Thursday, October 23, 2008

Back during Bus Driving Days

Yes, Sam took his Wife Mary Jane and 4 year old Son to St.Louis -


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
The old Greyhound Bus Station in St.Louis adjoined a huge fruit market. In fact if the sidewalk was included, the incoming Greyhound Buses must drive thru part of the fruit market before unloading the passengers.
Crates of oranges and baskets of fruit placed dareingly near to the area in which the right front wheel of the bus must pass.
On occasion, as accidents do happen, a crunch and out across the sidewalk rolled the fruit, some to be mashed by the rear dual wheels as the bus continued in. Then the yelling and tearing his hair of the fruit manager. Forgetting to speak English momentarily, then shows a Greyhound official, now using English with hand talk how careless that Greyhound driver was to tumble a fruit basket.
Inside the fruit market were various sections, imported dried fruit, candied peels, bakery products, a pickle department. Fish too, live or cleaned on demand. A huge fascinating place.
One day a Greyhound driver had taken his wife and eldest son for a trip to St. Louis from Springfield Missouri. The eldest son was four years old. The driver had brought the Schedule bus up from the garage to drive back to Springfield, silverside bus, this being back in the 1950s, those old buses having no restrooms.
With about a half hour to spare, the driver and wife and boy decided to visit the fruit market. Right off the boy saw those jars of green olives with the bright red on one end of the olive, his favorite. The mother knew he would be thirsty after eating the olives and said no, you would drink too much water and no restroom on the bus. Just eat one of those bananas your dad is offering you. Then the tantrum. Boy following dad, thinking he would give in. The driver held the boy in one arm while he cried and struggled and the sack of bananas in his other hand,
Dozens of people watching, the wife had retreated a few steps and an alert observing lady pointed at the driver and said, I've been watching that bus driver eating those bananas and the boy has'nt even had one. He should be reported. sam

Another from AOL Archives - CUT and PASTE

Hopefully , AOL journal friends will transfer archives to Google.
Only a few days left 'til November. sam


CONTENTED COWS
Farm boys way back then did'nt really need therapy, busy doing what comes naturally, happy to be healthy and alive.
The 'food experts' had'nt yet surfaced, so we country boys ate it if it tasted good.
Mid-morning, Springtime, drop the tools for a few minutes and go sit under a shade tree by the fence dividing the field from the cowpasture. Those contented milk-cows had lain down, also in the shade, pleasantly chewing their 'Cud'. Their What you might say ?
A Cud , in event you don't know, could be a sizeable chunk of chewing tobacco, being rolled around in the jaw of a chewer. With a milk-cow it is a ball of food that has been retrieved from her First Stomach. She has two stomachs.
Sitting there in the shade watching her cough up a cud that was one of several assimilated during the early morning grazing. A City boy seeing that , might think the cow had the hiccups. Not So.
People can also enjoy their cud, whether it be a grisley old guy with his chew or in contrast, a beautiful young lady chewing that gum at slow, medium or fast speed.
We don't need two stomachs though. One is ample to maintain our weight. Sometimes a diet might be a good help. So many different kinds of diet by various experts.
Learned of another diet just yesterday, indirectly, was just an innocent bystander, they did'nt even know I heard. You can learn a lot that way. Careful with this diet was the word. Possible to lose too much weight too fast. Simple and easy liquid diet.
Prune Juice. Eight Ounces early morn' on empty stomach. sam

ENTRY from AOL ARCHIVES

If any Google Bloggers are wondering how to transfer entries from AOL to Google Bloggers, this entry you are reading is an example.
Cut and paste from AOL archives and place it here into the Google Post.
AOL archives may also be transferred to WORDPAD or MY DOCUMENTS. Once in place in Wordpad, make a disc for permanent record.
This entry 'Old Tulsa' is one of four years of AOL entries of my journal which had the title, SAM SAYS.


OLD TULSA
During the 'Oil Gusher'days in the Tulsa area,the late 20s, Tulsa was not a large city. Our family lived at 7th and Harvard, pretty well on the east edge of town.
Farther east was Sheridan Hills beginning to develop, if memory is correct that area was called White City. I remember it because the developers were handing to car occupants each a small box of marshmallows.
Just west of our house was the Tulsa University, on 7th street, then on down the hill was Kendall Grade School.
The electric streetcar went out to the University, then the conducter would get out and move that overhead apparatus around and connect the pully wheel back under the electric wire. From that point to the Kendall Grade School was downgrade, making it necessary to use the brakes.
One Halloween night an innocent looking little girl that lived just across from the school used up a bar of that homemade lye soap greasing the streetcar tracks, rendering the brakes to no avail.
Faster and faster, rocking to and fro, jumped the tracks at the foot of the hill, turning left and onto the school yard .Rough ride though did not overturn. That innocent looking little girl told the investigators that the passenger's heads were sure bobbing up and down.
Not far from there was the Whittier Square, combination of businesses and residences. Perhaps the most popular was the Circle Theater, had began showing some 'Talkies'. The huge Organ to this Day remains as does the 'movies' service.
On your computer,if interested, type Tulsa Circle Theater for a very interesting and informative report of it's restoration.
Nearby was the Circus Grounds where Famous performances took place. Also the farmer's market. Once during Peach season dad and I were at the farmer's market, hopefully he would buy a watermelon. A truck stopped near us and was loaded with peaches , could smell them as he stopped.
That peach truck driver looked at dad and kept looking, then walked up to dad and said, when we finished loading these peaches in Grand Junction, you must have known a shorter route thanI to get here ahead of me. Dad said, that was my 'look alike' brother in Grand Junction that helped you load those peaches.
So in October 1929, the Crash of Wall Street helped bring on the Great Depression of the 1930s. That was when we moved to Chouteau to four rooms and a Path. sam