When I first saw the Bus, instantly
a fantasy popped into my mind. I saw it, much younger, brightly painted with
flowers and peace signs, bouncing down the road from Cherry Springs. Rock music
pours from open windows… King Crimson or The Who… and the sweetish aroma of
marijuana mingles with the exhaust smoke in its wake. Suddenly the bus coughs,
sputters, and the engine dies. It keeps coasting down the hill, until the
driver notices a dirt road on the right and a grassy spot on the corner and
steers the bus to a safe halt there.
“Hey man, what’s up?”
“I think we’re out of gas.”
“Bummer.”
“It’s pretty here.” A girl with long
hair and a billowy skirt floats down the bus steps and whirls around on the
lawn. “Why don’t we just stay?”
“We could homestead here,” another
girl says dreamily. “Like a commune. We could live off the land and be
organic. Hey, is there any of that pizza left?”
“Yeah.” An arm passes a slice out a
window.
“I think we’re meant to be here,”
the first girl says. “The bus stopped, like karma, man.”
Two bearded guys come out. One
gathers rocks for a fire ring, one waves the girls along as they collect
firewood. Shortly they’re lying around a campfire, passing a wineskin, playing
guitar, and nibbling pizza. “We’ll live in the Bus. It’ll be groovy.”
I felt a very real connection to
these people from the depths of my imagination, born the instant I saw the
rusty, whitewashed old bus with its rickety attached plywood side room. Of the
many RVs, shacks, and eccentrically-built camp buildings in the area, the Bus
captured my imagination, and that of any other visitors that rounded the curve
of the road from Galeton to Cherry Springs and saw it on its grassy corner. Six
miles from anywhere in either direction, it was a landmark for decades. A
photographer did a photostudy of it; his research showed it was some very
rare model of bus from the late 30’s or early 40’s, and his beautiful photos
were snapped up by collectors.
That is why the community reacted
with horror when the latest owners of that property demolished the plywood
shack and began dismantling the bus itself! Car traffic increased because people
drove by just to look at the slowly-filling dumpster as the bus disappeared,
back to front, a little at a time. We mourned. This was a piece of Potter
County history (or possibly Potter County fantasy) vanishing as we watched.
Personally, I felt like I was losing the connection with my own hippie roots,
although I’ll be the first to say my theory about the Bus’s origins is
completely out of my fertile imagination. But I was not alone in my grief. The
loss of this venerable landmark was the hot topic of gossip in
Galeton’s cafés and taprooms all summer.
When nothing was left of the Bus
except the cab, the dumpster vanished. A month later, a pre-fab white aluminum
structure, like a very large shed without windows, appeared where the passenger
section of the bus and the side-room used to be. The gutted cab sits a yard
from one wall, looking forlorn. It appears to be turning its back on the characterless
aluminum monstrosity behind it. In shock after its massive passenger-section
amputation, its windshield has the vacant, blank look of a skull’s eyes. Where
have the dreams gone?
Yet, as sad and pathetic as the Bus’s
skull is, I hope the landowners have plans to restore and preserve it somehow.
Will they connect it to the aluminum shed in the spring? Will it get new window
glass, a cheery paint job? This may not revive the old Bus’s soul, but it would
at least keep the memory of a long-time Potter County landmark alive. The era
that brought the Bus here is long gone, but it’s worth remembering.
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