I took a bus ride once. Phoenix Arizona to Portland Maine, and back again from Savannah to Phoenix.
It was during the Christmas holidays of 1983. I was attending graduate school at Arizona State University, doing what turned out to be a concurrent masters programs in fine arts and art history.
So, as the Trailways bus turned out of the Phoenix bus station, northbound to Flagstaff, I settled in.
It was nice in Phoenix, warm 60s and it was late afternoon. All the buses were pretty full because of the Greyhound drivers strike that year. The route was going to take me north to Flagstaff, then across what was the old route paralleling Route 66. Yes, that Route 66, which only existed in pieces and is now more a legend than anything approximating a route that can be followed.
As with any long trip the first part, for me anyway, is getting out a map and looking at the route and studying the towns, cities, and land I will be crossing to my destination. Phoenix to Portland, long ride, I thought at the time, so I sat back into my seat, which I was grateful to have at the front of the bus.
We rumbled along out of the valley and up the slope toward Flagstaff about 3 hours away. The desert turned to high desert scrub and occasionally pine forest could be seen on the distant mountains. Making one last push up toward Flagstaff we left the valley that contained Sedona and the beautiful red rock country there. Somewhere in the back was Sedona, Jerome, Cottonwoord, and the real west of legend and fact. Ahead of me was the paved lives of the future.
Quick stop in Flagstaff where we left a few passengers and picked up a few more. It was early evening as we pulled out of the Flagstaff bus station. We headed east for the first time.
At Winslow, about an hour or so out of Flagstaff, the bus stopped at a MacDonalds so people on the bus could get something to eat. Cross country bus ride, then, and maybe now, is like something out of a
film noir movie. Unfortunately Marilyn Monroe or Claire Trevor was not one of the riders. There was a mixed bag of folks. Taking the bus is not the first choice for travel, even in 1983. But it was Christmas and most flights were full or too expensive, thus for the underclasses, like college students, the poor, the cheap, or the I am only gittin' ta the next town, we all assembled a quiet bunch as we lined up for our MacDonald's burgers, fries and drink. We had a half an hour to eat, digest, and take care of whatever business we wanted to on solid ground before we returned to the swaying rhythms of the bus. We headed toward Gallup, the New Mexico border with Alburqueque somewhere in the night.
I slept, woke, slept again, and then woke when we arrived at Alburqueque, then slept again.
It was morning when I woke to stay awake for the day.
The flat lands of eastern New Mexico spread out in all directions. The Texas border came and went unnoticed as we were somewhere up in the panhandle, Comanche country only a hundred or so years ago. It was rolling land and Amarillo could be seen in the distance as its early morning lights sparkled on the horizon, fighting against the light of the new day.
The sky was pretty clear when we left Phoenix, and Arizona for that matter, but in the panhandle the morning sky was gray and didn't look like it was going to break anytime soon. This was 1983 so the internet was still just a figment of Al Gore's imagination, say nothing of wifi.
We had no idea what was ahead of us.
The land was flat, encompassing, and except for the road east and northeast into Oklahoma, only the occasional farm punctuated what we could see. In the old days, the real old days, the driver would take his wife along and she would be the stewardess, so to speak. They would work the long distant drives together as a team. When I was in Korea, I took some long distance drives and even then, 1973, the buses had an attendant in uniform, who would pass out drink or small snacks. The MacDonald's was long pass and now food was scrounged from Bus stop vending machines. during our quick stops to extrude tired passengers onto the bus landings or to gather up new riders.
By the time we left Oklahoma City, I had rarely seen land so flat. It was pushing late morning and the gray sky began to give up some light white dust that blew across the road northeast toward Luther, Bristow, Chandler, and by the time we reached Broken Arrow, the snow was coming down pretty hard, which slowed us up.
We had changed drivers somewhere along the route. Can't remember when. The snow was coming down and as we got into Missouri night had fallen to the steady snow that accumulated on the highway. I was sitting in the front sit, shotgun, and at Springfield, Missouri we stopped at a diner to get some food. I was not going to loose my seat so I stayed onboard and napped a little as the bus stood its ground on the curb.
When the passengers got back on a rather large woman asked if she could sit next to me. She was about my age, wearing what appeared to be a homemade knitted shawl to cover what mass lay beneath. My answer was sure. We chatted it up sometime, and I soon found the benefit to my riding companion as we headed north east on I44. She filled her seat quite nicely, and part of mine. Under other circumstances I might have felt a bit uncomfortable being so close to someone I had just met, but the bus had only marginally heat and she brought her own environmental package along with her, as well as a pleasant personality, so I nestled up as close as modesty would permit, and we shared some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she had brought for the trip. I wonder what happened to her, I just remember her as some gift from mother-nature on a cold, snow swept ride through Missouri.
By the time we reached Ft. Leonardwood the snow was a good 6-8 inches deep and the bus slowed considerably but the weather was not enough to stop the bus. I remember the bus driver as a sturdy looking black man, focused on the drive. The roads hadn't been plowed, except by the front of the bus as we pulled back onto the interstate taking us north to St. Louis.
When we arrived in St. Louis, the arch was no where to be seen because the only thing we saw was the inside of the bus stop, the slush that fell over the undercarriage, puddles inside a large building. The driver grabbed his stuff and jumped off the bus, glad his mission was over. Apparently this was the end of the line for him.
An attendant got on and told us that we had to get all our stuff off the bus as we were getting a new bus before we left. I had two duffle bags stuffed in the overhead so I grabbed them and found my way into the waiting area. There was a surly looking crowd of people in the bus station and I planted myself somewhere distant from the bathrooms that stunk of human bodily fluids and the grim of a snowy, wet, night. Still not a tourist stop on maps of St. Louis.
Dunno why not.
On the bus platform the crowd assembled and I thought, oh shit, maybe I won't get my seat back, my disciple of mother-nature having disappeared into the night.
We were called back, the ones who had been on the inbound bus, and we had to push out way through the crowd of others who wanted to get on. I remember putting one duffle on each side and using them as blockers to push my way back to the bus, and getting that look, like why do you get a ride on the lifeboat and we stuck in this fuckin' dirt bag of a bus stop. The death stares did not create any detours in my path back to the bus. Once on I found a seat a few rows back, got the window seat, stuffed my gear in the overhead and sat down, watching the crowd get a little more unruly.
Finally seats were counted and filled, leaving behind more than we drove away with. No gun shots, but the police were called to get people from blocking the buses departure as they had swarmed on both sides. The new driver let them have a few finely tuned phrases that he must have been practicing for sometime because they seemed entirely natural to his speech. We received some unkind salutes of fists in the air, some with the requisite single middle digit flashing at the driver as the bus finally rolled out onto the snowy streets of St. Louis leaving behind a pretty unhappy mob to wait for the next bus.
I slept eastbound to Indianapolis, and by the time light had come back up, the snow had stopped and the highways were clear. Columbus, we arrived late morning. It was cold and getting bitter cold like it does in the northeast. I knew I was getting back into my homeland, I could smell it and feel it.
St.Louis was to be repeated in part, only this time we didn't have to get off the bus. The Columbus mob pushed up to the bus, but no one got off, so we were still riding full. Three men got on the bus and walked up and down the aisle. They were looking for a seat and espousing the sermon of motherfucker to all who would listen. Finally, threaten with arrest they got off, the driver shut the door and off we went, heading northeast toward Pittsburgh.
I had never been to Pittsburgh, and as we arrived I remember the long ride down into the valley, the city lit up, beautiful in the clear black of the night. Uneventful I slept during the ride across PA to Philly, woke for the usual hubbub at the bus station and then off again for Port Authority in NYC. By the time we had gotten to NYC it was the middle of the night. When we left I slept again as the constant travel was wearing me out. Somewhere northbound on I95 was Boston, and beyond that Portland.
We arrived in Portland during the early afternoon at the small bus station that still is where Greyhoud buses arrive and depart. The new Trailways bus station is part of a larger transportation hub that also includes the train from Boston. I use this bus station a lot, now, but still remember arriving on that sun filled sky in mid-December and waiting for my ride to my hometown in northwestern Maine, Rumford, a small paper-mill town that has since gone the way of many other small towns in Maine. Dried up is not the word, but diminished of the vitality that used to be part of the small towns of Maine is probably a better description.
I spent the holidays in Maine and had the usual good time and the comfort of being home. From there I visited my brother in Savannah, flying down to see him. Enjoyed the city which I hadn't visited before, and then it was early January, time to return to Phoenix.
I was on the early morning bus to Jacksonville, south about two hours. There I connect to the long distance bus heading westbound. Somewhere out of Jacksonville and before we got to the Florida panhandle it started to rain. Rain in that southern way. Drenching swamp forming torrent of wet that swept the road clean. I had a book so the roadside passed by well into the night, when we arrived in New Orleans. The bus parked near the Super Dome, which appear like a giant black mushroom in the night sky. The wet skies still lingered overhead. It was uneventful and when we passed out of New Orleans and into western Louisiana, the feeling of wet was encompassing. We passed into Texas sometime in the night and early morning, I remember the road-sign to El Paso indicating it was a thousand miles to El Paso. I tried to fathom how big Texas was, over a thousand miles from one side to the other.
The land slipped by as did Houston and other Texas towns. Time slipped away as did the road. I remember being in San Antonio and walking down to the Mission, the Alamo. It was early evening and it seemed beautiful to me. Back on the bus another night, El Paso and then morning on the winter plains on the road toward Tucson. It was morning, frosty, and cold. Clear, the antelope herded on the east facing hills to catch the morning sun.
Then it was Tucson, and the two hour ride to Phoenix, January 1984.
Some memories of the Christmas bus tour of 1983-84.
At the food court, Logan Airport, tim
