TRAIN BLOG (WSAU) My first bus trip home from college did not go well.

The University Union chartered two busses each weekend, one to New York and one to Boston. Every weekend there were at least a busload of students headed there, and the bus tickets were priced at-cost. It couldn’t be cheaper. $20 to New York. $25 to Boston. Leave right from campus on Friday afternoon. Return to Syracuse University Sunday night. If you couldn’t leave on Friday, or wanted to come home later than Sunday, you could book part of your trip on a regularly scheduled Greyhound for $8 more.

I would return to campus on Monday, so I took the student bus down to New York City and a regular Greyhound back. The trouble started on my return trip.

The crowd that boarded the bus at the New York Port Authority was rough looking. I started to nap as the bus crawled through traffic to the Lincoln Tunnel. I woke a few hours later to the sight of a New York State police cruiser, lights flashing, outside my window. There was another squad car on the other side of the bus. Soon our bus was surrounded as the driver pulled over to the side of the road.

The scraggly-looking man behind me got up to use the rest room at the rear of the bus.

A trooper with a big hat and a long service-weapon boarded the bus. Two others followed. They went to the back of the bus, drew their weapons, and knocked on the rest room door. They forced it open. The man inside was flushing the evidence – plastic baggies of cocaine – down the toilet. He was pulled off the bus in handcuffs. Another trooper came back on the bus to retrieve his luggage. I looked out the window as the large suitcase was opened. More cocaine.

I decided the bus wasn’t for me.

Future trips would be on the train. It cost more, and money was tight in college. The clientele was better.

Chris Conley
Operations Manager, Midwest Communications-Wausau
5.15.10