Cathy, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh......
I am in the Indianapolis Greyhound Station. Or Pittsburgh. Or Cleveland. The arcing lines of Streamline deco ringing the banks of seats. A bit of weariness showing through. Echoes of an era when horizons felt unlimited. And I've got Simon and Garfunkel in my head. Nobody's ever sung it better, the feeling of a Greyhound trip through America.
You experience travel different on a bus. In the air, you measure the journey by hours, not much sense of forward motion. You come in, you sit down, hours later you are somewhere else. On a bus you feel your movement. looking out the window, the landscape passing by. You measure not by time but miles experienced, consumed. It is, no surprise, more grounded. You can feel the journey traveled.
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field....
That last line perhaps one of the closest to perfect lyrics ever written.
(We won't even tqlk about trains, which our country can't seem to figure out. They take longer, cost more, it's a lot to pay for leg room...)
But I still find myself wondering how I've become part of those who travel by land, not by air. Because, yes, travel is a class issue as well. In a workshop I taught on income inequality, I used the example of being on an airplane needing to use the restroom and there is one just two rows ahead of you. But you are forbidden to use that one. You must go 30 rows back to where a line is forming. It's like that.
Traveling the Amtrak Corridor, you wind up with a lot of college students on buses. But that changes as you head out into America. So a quick look around. More than 2/3 of my fellow riders are people of color. Most of the drivers too. (Of my last 6 rides, 4 were black. One Hispanic and one older white man. Two black women.) And station workers.
(Also in the Corridor, Chinatown buses led to the indy buses like Mega and Jolt which freed from responsibility of station upkeep, drove prices down until Greyhound had to respond...)
Working people, people longing to work. People trying to reach their families. People trying to get away from families or just away. I overhear snatches of conversation. And me, who occasionally can't afford the cost of a short notice flight.
It is a democratic experience.
My brother was a teacher. He told me that he used to have students claim to be unbiased and completely open to new people. He would laugh and say, "No I don't think so. You're on a plane or bus and there's an empty seat beside you. Don't tell me you're not checking out every person walking up the aisle. Writing their life histories. And don't tell me that when you see the super size person heading up the aisle you'r not praying not me, Lord, please not me..." And of course he's right. And of course, every time, yes, it is me.
And one night in Philadelphia it's a garrulous old white man and late night in Cleveland an incredibly obese young man and they take up their seat and well into mine, pinning me against the window. And then they will fall asleep. And their head falls onto my shoulder snd their arm reaches around me and this is NOT an intimacy I want. So its hours of elbowing and pushing back and the rest stop can't come soon enough. I work on being compassionate. But...
And also but, we are all in this together. Same boat, same bus so to speak.
And at the end of a long ride, the sun comes up, and yes, I'm counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike as we near New York City and I hear the music rise and swell and cascade,
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America
We are all looking for America....now more than ever...looking for America...
Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
Cathy, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America
Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said, be careful, his bowtie is really a camera
Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America
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