Noreen Malone's recent article in Slate on discount bus lines got me thinking about the innumerable times I've taken the Greyhound. Before I'm about to line up to take the bus from the sooted shed of the Dundas Street terminal, I always get a little feeling of pride at the thought of riding the "proletariat chariot." "The mover of the working people," I think to myself. "Here I'm among kin."
But my Whitmanesque sentiments evaporate very quickly when I peek around at the comrades I'll be spending the next twelve hours with. There's a sadness about everyone one the bus. Allen Ginsberg got it right when he wrote that Greyhound passengers are all:
Josh Wingrove wrote a beautiful article for the Globe & Mail last August after the tragedy that occurred on the TransCanada route (mine). "Terminal Choice" (Aug. 9) details the lives of some passengers aboard that route. Most commute for jobs, some for friends, all because it's the only thing they can afford. Many are like this girl from my hometown:
The terminal in the Soo is a thing to behold. It's little more than a door next to the maintenance garage for the local cab company. Malone nails when she writes that greyhound terminals have "an air of poetic despair." Or, as Sandra Hepditch, a traveler on Wingrove’s bus comments, “[t]he stations are like their own weird, bad coffee-table book.” Times have changed since the days they put them on postcards, like the beauty from Dayton, Ohio (above).
If only we had a Whitman alive today to write an encomium to the Greyhound bus. Maybe then I could feel renewed enthusiasm for the experience of being among the multitudes. The best we get is Ginsberg, who ends elegiacally:
But my Whitmanesque sentiments evaporate very quickly when I peek around at the comrades I'll be spending the next twelve hours with. There's a sadness about everyone one the bus. Allen Ginsberg got it right when he wrote that Greyhound passengers are all:
looking for a bus to ride us back home to Eternity
where the heart was left and farewell tears
began.
(from, "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound," 1956, published posth.)
Josh Wingrove wrote a beautiful article for the Globe & Mail last August after the tragedy that occurred on the TransCanada route (mine). "Terminal Choice" (Aug. 9) details the lives of some passengers aboard that route. Most commute for jobs, some for friends, all because it's the only thing they can afford. Many are like this girl from my hometown:
Angelia Jurich, 17, and her two-year-old toddler, Renee, are heading to Northern Ontario from Fort McMurray, Alta., where they live with her parents. She is riding back to where she would rather be full-time, in their old home of Sault Ste. Marie, where she will see friends and other family and get a new tattoo. It's "the money" that keeps her out west - the cash her parents are earning in the oil boom.
The terminal in the Soo is a thing to behold. It's little more than a door next to the maintenance garage for the local cab company. Malone nails when she writes that greyhound terminals have "an air of poetic despair." Or, as Sandra Hepditch, a traveler on Wingrove’s bus comments, “[t]he stations are like their own weird, bad coffee-table book.” Times have changed since the days they put them on postcards, like the beauty from Dayton, Ohio (above).
If only we had a Whitman alive today to write an encomium to the Greyhound bus. Maybe then I could feel renewed enthusiasm for the experience of being among the multitudes. The best we get is Ginsberg, who ends elegiacally:
“Farewell ye Greyhound, where I suffered so much”
That's both poignant and funny, Keith. I'll be sure to check your blog regularly. And oops... I should get back to writing mine, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Just realized that postcard comes from Dayton OHio so of course I began to sing this:
ReplyDeletesong by Randy Newman