BROTHERHOOD OF THE BUS

(this piece is written about my bus time in NEW HOPE, CONTINENTALS, and LIFE)

There should be trophies presented, or at least merit badges handed out, for those of us who have spent any duration ensconced in a double seat of an old used and abused dog (Greyhound) or Double Eagle (Trailways). I’m not talking about the custom coaches, owned or rented, by the top names in entertainment. Most of them have more than made up for the comforts of home and feel like a hotel on wheels to the vagabond musicians inside. I’m discussing the vehicles of conveyance provided by the financially challenged companies whose acts make up the bottom part of the billing on any venue sign.

When they are running well, air or heat functioning correctly, and full of diesel, the entertainer can go to bed in Columbus OH after a show, and wake up in Atlanta GA and feel sort of refreshed and energy replenished. Granted, you will emerge for breakfast with clothes rumpled, hair tousled, and maybe smelling a bit ripe, but you will be there with your equipment, personnel, and luggage intact. That, however, is the best case scenario.

I’ve listed some of the possible problems with bus travel below:
Not enough seats
Seats too small (short)
Seats worn and cushions thin
Seat backs broken or unable to tilt
Armrests not retractable
Armrests broken
Not enough bin space
Windows un-shaded
Windows that don’t open
Windows shared with someone else who does not share your love of fresh air
Overhead bins limited in space
Overhead bins so stuffed that things fall out when bus turns corner
No hang up space inside
Limited hang up space inside
No electrical outlets inside
Air conditioning limited
Air conditioning broken
Heating limited
Heating broken
Diesel fumes invade inside of bus
Diesel fumes on every piece of clothing you own
Diesel fumes surround you in parking lot of truck stop
Truck stops
Eating at truck stops
God forbid…bathing at truck stops
Going to the bathroom at truck stops or crummy, rundown gas stations
Air bag problems make bus look like a drunken pirate while rolling down the highway
High cost of bus repairs and maintenance
Bus gears being ground to the nub by inexperienced driver
Said inexperienced driver driving like he was Mario Andretti
Name on bus
Name not on bus
Singers warming up on bus
Horn players warming up/practicing scales on bus
Bus not starting
Pushing the bus in summer/winter/fall/spring
Pushing the bus while in good clothes
Pushing the bus while in any clothes
Venue assuming that because you have a bus you can use it as dressing facility
Giving up bathroom so more can be stored inside
Finding someone to tow a bus
Getting quick, quality repairs

AND FINALLY…admitting that even though you have a gazillion problems with a bus it’s still better than cars, trailers, and vans.


I was on a choir/orchestra tour (Continental Singers & Orchestra) in 1965 that had too many personnel for our bus. We put seven folding chairs down the aisle and once we were all in place we stayed there ‘til the next stop. We also had a double cab truck traveling with us. One time when the bus broke down we had to move to a rented bus. They, of course, wouldn’t let us do that, so seven extra guys were assigned to the truck and ended up riding in the back all night.

The New Hope bus (circa 1969-72) had our name on the side, 14 double seats and a place for hang up bags and instruments in the rear. New Hope was the New Hope Singers for the first two years of its existence, and we couldn’t wait to get the “singers” part off the bus sign after we added brass. New Hope sounded more like a rock group. Nothing inside was customized though. Each person had a double seat and in time we were mapped out into neighborhoods. Drummer, Lynn Coulter, called the back couple of sets of seats, Garwood Heights, after the Garwood refuse trucks he worked on when he collected garbage for a parish in New Orleans. I, as road manager, sat in the very rear seat behind Lynn so I could survey my domain at all times. (the former manager had sat in front and never looked back except to glare) It was the high rent district of Garwood Heights. The seats where the two girl singers sat in 1971 was the called the red light district. The seats occupied by Craig Ware, and his wife Sharon, were called the warehouse. The seat of Bill Schenk, trombonist, was know as the neighborhood news stand because of all the magazines and books he kept around. And so on. We were indeed a silly bunch.

My very first New hope Singers tour (fall of 1969) our manager Will was married and the happy couple had just had a baby so….you guessed it, a set of seats was taken out and a baby named Tod came with us for the first four months of travel. Added to the normal strange smells that waft thru any bunch of people familiar with each other was the rancid and ripe smell of a diaper from time to time. One time the new Mom (Louise) was casually tossing a full diaper toward the garbage can in the front of the bus and it landed on the accelerator pedal foot of the driver, unfolding and dumping (pun intended) it’s load on his unsuspecting shoe.

My second year with the newly renamed New Hope (1970) our newly wed manager and his wife bought a puppy when we were in the Seattle area that fall. If you thought that baby poop was bad you obviously haven’t had the priviledge of being the first one to the bus in the morning, opening the bus and experiencing baby dog doo doo throughout the bus. In all reverence I must say that the dog died (distemper) within weeks…also on the bus…and we endured the total grief of the parents for days. Fortunately it was the catalyst that caused them to leave the road.

The bus of the group LIFE (1974) was a welcome sight after our inaugural year of traveling in a station wagon and cargo van. Painted with red, white, and blue stripes, and our name, we announced ourselves wherever we went. It already had something like 12 million miles on it from Greyhound and a charter company. We took out seats in the back and installed two bunks on the back right side (primarily for drivers) and clothes bars on the right. That and a bit of carpet made us happy for a while.

Once, while approaching a major intersection (where a busy road crosses a four lane state route) in northern Ohio in the LIFE bus, the drummer/driver Andy yelled “no brakes!” …and I, standing in the well, grabbed the bar and alerted the group “hang on”. We sailed thru and onto a small service road on the other side and felt pretty good about it until a trucker using his CB told us he had come with inches of slamming into us.

The “new” LIFE bus that came on the road as I was going off in 1977 was an ex-Trailways from Miami (also with millions of miles on it) and on the first trip west, after turning on the heat, the cockroaches came scurrying out of every crevasse and hole. The group ended up “bombing” it three times throughout the trip before being reasonably sure the legions of critters were dead. That bus was remodeled to have wall-to-wall carpet, twelve bunks, twelve closets, and twelve seats and some storage. Very comfortable and practical without spending a lot of money.

ALL fellow travelers of the road in the 70’s, the Spurrlows, Common Ground, Imperials, Renaissance, Continentals, Truth, Bridge or what’s-the-name-of-that- group from John Brown University…ALL had bus problems. But…we were traveling in our home. What did we expect? Think about how many things can go wrong in a home; leaky pipes, garbage disposal, roof, squeaky mattress, cracks in the basement floor, short-circuit on a lamp, T.V. blacks out, bugs and varmints, broken chair, whatever…

The bus was our home sweet home. It was our dining room, bedroom, recreation room, music and relaxing room, dressing room and closet, storage room…and it is where you received guests, whether it is family, friends, pastor, principal, agent, police officer, etc. The chances that the whole bus will be ship shape at any given time for a quick-look-see-tour are nil. Hence, when inviting anyone aboard you automatically offer a disclaimer that sounds like this…”please excuse the mess… we had an overnighter a week ago Wednesday and haven’t gotten things back into place.” Many romances were started and ended in bus seats. Tour can make fickle lovers…even more fickle. Nothing like a fighting tour couple to make people take sides. In the early days the motto of NO PDA (public display of affection) was the standard. But in the dark…on those long, dark overnight trips a guy can lose his sense of propriety.

Well, we of the brotherhood of the bus, will never forget our experiences, both tour related and bus related. Some of our greatest tour stories, growing wilder and bigger each year we are removed from the actual time we travelled, were bus stories. I personally wouldn’t trade a minute of the years I spent on a bus. Riding, gazing out the window watching signs and pavement slip by, creating, sleeping, fellowshipping, reading…and growing as a musician and person. I am better for the hardships.
Just a hint of diesel smell brings it all back. O.K. guys…where’s the next stop?