Bus stop memorial

Last week I was driving down California Street in Mountain View, when I noticed this ad hoc memorial site at a bus stop:

There were a lot of memorial candles—I mean, a lot.

From the stuffed animals I thought it might be a memorial to a child, but it turned out to be the site of a fatal traffic accident—a developmentally disabled 50-year-old man was hit on 21 June while waiting for the bus by a car going 70 MPH.

Bill Ware, who was a fixture at the Mountain View Public Library, and who appeared at city council meetings, was well known in the community, and will evidently be sorely missed by the people he met regularly. I was there around the 26^th, and the tributes were undisturbed, candles still burning. Which tells me that people in the neighborhood think it’s more important to mark Ware’s life and passing than to sit to wait for the bus.

You see these sorts of memorials around the country, of course, at traffic fatality sites. But the votives with brilliant colors and Our Lady of Guadalupe themes are quite distinctive to this area and I thought it worthy of sharing.