name at least 4-5 other people with the same birthday. He rambles on and on with facts about certain people, usually presidents or other famous people.
We were talking one day and I found out he is from the same town as my mother. It's a very small town in northern Minnesota. If there are 2000 people there, someone must be having a big party. The town is so small that when we'd visit our grandparents there, it would be in the newspaper! I found out he knew some of my relatives that still were living there when he was there. Not only did he KNOW them, he knew their birthdays!! I was shocked.
Eltune also knows little facts about places in Minneapolis. One time, we were driving down a residential street and he pointed out a house that apparently had exploded at one time due to a gas leak. About a year later, he pointed out the same house and told the same story. Another time we were driving by an area with small businesses. He pointed to one and said there was a shooting there in 1960-something and someone was killed.
He also did something pretty amazing one day. He got on at the beginning of one of my routes just before I was about to start out. He asked how far it was to the other end. I told him I really had no idea, I never paid any attention to that. He told me he would figure it out and let me know. Before we got to the other end, he told me what he came up with. He was within half a mile of the correct distance!
Eltune is truly one of my more interesting passengers.
In talking to Eltune on the bus, I noticed he is somewhat of a savant. His specialty seems to be dates. He'll ask you when your birthday is and can usually name at least 4-5 other people with the same birthday. He rambles on and on with facts about certain people, usually presidents or other famous people.
We were talking one day and I found out he is from the same town as my mother. It's a very small town in northern Minnesota. If there are 2000 people there, someone must be having a big party. The town is so small that when we'd visit our grandparents there, it would be in the newspaper! I found out he knew some of my relatives that still were living there when he was there. Not only did he KNOW them, he knew their birthdays!! I was shocked.
Eltune also knows little facts about places in Minneapolis. One time, we were driving down a residential street and he pointed out a house that apparently had exploded at one time due to a gas leak. About a year later, he pointed out the same house and told the same story. Another time we were driving by an area with small businesses. He pointed to one and said there was a shooting there in 1960-something and someone was killed.
He also did something pretty amazing one day. He got on at the beginning of one of my routes just before I was about to start out. He asked how far it was to the other end. I told him I really had no idea, I never paid any attention to that. He told me he would figure it out and let me know. Before we got to the other end, he told me what he came up with. He was within half a mile of the correct distance!
Eltune is truly one of my more interesting passengers.
posted by Jeanne Ree at 10:20 AM
1 Comments:
50s? Glasses? Crazy hair?
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