THE HISTORY OF THE  BICYCLE BUS, part 6

In 1993 the Seattle Newspaper did a great story about us being stuck for so long on the Olympic Penninsula for lack of money to repair the Bicycle Bus. The result of this article was something like forty of fifty letters coming to us from people who remembered the Bicycle Bus and wanted to help us get back on our feet. Most of them contained checks. And one person got hold of us who had a bus he just wanted to give us. It ran excellent and had six new tires on it. Plus he had already raised the roof a foot and a half and started to turn it into an RV. It was a 1974 Ford with a 391 cubic inch industrial engine. We accepted the bus and used the money that had come in to have welders build the coral for the bikes on the top and extend the bumpers. The two photos above show the old Bicycle Bus side by side with the new Bicycle Bus as we switch all the bicycles and everything over from one to the other. In a way it was sad to know the old bus would probably never run again. The '41 International was such a beautiful rare relic compared to the fairly common '74 Ford. Everything about it was classic, even art deco. Everywhere it went it would turn heads -- even if it didn't have any bicycles on it. Only seven of them were ever built. But the engine was impossible to repair. And even if it could be repaired, frankly, the brakes were so old that we got scared a few times. The brake linings had even caught fire once on a steep grade in Idaho and had to be put out with a fire extinguisher or the whole bus would have gone up in flames. After that incident which happened way back when we first got it, we learned to drive real slowly down steep grades, and in a very low gear, sometimes first. The only way to have fixed it right would have been to put on brake systems from a newer model bus all around, a lot of work and a lot of money. The new bus made us feel safe. The engine ran fantastic and would always be more reasonable to repair no matter what happened to it. The brakes were good too. And new tires. All it needed was some paint. We painted the new bus the same color scheme as the old bus: dark brown on the bottom, mallard duck green in the middle, and cream on the top.

The old 1941 International Bicycle Bus was well loved while it lived. It faithfully served us, gave us shelter from the storms for many years. When its years were done it went to a storage yard and settled into the grass like a workhorse retired to a farm. These two pictures left and bottom were taken by friend Pete Busk in 2001. She could still live again you know. She'd be worth investing the money in. So beautiful... That's why I keep paying monthly storage for her...

In the early Spring of 1994 we drove our "new" 1974 Ford Bicycle Bus to Southern Oregon on its first journey in this incarnation.. The picture on the right shows us headed towards Mt. Theiisen on highway 138. Ah, it was wonderfull to be back on the road again. We'd had a hiatus of something like forty two months. Long time. We wondered how difficult it would be to pick up where we left off. Actually things could never be the same. For one thing the Bike Bus had never been a great money-maker. It barely covered gas. The old '41 International used to get as much as sixteen miles per gallon. But they don't make 'em like that anymore.

The '74 Ford bus got a flat five miles per gallon. Maybe six if I was lucky. That meant it could go one third as far as the old bus on the same amount of money. So we had to forget about going to places that were way off the beaten track, like Neah Bay, where the scenery was beautiful and the people were great, but where we didn't make enough money to fill the tank.

We cut a lot of towns off our old route. In fact we cut the whole state of Washington off.  Most of the Indian reservations were gone. That tore a chunk of heart out of the Bicycle Bus experience. There were other reasons. Other things going on. Mean ignorant people. The kind who as kids pulled the wings off of butterflies and laughed and laughed. Kids like that don't always grow up and become "enlightened". They keep on enjoying the same cruel pastimes, even as adults. The wings were missing now from our Bike Bus, pulled off by "grown-ups" who had never changed their ways.

There was a place at Bandon-by-the-Sea where we could pull the nose of the Bicycle Bus right up to the edge of the parking lot at high tide and the foam from the waves would surge up around our bus. I liked to take a half a loaf of old bread and toss pieces to the bird. They'd come pluck it out of our hands. The waves would thunder and crash upon the shore, the spray and foam would fly  and the seagulls circle and call -- and we would sleep there all day long -- the sleep of survivors of shipwrecks who had staggered to a gentle shore. We would stoke our woodstove with whitened drift wood and let the sweet fragrance fill our world and heat our bus.

Our ferrets are always like that. It's all in the love you give them when you raise them. In '93 up in Washington state some people killed those two gentle little ferrets without a thought. Just to hurt us. So for that reason primarily and other similar reasons as well I was too angry to live in the state of Washington or even travel there anymore. So that pretty much left Oregon as our stomping grounds for the time being.

I had plenty of good friends in Oregon. And most of them were pretty loyal and good-hearted. Funny how Oregon is like that. Here on the right is a picture of me and Capricorn riding on my motorcycle down country roads in the summer of '95. Cappy was born in Nigeria and raised in London England -- a beautiful and very intelligent young woman who has hitchhiked all over the world. She's part of my goddessheart photography.

Just below is a picture of Gina. I love to shoot pool and so does she. So that is something we did a lot of together. She is darn good at it. Gina spent two years in the army where she was trained as a sharp-shooter and became one of the best. She knows it too. She gets a look in her eyes when she aims her pool cue that tells the story. What an interesting person she is... I mean like you gotta see her blonde dreadlocks with the beads in them to know what I mean. She had them before she joined the army and she didn't want to cut them off. They told her she  could keep them as long as they were no more than three inches long and as long as she kept them under her hat. So that is what she did all through her two years in the army. And she became a top sharp-shooter. Pretty spunky.

What a beauty she is. She told me that she felt the army had taken away her femininity and she hoped my photography would help bring it back. This picture up in the right-hand corner is from one of her photoshoots -- In my opinion it's one of the best photos I will ever take in my life.  When I created a photograph of this calibur it would become obvious to me that the art was the spirit passing through my hands and through my life. A picture like this NEEDS to be created. it is like a voice calling out from the center of the Universe.

When a person is creating art with the spirit of the Universe moving him or her and some people decide they want to destroy him or her and stop that art from existing -- they don't realize that they aren't just attacking that man or woman -- they are attacking that spirit of the Universe which has been activating the man or woman who is creating the art.

The same creator also moved Rodin to create his sculpture. If a person is base enough to believe that Rodin created his sculpture without the Divine moving through himI have very little to say to such a person. I too had a great deal of art I needed to create. Such art is not created without bucking up against people who don't understand it and don't understand the reason it needs to be created. The picture above on the right shows a whole pack of kids from Germany who were up in Umpqua hotsprings with us one night. In the morning before they left they climbed up on my bus and we took this photograph.

Ami is good friends with Ellie too. In our busy world people just don't have time or interest in other people. I loved it the way Ami was so kind to Ellie. They could talk together or take walks. Our wandering lifestyle makes Ellie's womanfriends few. Ami is sweet -- a veritable blessing to our spirits. We spent a good deal of time parked on various streets in Eugene in 1995.

The new Bicycle Bus had a reaccuring problem with the rear brakes which caused me to have to do the same large repair job several times in an attempt to fix it. I had to pull the rear wheels and remove the axels. Still the brake cylinders exploded. It took me months to realize there were right and left automatic brake adjustors and I had them reversed. I could have fixed it the first time in half a minute.

But you see if I had fixed it I would not have stayed in Eugene so long. And if I hadn't stayed in Eugene so long I would not have become friends with some very wonderful people. One thing the spirit needs to grow is good friends. The picture on the left is young Ami standing with Ellie in front of the Bike Bus over near the Keystone Cafe. When I first met Ami she was wearing a baggy old black leather jacket. She had a great smile. She became a large part of my photography and a good friend. Cheryle came driving into Eugene in an old brown VW bus in 1995. Like many of us she lived in her bus. When a person sleeps in a vehicle parked on a city streets they have to be careful.

Well it's like this: All the people who are "homeless" aren't ignorant or lazy or criminals. And people who have a nice comfortable van to live in think of it as their "house on wheels". Therefore they don't see themselves as "homeless". But since their house on wheels parks on the streets and has no mailbox address of its own they are called homeless. But a pretty young woman living on the streets is vulnerable. Because there are crazy people out there too. Cheryle found a job working in the local organic juice co-operative. So she had an income, but she needed to continue living in her vehicle until she could save up enough money for an apartment. We became friends and she began to park her VW bus at night right behind our Bicycle Bus. So that is how we got to know each other real good. We shared a lot of spaghetties together in the Bike Bus -- sat around togeher a good many hours listening to music. When she turned 21 we celebrated her birthday together, shooting pool in a local bar and drinking beer. We did a few photoshoots. Cheryle fell in love with a young rascal who lived in the neighborhood. That is a whole long other story. Anyway she got pregnant. The following year she moved to Arizona where she and her child still live. I correspond with her.

The photo up above on the left shows the rear of the Bicycle Bus in Eugene in the springtime with the flowers in bloom. The Bicycle Bus was a beautiful thing and very much loved by many Eugenians. Whenever someone wanted a bicycle repaired they only needed to come knock on my door and we would get to it right away.

Bicycle Bus on the Oregon Coast in the Sunset