Tommy Collison

While joking around with a friend, I decided to check out the Greyhound timetables, just to see what they were like.

The result:

A 3-day journey, taking you through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio[1], West Virginia, Philadelphia and New York.

Admittedly, I’m choosing one of the longest possible routes, but there’s something nice about the idea of a 3-day-long bus journey. It’s a sort of coming-of-age thing. I have this hugely romanticized ideal of the Greyhound passing through Middle America. There’s light harmonica music underscoring the journey. The bus driver is a quiet man with a hard, chiseled face. Life-long friendships with people from far-off places are forged. The only thing these unfamiliars have in common is the fact that they’re on this bus. It’s almost something out of a Hollywood movie tagline: Two strangers find friendship in the most unlikely of settings — connection in an isolating age.

Jesus Christ, I can spout some awful quasi-artistic crap sometimes.

Either way, it’s an experience — it’s unlike something you’ve ever done, or are likely to do again.

Keeping this in the back of my mind for now…

[1] Summer in Ohio, anyone?