I think Tommy was seven or eight the year we took the bus to visit Mom. This was what became known as our vacation from hell. In the first place, bus travel is never easy. We had to change buses in the middle of the night and with only about five minutes. This meant we had to not only be ready to haul ourselves and our carry on off the bus but we had to grab whatever was stowed in the cargo space and haul that and our selves to the next bus. There was no time to stop to take a toilet break or get a snack.
Bus toilets are nasty vile places.
We got to NY and Sue picked us up at the Trailways terminal. Dad had already passed on so it was just her and Mom. They had very little money. The fridge had died. They had no money to get a new one. The roof needed patching. The first full day I was there I got up on the roof and Mom handed me up the stuff to fix it with. I did the best I could. It was fall and it wasn't hot enough to heat up the tar much but I managed it.
There wasn't much to eat in the house. Sue lucked out and got a credit card in the mail. She'd applied for it but thought she would be turned down. I don't know how much credit they gave her but it was enough for her to buy Mom a fridge. Mom refused to leave the house so Sue and Tommy and I did that.
Afterwards we went to a restaurant for lunch. It was one of those places where you could buy a main course and then get anything you wanted from the buffet. We did that, but we still had no cash with us. I think I ordered some kind of steak thing but I filled up on the buffet and took the steak thing home to Mom.
I was real embarrassed that we had no money to tip the poor girl with. I tried to get them to put a tip for her on the charge slip but they said they couldn't do it. Finally, I did the only thing I could think of, I filled out one of those cards glorifying everything that lady had done for us. I feel guilty to this day for not tipping her.
You would think this would be the end of the story but we still had to get back home to Ohio. We got to the bus station early because Sue had to go somewhere else afterwards. She left us in the station. It wouldn't have been too bad but fate still had some rocks to throw at us.
The bus was late, very late. After maybe two hours, the guy running the station said he had to close up but he was sure the bus would be along in minutes so we sat outside on a bench in the hot sun. We did have a bottle of water but if we had to pee we couldn't get back inside the station. Inside was where the pay phones were, also. We waited while the sun toasted our skins and sweat poured down us.
Late afternoon came and so did the bus. Relieved to be out of the heat we got on and found a seat. I was thinking all that time in the heat, we should have had that when I was on the roof with the tar. The reason the bus was so late was really two reasons.
First they had been stopped at the Canadian border for a drug search. Everyone got off and was searched. Every single piece of luggage had to be searched. After finding nothing they were back on the road.
Within half an hour they were speeding down the Northway towards Glens Falls when a moose wandered into the path of the bus. This involved more emergency crews while the moose was being cleared off the highway and the passengers were being treated for who knows what. Another bus and a fresh driver was brought into play.
In the middle of the night we reached Syracuse, I think, where we were to change buses. However due to the lateness of our arrival we had missed our connections. There would be no other bus for us until sometime in the morning. I was told there was a bus that would come through that would take us to Erie, PA but they didn't stop there so we were not allowed to get on it.
I cajoled, I pleaded, I lied. I told them a half truth. I said my son needed more of his medicine and it was in Ohio. I needed to get him there fast. He was sick by now but there was no medicine for what he had that I knew of at that time. He was exhausted and he was covered with mosquito bites. It seems he was also allergic to some kind of toxin in mosquito venom. The glands under his armpits swelled up. There were a lot of mosquitoes in New York.
A state trooper talked with us. He said he would get us on that bus but the driver would be angry. The bus was not supposed to stop till it got to Cleveland. The passengers were angry. The driver was surly. He wouldn't let us put our stuff under the bus. We had to carry it on with us. He said he wasn't going to even get out when we got to Erie.
The station would be closed. He would open the door and it was up to us to get our stuff off before he shut the door. Luckily, an older man on the bus took pity on us and gave us his seat. Tommy sat in my lap even though he was pretty big then and fell asleep. The guy stood up the whole way. When the bus stopped he not only helped us get the stuff off the bus but he told the driver if he left while he was off the bus that he would sue the company. I believed him.
So there we were in the middle of nowhere, well, in the middle of the parking lot in the Erie Pa bus terminal. Same thing. No place to sit. No place to tinkle and nothing to do till morning came. I was so tired. Tommy was half asleep but he had to pee. I told him to go behind the trash can. There was no one around to see.
I had a little bit of change and there was a pay phone outside. I called Ruby who was supposed to pick us up there hours earlier. She was just glad to hear from us. She came and got us.
Tom was just getting home from his night shift, I think. It was something like three or four in the morning. Tommy hugged him and the two of us fell asleep on the couch dragging a blanket over us. These vacations were starting to get me down.
In the next day or so I took Tommy to the doctors. They sent us to Brown Memorial for tests. BM said he had an allergy and it might clear up on its own once the venom worked its way out of his system. If the swelling in the glands didn't go down in a month they wanted to cut him open to find out why. I said I'd think about it. There was going to be no experimenting on my kid. A month and a half later his glands were back to normal. I tried to keep him away from mosquitoes after that.
Tommy falling asleep on Grandma Bakers couch on that visit.
I have other photos of visits there but I need to check first to see if I put them in the Argyle section first.