Presidential pondering Monthly Mutterings

As an older citizen and veteran voter in many, many elections; just wanted to say I'm especially not pleased with the campaign being waged between two presidential candidates and their parties. So this election thus far, I have contributed little to the presidential candidates and their parties; I'm focusing more on the Montana candidates.

My suggeston, that next time you start getting into an argument about politics and your tormentor asks if you are a Republican or Democrat: Look them right in both eyes and say, "I AM AN AMERICAN BY GOD!" "AND IT'S ABOUT TIME WE STARTED ACTING AS ONE!"

Fortunately, though, we've had some pretty weak presidents and even crooked ones in the past, we've been able to survive and later prosper. I hope we continue with such good fortune for America, but it's hard to teach our children patriotism when both parties vying for our word's highest office act, talk, and write as they do.

The great bus rides

Been reading about Greyhound lines cutting 250 routes off their bus services. As the bus business continues to decline, I'm called back to remember my first one-day bus trip; a summer Sunday outing.

As a junior in high school and without a car, (not unusual in the early 40s), my girlfriend and I boarded a funny looking bus in Seattle, Wash. for the relatively short trip to the Edmonds Ferry Dock, for a day trip across Puget Sound to a place called Port Ludlow, an abandoned lumber mill, on a beautiful fjord with a sandy beach.

But the bus? ….. was a long, 30-passenger trailer, attached to a tractor unit separate from the bus, (although the driver controlled this contraption from within the bus… with us.) The tractor unit was the front end of a 1934 Ford V8, and I must say, fairly quiet.

We got off the bus in Edmonds, to the Ferry to Port Ludlow (route now discontinued), and after a short walk from the Port Ludlow Ferry Dock to the long abandoned mill and enjoyed our picnic, the water, the sand, and two monumental sunburns.

During the return trip to Seattle, we sat and held hands among a group of women on their way to the big city, while they clucked and whispered about our matching sunburns and tch! tch! holding hands.

I'll never forget the girl, and I'll never forget the unique bus. But that was before jets, and Amtrak, and all that.

After that, the only long-distance bus trip I took was when I was in the USMC during the Korean War. I busted out of Camp Lejeune, N. C. and took the bus to Washington, D. C., to see another very dear friend; who, when I got called to active duty, joined the State Department and was in Embassy School.

Our visit over, I sadly climbed about the same bus back to North Carolina on a very hot day. The bus was a 28-passenger "Flexible," and its air conditioning was simply: open the windows.

I noticed the first four rows of seats were vacant on the left hand side of the bus. After we got going at a pretty good clip South on U. S. Highway #1, I also found why the seats were empty.

The driver chewed "Tobaccy" and just had to spit. But on a bus at 60 miles per hour and open windows, you can pretty well guess how much residual "chaw" we got just four windows back.

The bus business used to be BIG TIME throughout the U. S. with Trailways and many other large transportatlion companies battling Greyhound for national superemacy in bus travel. Now, the private auto, jet aircraft, and Amtrak have taken their toll, except for smaller lines such as we have in Montana, and they are not doing well. And bus service itself, though cheaper, can be trying.

Let's hope bus service doesn't drop off any more. Montana needs good bus service. Our cities are small and far apart, and buses are still the one of the few forms of mass transit we have.

Waldo Winchester is the pen name of a longtime Whitefish Pilot columnist.