I'm not sure how many of my blog followers have ever taken a Greyhound or Continental Trailways bus trip. No, not a charter bus on some tour or excursion, or a school bus, but a real trip where you pay money and ride the bus.
Many years ago, I needed to travel from Blythe, the home of our ancestors, to Tucson, Arizona to visit Cliff and Cathy. I had no way to get there, so I decided to travel by Greyhound Bus. It seemed simple enough, buy the ticket, get on the bus and go.
It started off exactly as I planned. I bought the ticket, got on the bus across the street from the Hub theater in Blythe, the home of our ancestors and we were on our way.
I didn't realize however, that bus routes are not direct. In fact, they are anything but direct. Our first stop was in Quartzsite, AZ where no one got on or off, but we stopped anyway for 10 or so minutes. We then proceeded to Tucson, or so I thought. But, no, we stopped in Aguila, Wendon, Salome, Wickenburg, Surprize, Phoenix, Mesa (Phoenix and Mesa were 45 minutes each), Chandler, Casa Grande, Red Rock, Marana and then Tucson. All told there were on average about 15 to 16 people at one time on the bus. Some got off, some got on.
Nothing really extraordinary about the trip other than it was the longest bus ride in the history of mankind. Oh, well maybe there was this one thing. During our stop in Phoenix, a middle-aged African-American woman boarded the bus. During the whole trip, I sat right behind the driver because I was young and inexperienced and figured that was the safest place to sit in case anything bad happened.
Anyway, this lady sat just a row or two behind me all by herself. There were several other people sitting close to the front also. It seems everyone else also thought being close to the driver was the safest place to be.
Just a few minutes after she boarded and we were on our way to the next stop in Mesa, she started screaming. They weren't loud long screams, just short bursts with an sporatic name yelled out. I turned around to see what was going on. I guess I wasn't an experienced bus traveler because everybody else on the bus didn't seem to notice or care. They just casually got up and moved further away from her and kept reading their magazines or whatever. The bus driver didn't even look in the mirror to check to see if the lady was being attacked or attacking anyone. At this point I was the closest person to this lady. I was anxiously awaiting our stop in Mesa hoping she would get off. She didn't. A few did get off but even more got on.
They were obviously seasoned bus travelers, because when she resumed her screaming they just got up and moved toward the back of the bus. No one said a word. No one asked her if she was okay. It just seemed like normal bus business to everyone on the bus. By the way, it wasn't a short bus. I know some of you would ask if I was riding on the short bus.
So, to make a long story short, which is already impossible, when we got to Casa Grande, a nice young African-American male got on the bus. He perused the bus patrons and saw that there was only one other person of color, actually that's not entirely true, several "busters", (I just coined that phrase), were hispanic. He decided that he would be cordial and sit next to the "lady". I wanted to warn him, but I didn't know if that was proper bus etiquette. The bus driver didn't seem to care one way or the other and neither did any of the people that were still on the bus and knew the situation, so I kept my mouth shut and leaned a little closer to the bus driver thinking it still the safest place on the bus.
It didn't take long for this nice young man to realize that his kindness was misplaced. The lady went beserk. She started screaming louder and longer and yelling many different names now. This time everyone turned to look. The poor guy sitting next to her didn't know what to do. He was just sitting there and she was going crazy. He started to panic and tried to help the lady. Wrong move. She became more frantic. She was a really good screamer. The bus driver finally looked in the mirror to check things out, then just kept on driving. Finally, the guy next to her figured it out. He got up and moved. Everyone else went back to reading their books and magazine. The bus driver just went to the next stop. I leaned even closer toward him and the guy that was sitting next to the crazy lady got off at the next stop. I'm positive it wasn't where he wanted to go, but he got off anyway. I would have too.
The lady went back to screaming in short bursts after that for the rest of the trip to Tucson. When we got to Tucson, we all got off. Cliff was there to pick me up. I sat really close to him on the way to his house.
So, I've thought about that trip several times over the years and here is what I've concluded. I don't think the lady was crazy at all. I think she was mad I got the front seat next to the bus driver and she was upset and scared knowing the safest place to sit was right behind the driver in case anything bad were to happen. So, she came up with this scheme to scream in sporadic bursts to make people think she was crazy and everyone would leave her alone. I bet she told her husband and five kids in Tucson that the trip went just fine.
By the way, I've never taken a bus trip since.
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1 comment:
I do not remember you telling us about the bus trip. Surely I could have given you some comfort. Did you have to ride the bus back home? Tucson, those are good memories.
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