Page 6-The Michigan Daily Magazine
ANN ARBOR'S BUS TERMINAL-The door flaps open and shut, the lines lengthen and shorten, people wait, shuffle, walk, sit, stand, come and go, and the busses
wove in and out with their loads-and the ticket offices remain open, always selling to ladies with stuffed shopping bags, tired servicemen, pert coeds, white-haired men . . .
Bus erminal Blues
'The Public Address System Blares Something Unintelligible ...'
By 11CHAEL KRAFT ACING THE ticket booths and
iastai Iitr seated among rows of stiff
ON HURON street, almost hid- benches, twa construction work-
den behind the stores of 'wn- ers, their faces lined and ruddy -
town Ann Arbor, is the Grey- perehaps from the sun, loudly
condemn the Detroit Tigers. Ignor- ,.
hound bus temiial n ing them, the other waiting pass-
It's a place of movement, yet engers thumb through newspapers
the activity is often sporadic. or just stare at the opposite wall.
A boy of about five eludes his
The baggage porter 1 e ^ r s mother and runs up and down the
against the back door, carefully IaisIcs.
smoking a cigarette butt. On a Finally, a bus pulls in and the
hard wood bench, a -drunk sits in public address system blares some-
thing unintieligible about "Jack-
undisturbed sleep. The ticket sit, Three Rivers and Chicago,'
clerks, chatting idly, wait for cus- His mother in tow, the buy rushes
tomers, out onto the loading platform, fol-
Soon they drift in, on( or two lowed by the other impatient tra-
at a time. A greyIa-ed woman velers.
burdened with a suitease and over- As passengers embark, the porter
flowing shopping bag shuffles up svings open the luggage compart-
to buy a ticket for Detroit. An- met doors and begins loading
other woman rushes to the win- packages and suitcases. T h e
dow, seeking assurance that she throatly idle of the engine, the
isn't late for the next Ypsilanti banging doors and the noise of
bus. street traffic turn the loading dock
The entrance continues to flap into a place of noisy excitement.
open and a short lines forms Finally, the passengers seat
open nd a short line forms quick- themselves and the driver lams
y. Tickets sell briskly for Jack- the door. The bus roars away, leav-
ton, Ypsilanoff and Detroit, the ing only a trail of strong fumes.w
0m0st frequent destinations. Occa- The porter, his work finished
sionally, the clerk reaches for a unfit the next bus in twenty min-
ticket to Flint, Toledo or Chicago, utes, ambles back into the waiting
the farthest transfer point from room, fishing in his pockets for THE BUSY MAN-"The porter, his work finished until the next bus in twenty minutes, ambles
Ann Arbor. another cigarette, back into the waiting room, fishing in his pockets for another cigarette ...,"
BUSLOAD AFTER BUSLOAD-People from all walks of life are seen in line when the bus is ready to leave, people who stop to look, people who hurry on, and people who
don't even realize what's going on around them. The well-lit marquee In front of the Huron Street station proclaims the location of the terminal to the sleepy town.