When I lived in San Francisco in the early 80’s, I heard that the city’s school children took the municipal buses to school.
I don’t know many people who’ve taken the bus on a trip. To a different town. To a different state. When I was about 13, my parents put me on the Greyhound to visit my grandparents for a summertime month. It was a 500 mile trip that took all day. It was wonderful going into the bus station restaurants at longer stops – and ordering a Salisbury steak. It felt like the door to the world was open to me.
When I learned about the school children learning how to use the San Francisco municipal buses – it made sense that city kids seemed more sophisticated than suburb kids. They had unconstrained access to anywhere in the city and could easily experience anything the city offered them.
Eavesdropping on suburban teenagers chatting in a line for a movie was a stark contrast to those overheard at city movie theaters. The city kids seemed to know so much more about the world.
Another bus ride I took in the 90’s was the night bus from Chittagong to Dhaka in Bangladesh. That ride took all night. While there was still daylight at dusk and dawn, the trip provided a porthole into life on the plots of farmed land we passed by. It occurred to me it was something you had to see for yourself.
For years now I’ve had a closet urge to take the bus across the country – from coast to coast. The Greyhound website says I can leave Atlanta this week and arrive in Los Angeles 48 hours later – for $220. I can save $2 by taking one that takes 54 hours.
It might be something worth seeing for myself.