‘Driving this (school bus) is harder than driving a semi. It was quite an odyssey.’ : Bringing a Bit of the Idaho Woods to L.A., the Hard Way

Steve Burnham reaches into the rear of the aging school bus, and grabs a toddler’s potty-training toilet. “Oops . . . let me get rid of this,” he says apologetically. “I don’t want this to be the first thing people get a whiff of.”

The scent of alpine firs, however, is what hits the curious who approach Burnham’s dingy 1967 Dodge school bus in the parking lot of the Duck Pond liquor store in West Los Angeles. The bus is one of the more eclectic stories of Christmas commerce.

On the corner of Palms Boulevard and Overland Avenue, Burnham is selling the Christmas trees he drives here every year from Idaho. The bus is not merely his tree hauler. Decorated with scraggly colored lights, it’s also a temporary home for Burnham, 34, his wife, Kat, 21, their daughters Alicia, 2, and Kara, 1, and a cockapoo named Venus.

Two weeks ago the couple loaded up the school bus with cans of baked beans and vegetables, blankets, a crib and 600 trees and drove here from Bonners Ferry, a small Idaho town near the Canadian border.

Burnham had recently been fired from his job at a wood factory. He and his wife went into their savings and paid the government $2,400 (at $4 per tree) for the right to cut down 600 trees in a national forest 75 miles north of Coeur d’Alene, Ida.

“I used the chain saw, and my wife tied up the trees,” said Burnham. It took the pair a week, working from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in near-freezing temperatures, to get the trees.

The alpine firs from the national forest grow at an elevation of 8,000 feet, which Burnham says makes them superior to the ones grown on Christmas tree farms.

“When the frost hits the trees, the needles sink into the branches and (it) makes the trees more resilient,” Burnham says.

The road to L.A. this time was hard. Driving a 35-foot bus full of 600 trees for a thousand miles took three days. The couple had to replace the transmission during the trip, and the fuel pump broke a few miles outside of Portland. Obviously, school buses are made for lighter loads.

“Driving this is harder than driving a semi,” Burnham said. “It was quite an odyssey.”

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This is the eighth year Burnham has driven down to Los Angeles to sell trees. Over the years he has forged a relationship with Joon Kyung Suh, owner of the Duck Pond liquor store.

“My brother-in-law always told me he’s (Burnham) a good guy,” said Sandy Chang, who is running the liquor store while Suh is studying acupuncture in China. Suh allowed the family to sell trees on their lot, said Chang, “because we knew they needed the money.”

Chang said she lets the family use her bathroom facilities and electricity. She also gave the Burnhams a heavy wool blanket.

“When I see them outside, my heart goes out to them,” said Chang.

Some cynical customers ask Chang whether she’s getting a cut of the money the Burnhams make. No, she says, she’s just letting them use the lot. The Burnhams are a welcome addition to her life.

“When I help them, I feel better,” she said. “And their trees smell very good.”

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On a windy day earlier this week the gusts were knocking down Burnham’s smaller trees, so he spent most of his time anchoring the wooden tree stands with bricks. His young wife entertained the children, and Venus the dog barked at strangers who tried to steal trees.

Business has been pretty good. Burnham says he usually sells 10 trees on weekdays, and up to 15 on the weekends. Prices range from $8 for the two-foot trees to $35 for the taller ones.

Burnham sometimes cuts his profit margin.

Carlos Chicas picked a lush six-foot tree, priced at $35. But Carlos, 13, was $9 short. “I told him I didn’t have enough money, so he gave it to me for $26,” Carlos said. “He’s a kind man.”

Natalia Mallahi fell in love with a two-foot tree, which she plans to place in her baby’s room.

“It’s better to buy from people like this than the rip-off artists,” said Mallahi, who lives around the corner from Burnham’s lot. Although she hadn’t shopped around much, the school bus and the homemade feel of the lot drew her there, she said.

“This is a guy who’s trying to support his family. He’s not on welfare,” Mallahi said. “I’m all for that.”

Burnham figures his family will earn $2,500 this season and head back to Idaho the day after Christmas. When he gets back he’ll buy toys for his two girls. Living in the bus, said his wife, is no big deal for a couple that bought a house in the northern Idaho woods last year that has no running water.

Taking a shower in the morning in the Duck Pond parking lot, said Kat, means “putting on a bathing suit and getting hosed down. It’s kind of cold at first, but you get used to it.”

So although the traffic of Palms Boulevard is a little annoying for a family that lives in the woods, Burnham insists that Los Angeles isn’t the frenzied metropolis that ex-Angelenos he’s met in Idaho make it out to be.

“There’s a lot of really nice people here,” he said.