CHAPTER 27 The Magic Blue Bus

I have often heard people say that you don't remember the good times, it is the bad times that ring in our memory and test the boundaries of our beings. We just naturally expect things to be OK. We recall those times bitterly or sweetly, when we have failed or triumphed under duress.

My re-arrival in Phoenix found Bonnie had moved. The old house that she and I had occupied had been rented to another couple. Lacking no confidence, I was a lost puppy finding its way home. I decided to attempt the impossible and respond to what was the strongest urge in my mind, survival. With help from Bonnie and seventy-four of the seventy-five dollars I had left, I bought an old school bus to live in. It had been stripped of its seats and had been paneled inside. It was spacious and livable. My remaining possessions were a waterbed mattress, a few odds and ends and what was left of the Honda 360. By now it needed cylinders because the piston pin had gouged a groove in the cylinder wall. It was exactly the problem I had just repaired. I towed the bus to a parking spot in the yard of the old house near the foot of South Mountain and parked it under a large cottonwood tree.

Whether it was the challenge of survival, heatstroke or base stupidity; I set about making a life for myself, and a home in the old bus. It had originally been a school bus in Page, Arizona far to the north and was built in 1946 by International Harvester. With the exception of the baby-blue paint job, it was almost identical to the Ken Keysey Magic Bus of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test fame. It had an an engine that was mostly in pieces. There was about ten gallons of water that had been in the crankcase for a very long time. Getting it up and running was not going to be easy. On Bill's show on KCAC I was often treated to playings of "The End" by The Doors. Bill always had a fine sense of humor. My Blue Bus must have been the model for the one in that song.

Simple things became serious problems. I was allowed to use the bathroom at the house. The nearby irrigation canal became my bath and respite from the heat. Food became a serious problem and I was a smoker as well. The cheapest thing at the corner store was a bag of split peas. For a week or two they became my staple food item plus whatever Bonnie happened to bring on her visits. The heat of course, was intense. Temperatures of 115 degrees are not uncommon in the Phoenix afternoons. The bus was a solar oven. I was given the loan of a bicycle and, riding close to the safety of the canals and their cool respite from the heat, I made my way the six or so miles into town to apply for unemployment. I made that trip more than three times in as many weeks, before I finally received a check.

In the meantime without my knowledge, Bonnie began negotiating a return to the house. She wanted me to succeed in my quest for independence but she wanted to be there for me too, whether I flew or fell. I shall always be grateful for that aspect of our relationship. There is a certain compassion in the makeup of humanity that recognizes not the triumph or the failure of a fellow human being, but the struggle that person is embroiled in. In almost any endeavor throughout life, it is the struggle that people respond to, not the beginning or the end of an event. I sincerely believe that if a person attempts the impossible and is willing to give their all to that effort, sooner or later they will meet up with others of like mind. Assume you meet a person on the street who is attempting to move a large rock. They push, they sweat, they strain but most importantly, they persist. To help such a person is good luck and/or good karma, particularly if they are shouldering their own dignity like a cross. I became very good luck for a fellow who worked at the Honda parts house the day after I received my first meager unemployment check. He in turn, changed my life.

It was my fourth bicycle ride into town, this time to buy another cylinder for the Honda. The man behind the counter was about to tell me that he didn't have the part in stock when he suddenly changed the entire tack of the conversation; "You have an old Honda Dream? Wow. Would you be interested in selling it or trading it?". I replied I needed transportation of some kind. We left together to go to his place. It turned out he was married to an enormous woman who was easily all of 300 pounds. She was nice enough, but I could tell there was much more to the relationship between my friend and his woman than met the eye. Something about them was unassumingly Christian.

The deal he offered me was wonderful. For the Honda and my old waterbed mattress, plus a few albums, I was to receive a stunning baby blue 1959 Plymouth Phoenix convertible in excellent condition. I personally, was scorched brown from head to foot. I was dehydrated. I was like a cactus in the desert itself. That condition and my intact dignity was all that kept me from jumping for joy. The previous month had been agonizing. I was being set free then in a most gentle, respectful way from my own stubborn determination. It was not for the success or for the failure, it was for the struggle that I was being quietly rewarded. I cannot remember a time when a simple ride home in an automobile was more pleasant.

Wanted: handy man for warehouse. Arizona Industrial Sales, (etc.). It kind of jumped out of the newspaper at me and I was one of the first to apply. I got the job. It was a machinery sales company dealing in drill presses, bending breaks, lathes and other machine shop equipment. It was a disorganized, dusty mess as well. Most of the employees were informally on strike although it appeared they were working. The image I was supposed to fit was one of a man with a broom in one hand and a rag in another. After the lessons of the previous month, I found myself intensely motivated to not just do my job but to get my job done. Finished. Completed. I didn't want to be a handy man forever. I became therefore, the person described above who was pushing on a mighty rock. I was attempting the impossible and with the help of several incredulous co-workers, things and co-workers began to move. Equipment was dusted and sprayed with WD-40 to halt the rust. The place was swept and swept again. Unidentifiable trash was trashed. Doors were opened. Light and air was allowed in the building. Work became fun. Several of us would ride on the forklift to add weight in balancing "Big Bertha" a huge and ancient lathe, to it's natural place
against the wall. All the other lathes were arranged by size next to her.

Remarkably, things began to be easy to find and they began to sell. In a period of three months a bunch of sweaty, crazy, warehouse types brought a business back to life that had just about been declared dead, all because some fool had the tenacity to attempt the impossible. We even adopted the wearing of old neckties around our heads as head bands. It brought stares from the front office. We soon noticed the office guys would put their ties on the same way, when they had to come out to the warehouse. No one likes to see someone go insane alone. That's why we Americans are such great company for each other. In the fourth month, I was finished. It was time to move on. I had worked myself out of a job. Though I was welcome, the challenge had been met.