By Joe Van Blunk
When you rode the Greyhound Bus just short of that point on the Island where the very edge of the land ran out and the Atlantic Ocean began, you knew you had arrived. To go any further your uniformed Driver would have to be intrepid enough to steer the bus onto the beach and into the breaking waves…Some of the buses back in the 60’s had manual sliding windows. You could click and yank them open as the Big Grey Dog down-shifted through Oak and Ocean Avenues. Within seconds a heady admixture of diesel fumes, Boardwalk aromas and briny cool breezes would waft through the stale interior. When this aromatic tide rose up to their nostrils your fellow travelers came awake from naps, daydreams and sci-fi paperbacks. And yes indeed—you had reached the end of the line at the golden neon heart of Seashore Summer.
Almost everyone from Philadelphia rode the “Wildwood Bus.” Some of them rode it routinely; others only once. All of them recall it with a smile and have a story up their sleeves. Of course I have several of my own but first…
Without dates or details the American Bus looms large in the culture and imagination of the 20th American Century. In a roughly chronological arc the bus has been used to transport school children, chain gangs, church-folks and migrant workers from fairly early on. Public urban service and long-haul transportation surely got in on the act at the ground floor as well. In the segregated South of the 1950’s Rosa Parks sat, against
the law, in the wrong seat and made history. Not much later small fleets of buses carried Civil Rights Workers (Freedom Riders) through the same enemy terrain. Some of them were bombed and burned. Then there was the Novelist Ken Kesey (One Flew Over) some 3,000 miles West with a transformed 1939 Harvester bus named “Further”. It was Day-Glow swirls and outfitted with a very elaborate sound system for music and other audio projections. This bus transported millions of people (mostly young) into an entirely new realm called Psychedelia. The American Bus drives through our books, plays, movies and television like a prop on wheels. There’s Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners and Marylin Monroe in Bus Stop. With great pathos Jon Voight rides into and out of (with Dustin Hoffman) Midnight Cowboy. In literature Jack Kerouc rides the Hound in On the Road as much as he Hitchhikes…But the Bus from Philadelphia to Wildwood, New Jersey? That had drama, romance, high and low comedy and everything in between.
Just like time, the younger you were, the bigger the bus seemed. As a boy or young teen it felt like a big metallic boat or spaceship of the 50s. And just like the waves, the riders were a mixed-bag but all of one thing at the same time: young couples, seniors, teenagers, week-end work-a-daddies, my Aunt, your Uncle, toddlers/infants, crusty drunks, old nuns and servicemen home from Viet-Nam. Some ate lunch-roll sandwiches out of wax paper. Others sipped coffee (or Old Hickory) from a thermos. There was always one guy with a fishing rod and tackle-box followed by another with a guitar or saxophone case.
At least one “Moon-Doggie” would carry on a surfboard but no luggage. Teenage girls would move to the “Big Seat” in the back with armfuls of carry-ons and snacks. But their essential piece was the little black-handled box full of 45 records and turntable that would transform a Memorial Day Efficiency into a warm-up for the Starlight Ballroom.
I do not know if the “Wildwood Bus” still leaves from Broad and Snyder. I am also unsure about who rides the bus these days. I do know that its last stop is no longer around Oak and the Boardwalk. But when all of this was real, you started to grind-out down Broad Street in the lowest gears where you left behind open fire plugs, block parties, street games—the whole July hot asphalt dream…On the Walt Whitman the whole city rose up behind you and the Delaware River flowed through it and down to the Bay. Then came the Black Horse Pike with its small towns and produce stands. You might snake your way through the “Deer Woods” on their “Backroads…” No cell phones, I-Pads, Notebooks, Nooks or Lap-Tops…Maybe a crackling transistor radio ballgame…But you might strike-up an easy conversation with the fellow-traveler beside you or across the aisle…Better yet, you could, as recommended, Leave the Driving to Us, gaze out the window with a quiet boy’s secret sense of wonder and joy and take it all in.