9 responses to “Free pastries on the bus”

1. 

   Claude Reigns

   04/02/2023

   "What's it all mean, Mr. Natural?"

   "Don't mean sheeit…"

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      04/02/2023

      That's the line, from an R Crumb, isn't is? I know it by heart, but don't know what it means. Do you?

      Reply
2. 

   Anonymous

   04/02/2023

   Taking the train across country is a singular joy and I strongly recommend a berth in the sleeper car.
   There's that magic moment when you wake up in the middle of the night, the steel wheels rattling on the rails below your bed, and for half a second you can't place it, and you're not sure where you are. In the morning you get up, walk down the hall for a shower, brew a strong cuppa coffee in your roomette, and then bring it upstairs with a relaxed smile on your face to watch the scenery flash by outside the big long windows. Everyone in coach is sprawled out and exhausted, drooling mouths hanging open, legs splayed in awkward positions seeking comfort– another night in the cattle car trying to sleep in the seats.
   Riding through Arizona one time I struck up a conversation with a college girl going home for the holidays. Asking questions is my main form of communication and I soon found out that her mother had recently been in Paris with a group of her friends from school days twenty years before.
   “One of the women takes my mom and her friends on a trip once a year to some interesting place in the world,” she said. “This year it was France.”
   “And she pays for the whole trip?” I said.
   “Yup,” the girl said.
   “Wow, I wonder who would do something like that?”
   “It's Meryl Streep,” she said.
   (Eel…)

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      04/02/2023

      Nice to have money, I've heard, and if I had lots maybe I'd pay for friends' vacations to the French Riviera. Maybe. They'd have to be pretty good friends, though, and definitely from before I was rich.

      There is nothing like a long train ride, but the sleepers are *expensive* — at least, now, maybe they were affordable way back when in our memories.

      Even riding coach is a little too pricey, but the view, man, and the ambience, and the shake rattle and rolling, and yeah, even for an introvert like me, there are pleasant conversations available.

      The seats are perfectly comfortable in coach, plenty of leg room, and they fold back just like my recliner at home, maybe more plush. I slept better on the train than I do at home.

      Gotta pack your own food, though. Train food is expensive.

      Reply
3. 

   johnthebasket

   04/03/2023

   For a couple of years as the 60s melted into the 70s I went to college in Ellensburg, WA. Not for the scenery or weather, both of which sort of suck, but state school, low tuition. I had motorized transportation in the form of a Yamaha 80 (top speed with the wind – 43 MPH), so I couldn't ride it "home" because I live in two states, separated by the Cascade Mountains and a couple of 3-4,000 foot passes, and nobody wants to cram themselves on a bus for the 2 1/2 hour trip. So I discovered the train.

   Luxury at reasonable prices (about $10 in 1970 money). I can't attest to the comfort of the sleepers — I can usually go several hours without sleeping — or even the coach seats, because I always went directly to the bar car.

   A train trip through the Cascades is a couple hours of spectacular views of mountains, rivers and wildlife (deer, mountain goats, the occasional bear, a variety of birds, varmints) and at something like a buck a drink, served by an inevitably Black and inevitably charming steward, you could drink yourself from serious Republican territory to the fairly strong Democratic strongholds of King and Pierce Counties in comfort that felt like luxury to a 20-year-old student (the stewards didn't care that I was underaged and I didn't either).

   I don't recall much about college, but I remember vividly and fondly those trips across the mighty Cascades in comfort with a Jim Beam, a pack of smokes, and an amiable bartender to keep me company.

   John

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      04/04/2023

      My brother went to Central. Played sports of some kind. Maybe you knew him? He was a Dick, like most of the athletes.

      Your train trip sounds like the edge of the golden era, the time when trains were luxurious and stylish. Like, did you spot Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint? And dollar drinks, eh? Jeez.

      Now the trains are rusted and rattling, but you're riding with the ghosts of class. The views are still spectacular, and the coolness is still cool.

      There is no more bar car, I think. At least, I never heard it mentioned on my train trips. There's a dining car, with Denny's-style food but at triple the price. I packed two days worth of sandwiches instead.

      Reply
   2. 

      johnthebasket

      04/04/2023

      If your brother played sports I didn't know him. You're not the only reticent guy in the world. I knew a few guys from my dorm (dorms were gender separate) and a couple of people who worked in the kitchen at the food service building (I was a dishwasher, second class). I wouldn't know him from graduation, because I didn't.

      John

      Reply
   3. 

      johnthebasket

      04/04/2023

      By 1970, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and cheaper air travel had destroyed the passenger rail system in the United States. I was as clueless as any twenty year old, and I knew I was riding a memory. The crew damn well knew it. Thankfully, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint lacked a sense of history and continued to make out on the observation car.

      John

      Reply
   4. 

      Doug Holland

      04/05/2023

      Congrats on not graduating. Mark of distinction, in my opinion.

      I've heard it argued that the Interstate was America's greatest accomplishment of the 20th century. Impressive engineering, I guess, but jeez it's killed a lot of people.

      There ought to be a network of trains running hourly between all American cities with populations over about 25,000, and t5he fact there isn't is further proof there's no god or common sense.

      Reply

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