The people’s limousine: Roll on!

When I was two years old my favorite song was “Roll On” by the popular ’80s country band Alabama.  A ballad about a mom, her children, and their 18-wheeler-drivin’ father who calls them every night to tell them he loves them, “Roll On” explored the classic country music themes of family, prayer, and truck driving.  Mostly, I think, I liked the truck driving part.  The chorus goes like this:

Roll oh highway, roll on along/ roll on Daddy ’til you get back home/ roll on family, roll on crew/ roll on Mama like I asked you to do/ and roll on eighteen wheeler, roll on. Roll On!

The end of the chorus is punctuated with a cheerful, guttural yell–Roll Awn!–which, apparently, I was fond of doing from the back of the car, strapped into my car seat, whenever this album was playing on the eight track stereo.

There’s a mythic appeal to the eighteen-wheeler, something to do with its many axles and giant stature and its ability to lug itself back and forth across our great nation with perseverance.  Who didn’t mime a whistle pull while riding down the highway as a kid, squeeling with glee when a truck driver honked his horn in reply?

But I’m actually not here to talk about trucks, rather I’d like to take a few minutes to champion my now-favorite mode of rolling on: the people’s limousine, the proletariat chariot, the grounded gondola, the city bus.  I like my car and I love my bike, but the bus is the under-sung hero of the daily commute.

I love tuning my iPod to the most recent episode of This American Life, stashing my camera in my pocket, raising the hood to my rain jacket, and striding down the street toward the bus stop.

The bus gets a bad rap, though I’ll admit there are reasons for this: you stand hip to cheek (the lower one) among people with varying levels of personal hygiene; grandma, a dad with a stroller, and a girl on crutches all pile on, shuffling you into the back aisle, where you grasp the dangling plastic loops, riding the waves of the route; or sometimes a bus will be so full it passes you by, a near inevitability when you’re running late to work.

But busses are so integral to urban life they’ve become a part of popular culture.  The bus has spawned movies like Speed, a whole host of songs, including “The Wheels on the Bus (go round and round)” and “Ain’t no Fuss, Just Take the Bus,” and an excellent essay by Adam Gopnik.  And that’s just for starters.

I’ll admit, I don’t love tour busses or school busses–the city bus is the one for me. City busses wheeze down our streets with a hum, crackle and whirr, like platelets charging through the veins of the city.  Though they may not operate quite like clockwork, busses get me where I need to go.  And while I’m getting there I can read an article in the new Believer, or giggle at David Sedaris on TAL, or stare curiously at the crowd around me, checking out the tattoo on one guy’s neck and the hickey on another’s, noting who overslept and who hasn’t slept, and who probably shouldn’t have worn her bright pink boots with her bright read coat (well that one is me). No indulgence is quite as pleasant as bus voyeurism.

And let’s not forget the guy at the wheel.  He is my chauffeur, my designated driver, my Captain Ahab, my Charon.  Okay, so maybe not the last two–but a good bus driver is like a good friend. He picks me up and gives me a smile. He doesn’t judge my mismatched outerwear.

So, let’s go for a ride, me and you.  Greater Vancouver may not be your most exciting destination, but it’ll be fun.  I promise.  I’ve saved us a seat.

ps-  If you’re looking for the lyrics to “Ain’t no Fuss, Just Take the Bus,” don’t bother.  I was dismayed by the absence of great bus songs, so I made one up.  I hope you’ll forgive me because if I were to write a song about the bus (that is, if I had any musical capacity what so ever), that’s what my song would be called.  And it’d be (obviously) a great song.