Greyhound

I made my first roadtrip across the United States in June 1979, I had left school and was enjoying freedom, travel and was the master of my own destiny. I flew into JFK in New York to connect with a Greyhound bus bound for LA. Said to be the longest Greyhound route across the States my journey was a mere 2½ days across America instead of the three days designated for LA. I had been offered a position as a camp counsellor with a childrens’ camp in Prescott, Arizona.

1979 is a long time ago now, and my memory is a little hazy, rather like the colour photos we took back in the 60’s and 70’s which have now browned and faded by degrees. Like flickering images, I can recall certain things and regret not keeping a diary of the journey, although I recently discovered the map, shown below, marked up with the route I took in that year. In my mind’s eye, I see fellow passenger’s in profile, perhaps sitting across the aisle from me, staring motionless ahead, or with head bowed low in sleep as America flashed by in all its glory; urban decay, woodland, old towns, grassy wilderness and desert. In my mind, it is all silent now but the images are printed, etched within.

As a 19 year old, I wasn’t able to afford a taxi ride from the airport to the Greyhound terminus at New York’s Port Authority. I recall seeing my first stretch limos parked up ready for hire. One had a swimming pool right in the middle and I remember wondering how that worked out on the corners. I also recall walking through quite an affluent part of New York in the middle of the day, there was no one on the streets but it was late June and stifling hot. Little did I know what awaited me in Phoenix!

At the Greyhound rank, there was a moment of satisfaction as I found my bus. One of the pleasures of a roadtrip is knowing that a plan has come together and that more still lies ahead, and yet also knowing that this is not the time nor the place to stop and rest but to move on, to keep moving on. I walked across the tarmac to the waiting bus, found my place and settled into my seat creating a space all of my own. There was excitement at the prospect of sitting in this real-time chrome cinema watching America pass by as I tucked into whatever supplies I had hurriedly bought at local stores.

The seats were upholstered in some sort of plastic that refused to let you go, I was a fly stuck to fly-paper. Every roadtrip has its defining memory and this was mine. I sat on the right, two-thirds of the way down. At the very back was a man in his 40’s who was simply dressed in nothing more than a shirt and ‘slacks’. He had no bags with him and did nothing more than smoke his pipe the entire trip.

It was late afternoon when we set off and as night fell, the journey subsided into lines of light and blank patches of darkness, occasionally, the bus would pull into a station and those not leaving would sit and stare out of the window bathed in the warm glow of the station lights, a hint of the home comforts left behind.

• My 1979 Greyhound route NYC to Phoenix drawn on a Rand McNally map

The following day, we reached the city of Columbus, Ohio. The bus took a scheduled stop and I had time to take an unscheduled break courtesy of the Men’s bathroom – so proud of the Americanisms I was learning – I later learned it was also called the John.  I found the Gents, went in and sat down. The place was completely empty, all was quiet then a movement caused me to look up and I saw a man staring at me through the gap in the door at its hinge. I had seen no one on the way in and wondered if he had followed me in, or had he been waiting in an empty cubicle for his moment? I had been caught off guard. Next, a folded slip of paper appeared under the door. I picked it up and opened the handwritten note which offered me the ‘best BJ in Columbus’. I was an innocent 19 year old who barely understood what was being offered, but I guessed it wasn’t wine gums so I fled back to the bus at high speed. The offer made no impression on me, but the fact that someone suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere was very intimidating. Looking back now, the offer was nothing, but the surprise of being approached unwontedly was undoubtedly threatening.

The bus thundered onwards, we crossed the mighty Mississippi at St Louis replete with Budweiser advertising. To a visitor from foreign parts whose biggest river to date was the Thames back in London, the Mississippi was, and is, a magnificent and majestic river laden with history and literary references aplenty. For my own part, I had Pussycat singing ‘Mississippi’ in my head,

 ‘Miiississiiippi, you’ve been on my mind.’

That bridge and that river in the sunshine crystallised much of what it meant to me to cross America by road in the late 1970’s.

Back in the bus, the sound of the engine whilst not deafening was not unlike sitting in a room with the washing machine on towards the end of its cycle. It was inevitable that conversations developed with other passengers as the hours rolled by. Some conversations were with those leaving within a short time, so little was shared, but a few were travelling the whole way including the man at the back with his pipe and to be fair to him there was never a moment when he choked us with his smoke. What I do remember is the feeling of detaching my wet back from the glossy plastic seats whenever someone leant across the aisle to speak to me, but it was good to learn why others were making such journeys – moving house, visiting friends, sorting out a family problem – the usual items.

Springfield and Joplin must have passed in the night, or when I was dozing. Springfield is not an uncommon city name in the US and I’m afraid this one left me with no memorable impression. The bus chundered on through mile after mile of grassland. The scale of it all was immense, I could barely take it in. Tulsa and then Oklahoma City which mesmerized me with its road network and anthill quantities of traffic. Then grassland gave way to desert as we crossed the frontiers of New Mexico and plunged into Albuquerque, a city with an unfathomable name to my 19 year old mind but which I discovered had a very pleasing ring to it when correctly pronounced – al-burr-ker-key. I took delight in saying its name in the same way that Americans delight in saying Worcestershire like a Brit. There was time to wander round the station, sit in the cool air and enjoy a coffee. The heavy noise of the bus engine gave way (for a short time) to quieter chat and gentle human activity. Albuquerque (I can now spell it without looking) was a place of cool restfulness for me.

Then off once more, and suddenly the journey was turning towards its closing stages, for me at least. Across the high plains of Arizona, Gallup, Flagstaff and then down the old miner’s road to Phoenix itself, 100 miles downhill, but it made no difference to me as I only had to sit back and take it all in. Down, down, down we went hurtling into the desert basin of Sun Valley in the midday sun of late June. I was soon to discover that the bus had an air-conditioning system all along that I had not fully appreciated.

Phoenix, city of my dreams with its quiet, cool, green boulevards and quiet country roads – dream on young man. The bus reached its destination and it was time to extricate myself from the body clamping seating for the final time. The bus drew up to its stop, I stepped off and was immediately assailed by a wall of heat that quite literally left me breathless, it was like walking into a Bessemer furnace and looking for somewhere to find shelter. In an instant, I was walking along a freeway on the sun, the heat was intense. Thankfully, I was due to be picked up by a member of camp staff but I had to telephone first. It was quite clear that I couldn’t remain on the street, my lilywhite British skin was not prepared for this.

My memory suggests that I ended up around Van Buren Street and that once again the street was devoid of both traffic and people rather like one of those westerns where tumbleweed rolls down the street. But where to go? I came across a Christian Science Reading Room that was open and which more importantly had magnificent air-conditioning! For a good hour, in the quiet silence of the reading room, with no one in attendance, I carefully read some of the available literature but decided against becoming a member. Little by little, my body cooled down, I dozed off, read some more and then eventually my lift to the pine forests of Prescott arrived. To date, this was my one and only trip by Greyhound, I wonder if another will feature in our ‘Journey Through America’? Do share any of your own memories and experiences.