Busman’s Holiday Can Be One for You, Too

If you had asked me a few years ago if it were possible to love a bus, I’d have said that you were stone crazy.

I’d have pointed out that your average American touring bus being named after a dog was no accident.

I’d have told you that a bus was something poor people had to use during the Depression to get from place to place; that it was dusty, either too cold or too hot, smelled of partially burned gasoline and that there was a rear wheel under every seat.

But then, having spent a large part of my formative years on them, being dragged around the country, I’d kind of burned out on the whole idea of travel in general and bus travel in particular.

I’d reached a point where something down inside had said, “OK, that’s it. Let’s get off the road and started on life.”

I decided that I was going to find myself a tall, willowy, brown-eyed, sensuous brunette a lot like Linda Darnell, with maybe just a touch of Dorothy Lamour thrown in.

The two of us would then have two nice, quiet children and live in a vine-covered cottage with green shutters at the foot of Colorado’s Rockies, where I would write several great American novels. We’d never go off the block and we’d all live happily ever after.

Happily Ever After

So I met and fell in love with Joyce, a bright and bubbly 5-foot, 4-inch green-eyed blonde Californian.

We settled down in a GI house in the San Fernando Valley and had four noisy children. I didn’t write the Great American novel.

Commuting 30 miles to work got me off the block, but Joyce seldom got out at all until the kids were grown and she could go to work. About the only part of my plan that worked was the “happily ever after” part. It was enough.

Then one day we looked around and discovered our four children had graduated from college and were out on their own.

“Well, it’s our turn,” I said. “What do you want to do?”

“Travel,” she said.

“Get real. Want to redo the kitchen?”

“Why would I want to do that? I’m never going in there again. You can wall it up for all I care. Let’s travel.”

“We should discuss this,” I said.

“All right,” said Joyce.

She discussed it at me for about two weeks before the ultimate fairness of her stand broke through.

When I began to understand that if I didn’t start to see the light she might not even let me go along, I gave in. We went to a travel agent.

The agent, Bob Reinertson, paid no attention to me when I started talking about “a nice trip to Tijuana.” Probably because Joyce kept using the word Europe in sentences from the moment we walked in the door.

Within seconds I was up to my elbows in tour brochures. One 21-day tour, by the Globus-Gateway Co., really had me intrigued until the matter of transportation came up. Then Reinertson hit me with one of the negative buzz words from my youth.

“You’ll be traveling by bus.”

I started to stand. “Bus?” I said.

Bob nodded. “What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong?” I told him a bus was something you used when absolutely necessary to move two miles down the street.

A bus was a torture device from the ‘30s, a dump truck with windows, a vehicle to move large numbers of schoolchildren or migratory workers or county jail inmates.

The Bad Old Days

It’s a thing for street-gang members to misspell their names on with spray-paint cans and marking pens, and to slash the seats of with switch-blade knives.

You don’t go any place, by choice, on a bus, much less spend 21 days on one.

While I was talking, Bob was nodding, as if he agreed completely.

I was still halfway out of my seat when Bob placed a hand on my shoulder and gently eased me back into my chair.

“That may all have been true back in the old days. But when you say those things now, it makes you sound older than you are. Much older. You see, when we say bus now, we don’t mean bus, we mean bus . In some countries they even call them motor coaches.”

“Huh?”

He told me about modern tour buses. For what could have been minutes or hours I listened to Bob talk about how today’s touring vehicles weren’t like they were in the old days--motorized covered wagons with steel tires. His voice took on a hypnotic quality, like the prize announcer on a TV quiz show.

“You’ll ride in air-conditioned elegance,” he said. “You’ll have picture windows that are perfectly clear and always clean. Your fully adjustable seat, with padded armrests, will be more comfortable than any lounge chair you’ve ever sat in.

“All of your luggage will be stored in the massive luggage bays and handled by your expert driver, who will also keep this great land-yacht as clean as the surgery of a great hospital. Trust me: It’s going to be one of the most restful experiences of your life. And when it’s over, you’re going to come back here just to thank me.”

I think I came to in the parking lot, standing by my suddenly shabby-looking car, holding my open checkbook and several pounds of brochures.

Four months later, after going through customs at Heathrow, a little woman with a red umbrella and a hat that said Globus welcomed us to the United Kingdom. She led us to the bus that was waiting to take us to our London hotel. It was red and billowing smoke.

I dropped my carry-on. “Good lord,” I said to Joyce. “Our bus. It’s got to be 30 years old and it’s got a back porch on it and I think it’s on fire.”

“Oh no, sir,” said the lady with the umbrella. “That’s just the coach to London.”

The next morning we reported downstairs with the rest of our tour group. Parked at the curb with the engine running was a magnificent 44-passenger Mercedes. Joyce and I were both thrilled.

“This is just for the London city tour and to get you to the boat at Dover, sir. What you might call your jitney.”

I would never have called such a vehicle a jitney. I was sure nothing could be better than that.

But that same day, after crossing the Channel to Belgium, I found that I was wrong.

Shortly after leaving the customs building in Oostende our tour director introduced us to Raphael, who was to be our driver for the next three weeks.

No Ralph Kramden

In turn, Raphael introduced us to his bus. It was a huge Volvo that was everything our travel agent said it would be. Raphael helped all the women on, personally, then announced on the public address system that he had never had an accident, that he spoke five languages and would be glad to help us with anything he could over the coming weeks.

Neither Joyce nor I were conscious of the moment when the the vehicle began to move.

“This guy,” Joyce whispered, “is no Ralph Kramden.” Nor was this coach like anything we had ever seen.

Twenty-one days later, when the tour ended in Paris, we overtipped Raphael. And when we got off for the last time, Joyce patted the bus on the side, by the door. She looked a little cloudy as she stepped around to the front, stared it straight in the headlights and said, “Goodby, big fella. Thanks.”

When we got home I did feel compelled to go back and thank Bob Reinertson, our travel agent. As I walked in, there was a couple sitting in front of his desk.

“I don’t know,” the man was saying. “Seems like a lot of money when you’re going to be making the whole trip on just a bus.”

“Wait a minute,” I cut in. “That’s not just a bus. That’s a bus . When you bad-mouth today’s modern touring buses, you make yourself sound older than you are, you know.”

Half an hour later I was standing with my travel agent watching the couple getting into their car, the wife loading travel brochures and the man with an open checkbook still in his hand.

“I lied to him, you know.”

“How so?” Bob asked.

“He really did look that old.”