Story Coach #3A It Started With Greyhound

It Started With Greyhound

The tall boy in the crowd stares at me, recognition dawning; I turn my head, pretending I don’t see him.  It is Mother’s Day afternoon and I am at the Greyhound Bus Station in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Half a dozen outsized gray and blue buses are parked - their signature greyhound racing down the sides. I am waiting for the one that will take me home to Atlanta where I am in nursing school. The small crowd of people raise their voices to compete with the noisy idle of the buses lined up beneath the blue overhang. Ignoring people and buses alike, pigeons strut about pecking at bits of invisible crumbs on the dirty sidewalk.

Suddenly Daddy waves his arm, saying, “There’s Reese Dorsey! I bet he’s going back to GA Techl Hey, Reese!”
Me, tugging on his arm, “Daddy, shh! Don’t call him over here!”
The tall boy turns and walks toward us.

Daddy: “Hey Reese, what are you doing here? Are you taking the bus back to Atlanta?”

Me: “Oh, good grief!”

Reese Dorsey is a senior at Georgia Tech. We both come from a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Reese and I went to school together but he is two years older than I am. It isn’t that I don’t like him, I just prefer traveling alone. Reese is one of the smart ones, and too busy to have ever noticed me. He talks easily with my parents; I ignore him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

I can’t help but see that Daddy and Reese are the same height. Not many people are as tall as my Daddy.  Reese is what people call clean-cut, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He looks relaxed wearing a light blue button-down oxford shirt and tan corduroys. He looks like he is comfortable in his own skin. In high school he played basketball, was President of the Senior Class and in the Honor Society.. Like I said, smart. They are talking about school. He is majoring in textiles, a lucrative industry.

A bus pulls in, “Chattanooga” displayed in the destination window.  My bus. It will change to “Atlanta Express” when we pull out. I grab my overnight bag and turn to hug Mama and Daddy. Reese shakes hands with Daddy; I turn and climb the steps. 

I choose my favorite seat by the window.  Reese slips into the seat beside me. As we pull out of the station, I wave to Mama and Daddy. The bus doesn’t lurch or make awkward movements, just smoothly glides over the highway to Tunnel Hill, twin tunnels burrowed through Lookout Mountain.  It is a 2 ½ hour trip – I usually read or nap. Tonight I am listening to the tall lanky boy beside me. I am not pleased.

I pull out my book. “I usually read on the bus going back,” I inform him tersely, hoping he will take the hint. He doesn’t.
“What are you reading? I don’t get much chance to read unless it is a textbook,” he smiles at me somewhat apologetically. He does have a nice smile.
I show him the book. “I don’t really know much about it yet; I just started it.”
“Have you ever read ….” and he is off talking a mile a minute. I have never known a boy who talked as much as he does. Usually I have trouble getting them to talk at all!

We are back in Georgia now and the hilly, northwest terrain. We will travel through small towns - Brainard,  Dalton, Calhoun and Cartersville without stopping. This is the route of the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862. They say the roads here follow old Indian trails through the valleys and around ridges. Our road, Highway 41, is a two-lane blacktop. We rock along smoothly.

This is a pretty area, largely untouched by urbanization. I gaze out the window paying little attention to the noise around me. We travel through gently undulating green hills. It is spring and red bud and wild dogwood trees are in bloom, sprinkled haphazardly over the landscape. Patches of jonquils are dotted in yards of long forgotten farmhouses.  Farms cover large areas of the countryside; cows graze in fields behind wooden fences. We pass long stretches of forest, the occasional lake. Do I really prefer the city to this tranquil panorama?

             

I love Atlanta but whenever I have a weekend off I head home for a few days of Mama’s home cooking and sleeping in my own bed. I have made the trip often enough to know the driver and how not to get left behind. Cal is the driver, a short, slim man, very neat in his blue-grey uniform. He routinely drives the Detroit Express north and the Miami Express south.  His driving is incredibly smooth, an easy rocking that could lull you to sleep. I plan my trips to get on his bus. This weekend was special. It was Mother’s Day and I was fortunate to have the weekend off.  Of course I went home.

Beside me, Reese is talking about his job in a body shop. I remember him and an old boyfriend working on cars when we were in high school. He has worked with NASCAR building cars. “That was a lot of long nights, long hours, a lot of traveling,” he explains. It is obvious he likes working on cars.

He talks about school and the textile business; he is concerned that he doesn’t have a job lined up when he graduates in December. He has co-oped through college, working at the textile mill in our home town. Still he has gotten through school in record time. I had never thought about textiles before and how much is involved in making the cloth that becomes our clothes, curtains, dish towels. Clearly he enjoys his chosen career. He is actually pretty interesting.

He talks about his room-mate who is a motorcycle mechanic. He is from our hometown too, but I don’t know him. He talks about his family – his Dad is a tool and die maker (I didn’t even know what that was,) and his Mother stays at home and keeps house and sews. He has one brother who is 10.  He speaks of his family with obvious caring.  I suppose something good must be said for a college boy to go see his Mother on Mother’s Day.

Reese talks about his car. It is a rattletrap he says – a way to get around. It breaks down routinely but he is a mechanic; he patches it up and it keeps going. He says he doesn’t drive his car home because it is cheaper to ride the bus. He left his car at the bus station; maybe he will give me a ride back to the dorm. 

As day turns to dusk, lights shine from the occasional house.   In Marietta, home of the Big Chicken, the two lane turns into a 4 lane highway that takes us into Atlanta. It is now dark, the lights here only a hint of the dazzling display we will see in Atlanta. As we enter the city, the skyline is a welcoming display of lights. It is beautiful and I am glad to be home.

The bus turns off on Spring Street and continues to the bus station.  As we pull into the allotted slot, we gather our belongings.  Reese takes my overnight bag from me.
“Can I take you home?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply. I don’t have to think about it.

His car is a black ‘54 four-door Ford. He was telling the truth – it is pretty ragged looking and noisy but it starts without any problem. He is a careful driver. At the dorm he opens the door for me and walks me to the door, carrying my overnight bag. He is such a gentleman. It seems natural that we hold hands.

“I guess you have to go in?” he asks; he knows I have a curfew. I nod.
He shuffles his feet. He clears his throat.
“Would you like to go out with me sometime?”
He is a very interesting young man; gentlemanly, handsome, well-spoken, smart. I enjoyed the trip with him. I tell him, “Yes. Yes, I would.” and I mean it.

Of all the trips I have made home, that is one journey I am very glad I made – and that Reese made the trip at the same time. He called me the next day and asked me to go to a picnic with him the coming Saturday. It sounded like fun and I wanted to see him again. I said yes.

Five months later we were married. Forty-eight years, two sons and two grandchildren later we are still married, he is still talking. I finished school and worked as a nurse for 47 years. After graduation,he accepted a job as plant chemist at a finishing plant in South Carolina; years later when the textile industry waned, he became an electrician. We live in a quiet suburb in a two story Cape Cod style house with our two cats – oh, and Candy and Lucy, our two retired racing greyhounds.

Written by Dianne Housch Conley

31 August 2013