The Bus
Whenever I talk to old friends, one of the most popular topics becomes "the bus". So, I've put on this page, a couple of the rare photos I have, of the legendary party room on wheels.
After saving $850 to buy a van (like so many of my friends had), I found this old Cook County Hospital bus in a used car lot on Cicero Ave. How could I resist. So after gutting out the bus seats and poles and stretcher hardware I remodled it into a bedroom with a forced air furnace, closet, stove, cooler, pull out beds and of course an 8-track stereo system. A true recreational vehicle.
Did my parents mind? Of course not, as long as it was parked out front of the house and that's where I lived, it was alright with them.
The best pictures I have are from an eight week trip to Canada in the summer of '72, I think! Here you see Chuck, Benny and me, in Ottawa, making our way over the North side of the Great Lakes.
Our ultimate (and I do mean ultimate) destination was Quebec City. Pictured here are Louise, Wendy and Nancy, our three beautiful tour guides! Louise and Nancy were French Canadian, and Wendy was from New York. Obviously we spent most of our trip here.
Here's Chef Chuck, burnin' some corned beef hash!
Here (left) are half of our 14 passengers stopped somewhere between Wawa and Ottawa Canada. We were feasting on a great catch of Walleyed Pike we caught at Lake Nipigon.
Legend has it that some people spent so long in Wawa waiting for a ride, that they ended up getting married and making it their permanent home! When we heard that, we were determined to pick up every hitchhiker we saw. Fourteen was all we could fit.
And here's the perfect ending.
Yeah so the bus didn't have a bathroom.
But, who needed one anyway. Benny didn't!
And so, the trip ended. After dropping Wendy off in New York, we spent a few days with her generous parents. Then the long trip home. We made it back almost three months after we left, with 35 cents to spare between us!
