Bus Station Café, 1956
by Bobby Ezell
It was our Saturday night ritual. Riding in his 1953 Ford pickup, Daddy and I would make the three mile drive into town to see the picture show. Gene Autry and Randolph Scott were common Saturday night stars. The plot of each movie was pretty much just like the last one we’d seen.
However routine the movie was, the after the movie ritual was always a high point in the evening. After we’d watched our favorite cowboys overcome countless bad guys, we’d drive across the street and sit in front of the bus station and watch the Continental Trailways buses and their riders enter and depart. This part of the evening added a special mystery to a young boy because the bus riders represented something far different from the things I saw each day.
My east Texas hometown was located about half way between Dallas and Houston. It was a perfect place for a rest and leg stretch for the bus travelers. Our town was small; no more than 800 families in the community. I knew all of them; I seldom saw a face I didn’t recognize and seldom saw a person who didn’t recognize me.
But at the bus station, things were different. I would see people there who’d never been in our town. They didn’t dress like the people I knew. The ladies on the buses wore gloves and the men wore slacks. Most of the men in my community wore overalls; the women wore long dresses but never gloves.
The bus riders would make their way from their bus and go inside the eating area of the café. Some sat at the counter, some at the square tables. Many ordered pie, the specialty of the bus station café. The pies weren’t chiffon topped but rather baked with stripes of crust on top of the fruit filling. Coffee was the beverage of choice.
Daddy and I would watch the bus riders from the darkness of the front seat of his pickup. A Philco radio inside the bus station played loud enough that we could hear it well. Saturday night was Grand Ole Opry night on the radio. Lefty Frizzell would croon “I love you a thousand way-hey’s” while the mysterious bus riders munched their pie and made swooping noises with the hot coffee.
As the break time ended, the riders made their way slowly back to their seats on the bus. The door would shut behind them and the bus with a large glowing sign on the front identifying the city of its destination would slowly make its way out of the station.
I’d sit in daddy’s pickup and watch the rear amber and red lights on the bus disappear in the black along state highway 75. As I sat peering at the black road where the bus had just been, I’d wonder about the lives of these strange, exciting people who had visited our town. They seemed to hold a power and mystery that they only partially revealed in their short visit. They came from a mysterious place unknown to me, left a little of their mystery in their brief stop, and then headed into the night for a destination that I could only dream about.
by Bobby Ezell
It was our Saturday night ritual. Riding in his 1953 Ford pickup, Daddy and I would make the three mile drive into town to see the picture show. Gene Autry and Randolph Scott were common Saturday night stars. The plot of each movie was pretty much just like the last one we’d seen.
However routine the movie was, the after the movie ritual was always a high point in the evening. After we’d watched our favorite cowboys overcome countless bad guys, we’d drive across the street and sit in front of the bus station and watch the Continental Trailways buses and their riders enter and depart. This part of the evening added a special mystery to a young boy because the bus riders represented something far different from the things I saw each day.
My east Texas hometown was located about half way between Dallas and Houston. It was a perfect place for a rest and leg stretch for the bus travelers. Our town was small; no more than 800 families in the community. I knew all of them; I seldom saw a face I didn’t recognize and seldom saw a person who didn’t recognize me.
But at the bus station, things were different. I would see people there who’d never been in our town. They didn’t dress like the people I knew. The ladies on the buses wore gloves and the men wore slacks. Most of the men in my community wore overalls; the women wore long dresses but never gloves.
The bus riders would make their way from their bus and go inside the eating area of the café. Some sat at the counter, some at the square tables. Many ordered pie, the specialty of the bus station café. The pies weren’t chiffon topped but rather baked with stripes of crust on top of the fruit filling. Coffee was the beverage of choice.
Daddy and I would watch the bus riders from the darkness of the front seat of his pickup. A Philco radio inside the bus station played loud enough that we could hear it well. Saturday night was Grand Ole Opry night on the radio. Lefty Frizzell would croon “I love you a thousand way-hey’s” while the mysterious bus riders munched their pie and made swooping noises with the hot coffee.
As the break time ended, the riders made their way slowly back to their seats on the bus. The door would shut behind them and the bus with a large glowing sign on the front identifying the city of its destination would slowly make its way out of the station.
I’d sit in daddy’s pickup and watch the rear amber and red lights on the bus disappear in the black along state highway 75. As I sat peering at the black road where the bus had just been, I’d wonder about the lives of these strange, exciting people who had visited our town. They seemed to hold a power and mystery that they only partially revealed in their short visit. They came from a mysterious place unknown to me, left a little of their mystery in their brief stop, and then headed into the night for a destination that I could only dream about.