[78-L] ARSC^

[Philip Carli]

Ecch and double-ecch.  I'm with you on that.

One trouble with buses in my recent experience is that many bus travellers seem to give even less of a cuss about courtesy than air travellers; the last time I took a Greyhound, contempt and desperation hovered like a cloud over the whole company, and some smokers tried to light up despite the driver's draconian warning that he would pull over and leave them in a cornfield east of Nowhere.  An obviously disturbed woman was forcibly placed in the seat adjacent to me because she had started yelling from her original seat "I ain't sittin' next to no junkie" over and over.  When she sat next to me she rocked and swayed back and forth, tonelessly humming and writing in very small script on an already-scribbled notepad.  I had to take a bus because it was logistically the only way I could get to where I needed to; logistics take a back seat to finances for most bus travellers, though, as many can't afford anything else and are compelled to travel that way.  Greyhound does very little to make the experience at all dignified, which might inspire people's better natures. It's a hard life to depend on buses for long-distance transport.

________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Cary Ginell [soundthink at live.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 11:23 PM
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Subject: Re: [78-L] ARSC^

Reminds me of a cross-country trip I took on my own in 1978. I had two goals: to go to Bob Wills Day in Turkey, Texas, and then to go on to New York to visit my grandmother in the Bronx. I chose to take Greyhound, and the cross-country trip was a bargain, costing $55 each way. I made it to Amarillo in about 37 hours. Sleeping on the bus was impossible because back then, not only did the seats not recline more than a few inches, but smoking had not yet been prohibited. They had segregated smokers, with the first half of the bus designated as "non-smoking," but c'mon, fellows! The smoke - obviously - did not know to stop at the end of the smoking section, and since I was sitting towards the back of the non-smoking area, I got it full. You could disembark anywhere along the route and pick up another bus later, so I rented a car in Amarillo and drove to Turkey for the festival. On the way back, I got a horrendous flu bug and spent the next two nights, sick as a dog, in a seedy Mo
 tel 6. When I recovered, I got back on a different smoky bus and made it the rest of the way. That was enough bus travel to last a lifetime. I took a nice, spacious 747 wide body American Airlines jet home. I didn't care what it cost.  Trains are fine. Buses - not a chance.

Cary Ginell

> From: Philip_Carli at pittsford.monroe.edu
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Thu, 5 May 2011 23:15:38 -0400
> Subject: Re: [78-L] ARSC
>
> When I was growing up just north of San Diego, every couple of years my grandmother would travel via Greyhound from Oceanside, CA, to Alberta and back to visit her sister.  I think it took three days each way, at least, without a bed or reliable washing facilities the whole trip.  She was a very tough Norwegian farm girl; I can't imagine going that far by bus and surviving.  It seems almost like a frontier stagecoach odyssey.  PC
>


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