Bus Station

Greyhound bus sign

At the edge of town you saw this sign,

with its frank block letters on faded blue,

basic transport to an end of line.

You knew what you'd get and it suited you.

Damaged in transit, you could dislocate

and ride the Greyhound overland.

You took your place on a bench to wait,

terminally lonesome, ticket in hand.

I'm not a poet, but  those lines were prompted by the vintage sign (pictured above) that marks the bus station in Santa Barbara, seeming oddly out of context there.

It always evokes memories for me of a bleak period in my life in the 1970s when I traveled around with a Greyhound Ameri-pass. It was cheap, but it lacked the romance of the rails, and was in truth a sort of misery marathon.  As I recall, my longest stretch was 56 hours.

"We were a ship of dreamers and desperadoes sailing through the night..."