Etiquette and indignity: riding the Grey Dog

[From pocket journal, 9 May 2016]

At the. Louisville Greyhound Station, waiting for the bus to Cincinnati. I know this isn't a proper jaunt, but I feel a certain mental and spiritual release just sitting here on the floor with my rucksack and the blue guitar*. [They've taken out even more seats since the last time I was here.]

The post-Derby exit crowd is still here -- the proles that no one looks for in the expensive boxes or theexclusive parties where the rich, the famous, and the rich and famous wear ugly hats, ugly ties, and take pride in urinating on the city in a most non-metaphoric fashion while making fun of the accents, the politics, AND while the city's most glamorous whores -- the mayor, the city council, and the Chamber of Commerce** -- open wide and swallow whatever the out-of-town rubes have to offer. In addition to the obvious hangovers and economic losses being nursed***, space on the buses at a premium. This means, among other things, that that Greyhound drags out the broken down cans to accommodate the crowd.

My bus is number 6222. I always look at the number. It's a habit born out of complaining. Yes, I realize it often does no good to complain when, after riding in a mostly air conditioned sardine can for 25.5 hours from Louisville Kentucky to Norfolk, that your bus driver is lost in rural Virginia. It does no good, but I do feel a little better afterwards -- especially  after listening for 2 hours as other passengers, none of whom have ever been in the state of Virginia, try and give the bus driver directions to get back on the interstate.

I know what you're thinking, Dear Friends and Readers -- GPS makes this sort of foolishness impossible.

Oh, if only that t'were true. If only.

Traveling by the Grey Dog is one of those things I often swear I'll never do again. By its very nature, it is undignified and uncomfortable. Many people lack the basic etiquette to minimize the absence of dignity and comfort. I have even written about how I will never travel by the rolling sardine can again.

But I end up doing it anyway. And this is why they always win.

This particular bus is one I'm sure I've ridden before. It used to be a nice one, too. One of the late 90's models -- seats still wide enough for a non-stick figure person (though certainly not big enough for a man of large appetites to stretch out). Plenty of room in the above head storage bins. Unlike the new buses they advertise, there is no free wifi, and there are a few electric outlets every 3 or 4 rows. It's true that the newer buses have shiny, all faux leather seats, free wifi, and plenty of electric outlets. But the seats are more narrow, there's less leg room, and the above head storage compartments are smaller and shorter.

The seat I'm sitting in is stuck in a reclined position that I have always found uncomfortable on buses. It's more slouchy than relaxed and I've slept better on the bus sitting straight up. I know this seat will not be fixed. Mine is not the only broken seat, as the seat ahead of me is also stuck in a reclined position. The young woman sitting in it, trying to master English as a Second Language with an adult ESL reader, is apparently unconcerned that her head is almost in my lap and that a jolt or a speed bump could make us far friendlier with one another than either of us wants.

These seats will not be fixed or replaced. At some point, after the engine has been taped together from all the miles and abuse, it will finish out its service somewhere in the Great Empty -- a large, square state like Iowa, Wyoming, or Montana. They send all the broken up cans out there to rust, rattle, fall apart and die like an underfed racing hound.

Yes, the buses are made to be driven into the dirt. But the inevitable entropy is driven -- pun intended -- by riders who think a bus seat is a recliner, who don't know how to use earphones, and by those who don't seem to grasp that no amount of lounging, seat hogging, and a total lack of spacial awareness makes rolling along at 55 mph in a rolling sardine can more dignified.

And moreover, the basic business model -- as far as I can tell from my vast experience riding the Grey Dog and its various geographically locked clones -- is built on a mutual acceptance of an undignified humanity. They tend to put the nicer, newer (and smaller) buses in larger markets in the northeastern seaboard and southern California. Then, once the buses get a little too used in service, they're moved to more populated markets in the midwest, south, and west until they make the death roll even further west, into the mountain time zone far, far away from the shiny, made for TV background coasts.

I wish there was a train between Cincinnati and Louisville. There used to be. But CSX won't pay to update and repair the tracks for commuter trains. So on the bus I go.

There is, I suppose, always this:

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*The blue guitar is a Washburn Rover, a travel guitar. Sounds a little tinny, but holds a tune and can fit in the above seat storage. Someday I'm going to put in an electric pick up so I can plug it into an amp.
** The Chamber of Commerce has rebranded itself as Greater Louisville, Inc. You know. Because that changes the nature of what they are, which are parasitic savages.
***No one who wins big at the Derby takes the bus home. It's a universal truth.
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Return Of The Big Blue Burrito

The Big Blue Burrito

Truthfully, I'd rather travel when someone else is driving. While being behind the wheel does provide some opportunities to get off the regular roads -- which we did as we took our time down rolling down U.S. Route 17 from Culpeper to Norfolk and learning along the way that sometimes gas station oysters really DO make sense -- I like to avoid the added worry of mechanical issues. Then there's the fact that ability to navigate only seems to work when I'm ON FOOT. (Seriously. Put me in a strange place on foot and I will find my way around in no time. Put me behind the wheel armed with a map ... or even a nominally functional gps... and I will still find a way to get lost. Count on it.)

 But: while this 1,345 mile round trip from River City to Norfolk (pronounced nor'fuk. And yes, I still count it as the most unfriendly town in the country.) was not my first trek out Interstate 64 and up and down Sandstone Mountain, West Virginia, it was the first major flight of The Big Blue Burrito. For an old truck, she did amazingly well, even on the westbound return over Sandstone Mountain. The westbound incline up the mountain is so steep I can only conclude that the Army Corp of Engineers intended to make driving through By Gawd West Virginia as unpleasant and automobile murdering as possible.

I've been criss-crossing West Virginia via Sandstone Mountain and I-64 off and on for as long as The Kid has lived in Norfolk -- since about 2001. She was in 1st grade when her mother dragged her there after an unsuccessful attempt to make it as a Navy wife in the backwater of LaCombe, Louisiana when Sgt. Tailhook was stationed out of the Naval Station at Norfolk. In the previous year, the Kid attended Kindergarten in 4 different schools that I can remember -- one, being in Jefferson Parish (LaCombe) where she had lice more than she had recess and where they taught an entire section on shoe tying. (I taught her in a short afternoon. The Kid has always been ahead of the curve.)

The reason I have, over the years, traveled the I-64 east-west corridor is that when her mother decided to haul her up to the North Atlantic coast, I decided not to follow. I moved from Lexington, Kentucky to New Orleans in order to stay close to The Kid. I did not and do not regret that decision. I have, over the years, deliberated and rejected the notion of moving there myself. Some ignorant folk might interpret this as a lack of interest in my daughter. And while there are moments of her life I have missed -- which is one of a short list of regrets -- I have always fought to stay in her life in spite of the geography. In spite of being derided, derailed, talked down, and insulted. In spite of my own feelings of inadequacy as a parent. In spite of one attempt on the part of her mother to try and talk me into signing my parental rights away to Sgt. Tailhook. (I told her mother in no uncertain terms that The Kid's last name is Parsons and would be until she changed it herself... and even then, I assured her mother,  I would always be The Kid's Dad.)

And here I am, back on the edge of the dirty, sacred river, getting ready to teach, getting back to all the little projects and obligations I have here. The Big Blue Burrito made it back over the mountains, with a stop off at Willow Creek to visit old friends and another in Losantiville to visit my Dear Sweet Ma and to pick up a new to us bed and frame. Here I am, looking home improvements, looking at starting up the garden, and yes, looking at a jaunt west into some square states in The Big Empty.

Life is good here and I am living it.

Culpeper Tells, Winter Talks Back

The Traveller's Angel and I jaunted east of the dirty, sacred river, barrelling up I-64, through the deep Appalachian darkeness of  the West Virginia Turnpike at night. We left River City Friday afternoon on a warm and sunny afternoon in order to make for the second day of Culpeper Tells!, a brand new storytelling festival in Culppeper, Virginia.

Culpeper is a pretty litttle town that has, over the past gfew years, built itself back up from devestation. The town has survived four earthquakes in the last year. The Big One, though, happened in August 2011. The town of Culpeper  built itself back from a 5.8 magnitiude earthquake. 

We had the opportunity to see some tellsers we've seen before, and to hear a few we haven't. Naturally we signed up for the story slam. But time ran out before the Kentucky contingnent could storm the stage.

We left Culpeper Sunday morning and rolled down VA 17 towards Norfolk to visit The Kid. And, as is almost always the case when I travel, winrter was at my back. The storm warnings blew up behind us, ad we hit the coast a good couple of hours before yet one more last hurrah of winter rolled through dropping ice, snow, and sleet in a wide swath from Loiusville to the coast. 

The North Atlantic coast may not seem the most romantic of destinations in March. Even without the interminably long winter  weather, it's still chilly, windy, and rainy.  But it's been a while since I've seen The Kid's smiley, shiny face. It's also been a while since I've seen Will, the boyfriend -- who is a nice guy, in spite of the fact that no one will ever be good enough to date my daughter.

We're staying at a Super 8 -- the same one I managed to stay in when I was here in January 2012. That trip was a very different one. I was here then to deliver bad news, among other things. I was convvinced that I was on my way to disappearing, convinced that, with the dissolution of my marriage that I most certainly would disappear, because I had convinced myself that no one weould see me the way my ex had seen me. 

I didn't know that I was on the road to put myself back together. I didn't even know I was broken. 

Amanda travels well. She's smart, pays attention to her surroundings, and drinks up new experiences. She wants to see everything she can,learn everything she can, experience all that she can. Although we've known one another for nearly 20 years, I like to think it has taken that long for me to get back to her. That it's too me 20 yeasrs to see myself in a proper enough light that I could allow her to see me. Some processes take longer than others.

And now I am here, with her, visiting The Kid -- who isn't really a kid, I guess -- and even though the North Atlantic winter is lingering outside, I am basking in the wearmth of a deeper, lovelier and more permanent light. The light where all the stories and poems and songs come from, where road unrolls under our feet and there is blue sky ahead.