I'm not quite sure how to explain this. I received several comments about my "this is not a bus" posting but then came an email from my father (via my mother). Yes, my father will be 95 years old in a few months, and yes, it is a bit unusual to communicate with two nonagenerians regularly via email, but I leave that to a different day.
In any event, my father passed along a story about a marine and a bus from WWII that I must say, left me wondering about mystical closure, etc. It seems that my father's ship was in Argencia, Nova Scotia at some point during the war and was docked about 8 miles from the USO club which was apparently a very desirable destination for sailors (not entirely clear why, but I suspect Canadian girls had something to do with this). The bus from the docks to the USO was run, of course, by the marines and through a little inter-service coooperation, I guess the Navy guys were allowed to ride over as well.
Onto the bus jumps a particularly feisty yeoman who greets the marine driver with "Hello, Bellboy!"
Inter-service cooperation is quickly topped by inter-service rivalry, and the marine calmly responds "Walk!" Which the yeoman did--all 8 miles of it.
I would love to think of the cosmic symmetry of the whole thing that would be fulfilled if only that marine later fathered a boy who grew up to be a marine who met a mustang Lieutenant son of the yeoman who declares in the middle of a jungle, and despite all evidence to the contrary, that the big blue bus isn't a bus. And just think of the possibilities for today...a Navy Seal on a secret mission in Pakistan to rid the world of a hideous human being is offered a place on a stealth "bus" after his ride has "technical failures." Wouldn't THAT make a story?
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