How I Lived in a Bus
My name is Brian and Bob asked me to write a piece about a rig I lived in once.
My fascination with all things with the infernal combustion engine goes back to
my childhood and the first Whizzer motorbike I saw. I never got one but I have
had a bunch of motors. In fact I made my living as a mechanic for a number of
years, drove long haul truck, lived in a variety of vehicles and have owned many
motorcycles. That all seems to help balance never getting a Whizzer.
What Bob wanted me to write about however took place in 1981 as I was trying
to get my life in order after many years of drug and alcohol abuse. I was
getting sober and had a great job in a beautiful National Park in Alaska as a
mechanic.
I had been heading downhill fast after returning from Vietnam and drinking and
drugging through the sixties and seventies , burning bridges and marriages,
losing jobs and hurting those I loved. Now the world was new to me, I saw it
through clear eyes and in my attempt to get things together I was offered an
old bus for $500. It became a special bus to me. The owner and her 16 year old
son had bought it and fixed it up some for camping. When the woman was a year
sober, her son was killed in front of her in a car accident and as devastating as
that was, she remained sober. That made a great impression on me as I had two
young sons and worried about something happening to them and whether that
would make me drink again. She gave me huge hope.
The bus was a wreck. It had been sitting for several years in the Alaskan bush
and nearly every window was broken. Kids had been partying in it and leaving
their trash. It had been shot at and had several bullet holes just below the
windshield . The saving grace is that she had a rebuilt engine installed shortly
before it was parked and abandoned. The other saving grace is that she would
take a hundred dollars a payday until it was paid for and I did have child
support to pay. I could see the finished bus in my minds eye and it was great. It
was a 1959 GMC ¾ length full adult height ex-Air Force bus and absolutely
perfect for me.
The amazing thing is that when I brought a battery and some gas and tinkered a
bit it started right up. I first drove to the dump, shoveled out all the junk and
trash the partiers had left and stripped it pretty much clean. Then on to a
workmates house where I could work on it and had some help with the heavier
stuff. I finished stripping the inside and carefully covered the windows I didn’t
need with plywood and sheet metal. There were a couple still intact so they
went in the spots I wanted windows and I measured for windshield glass and
made cardboard templates for the oddly shaped rear windows. I was able to
find some salvage glass and got a deal on some other tinted glass the glass
shop had.
The first incarnation of “Eekabus” had a plywood bed with a salvaged foam
mattress, a salvaged kitchen table for a kitchen counter, two bench bus
seats facing each other with a handmade table between, an icebox salvaged
from an old junk trailer, an antique gas hotplate converted to propane and
that's about it. I built a wood heat stove out of an old 5 gallon barrel. I built a
Dutch door for the entry. I had a lot of mechanical stuff to do, tires to find,
painting done by brush and roller and general odds and ends but the great thing
is it gave me something to do when I wasn’t working and kept my mind off “me”.
I don’t think I had ever been so delighted with life. “Eekabus” was perfect. My
expenses were minimal. Registration, insurance, gas , food and tobacco…oh
yeah and child support. I loved the feeling of having my home with me. It was
very much like I felt when I backpacked. I was able to add stuff as I could
afford it…Alpine stereo with ADS speakers came along. A bumper sticker that
said, “Don’t laugh, your daughter might be in here”. I would park in some pullout
overlooking the Nenana River, make a cup of good coffee and kick back in my
salvaged oak office chair and dig the view and soak in the peace. What a simple
life
That first summer I parked it in the gravel parking lot up by the dog kennels in
Denali Park headquarters area. The next summer I drove it out to the road
camp I worked in and used a gravel travel trailer pad to park on. There I had
power and water. I built a pair of nice bunkbeds for my two sons when they
came for the summer. It was an art project in progress. It kept ‘becoming’,
much like I was.
The bus went through another complete renovation with real butcher block
counter and cabinets, an apartment size gas stove with oven, a jewelers bench,
and many more conveniences and extras. The one thing that held true through it
all is that the spirit of the dead teenager was with us always. He had a great
sense of humor and would hide things once in a while, move things some times
but always with a feeling of approval and joy.
Eekabus made several trips down to Haines, AK where my sons lived with their
mom and it would wait there for me while I traveled for the winter. I also
drove it down the Alcan to Oregon and back one winter. That was a great
adventure and I was able to help a woman who was traveling alone by using the
CB radio as we traveled through whiteout conditions.
I remarried and we lived in the bus the first winter near Denali Park . That is
another story. We moved to the Kenai Peninsula and bought land where Eekabus
became a guest house and I began the ultimate renovation with blown in
urethane insulation and knotty pine tongue and groove ceiling but I got
sidetracked and motorcycles got in the way.
We sold the land eventually with Eekabus included and moved on to the lower
48. The good news is that we now have another bus, a 1963 Dodge shorty with
the same 6’ 2” interior that is in the beginnings of a conversion.
More will be revealed.
My fascination with all things with the infernal combustion engine goes back to
my childhood and the first Whizzer motorbike I saw. I never got one but I have
had a bunch of motors. In fact I made my living as a mechanic for a number of
years, drove long haul truck, lived in a variety of vehicles and have owned many
motorcycles. That all seems to help balance never getting a Whizzer.
What Bob wanted me to write about however took place in 1981 as I was trying
to get my life in order after many years of drug and alcohol abuse. I was
getting sober and had a great job in a beautiful National Park in Alaska as a
mechanic.
I had been heading downhill fast after returning from Vietnam and drinking and
drugging through the sixties and seventies , burning bridges and marriages,
losing jobs and hurting those I loved. Now the world was new to me, I saw it
through clear eyes and in my attempt to get things together I was offered an
old bus for $500. It became a special bus to me. The owner and her 16 year old
son had bought it and fixed it up some for camping. When the woman was a year
sober, her son was killed in front of her in a car accident and as devastating as
that was, she remained sober. That made a great impression on me as I had two
young sons and worried about something happening to them and whether that
would make me drink again. She gave me huge hope.
The bus was a wreck. It had been sitting for several years in the Alaskan bush
and nearly every window was broken. Kids had been partying in it and leaving
their trash. It had been shot at and had several bullet holes just below the
windshield . The saving grace is that she had a rebuilt engine installed shortly
before it was parked and abandoned. The other saving grace is that she would
take a hundred dollars a payday until it was paid for and I did have child
support to pay. I could see the finished bus in my minds eye and it was great. It
was a 1959 GMC ¾ length full adult height ex-Air Force bus and absolutely
perfect for me.
The amazing thing is that when I brought a battery and some gas and tinkered a
bit it started right up. I first drove to the dump, shoveled out all the junk and
trash the partiers had left and stripped it pretty much clean. Then on to a
workmates house where I could work on it and had some help with the heavier
stuff. I finished stripping the inside and carefully covered the windows I didn’t
need with plywood and sheet metal. There were a couple still intact so they
went in the spots I wanted windows and I measured for windshield glass and
made cardboard templates for the oddly shaped rear windows. I was able to
find some salvage glass and got a deal on some other tinted glass the glass
shop had.
The first incarnation of “Eekabus” had a plywood bed with a salvaged foam
mattress, a salvaged kitchen table for a kitchen counter, two bench bus
seats facing each other with a handmade table between, an icebox salvaged
from an old junk trailer, an antique gas hotplate converted to propane and
that's about it. I built a wood heat stove out of an old 5 gallon barrel. I built a
Dutch door for the entry. I had a lot of mechanical stuff to do, tires to find,
painting done by brush and roller and general odds and ends but the great thing
is it gave me something to do when I wasn’t working and kept my mind off “me”.
I don’t think I had ever been so delighted with life. “Eekabus” was perfect. My
expenses were minimal. Registration, insurance, gas , food and tobacco…oh
yeah and child support. I loved the feeling of having my home with me. It was
very much like I felt when I backpacked. I was able to add stuff as I could
afford it…Alpine stereo with ADS speakers came along. A bumper sticker that
said, “Don’t laugh, your daughter might be in here”. I would park in some pullout
overlooking the Nenana River, make a cup of good coffee and kick back in my
salvaged oak office chair and dig the view and soak in the peace. What a simple
life
That first summer I parked it in the gravel parking lot up by the dog kennels in
Denali Park headquarters area. The next summer I drove it out to the road
camp I worked in and used a gravel travel trailer pad to park on. There I had
power and water. I built a pair of nice bunkbeds for my two sons when they
came for the summer. It was an art project in progress. It kept ‘becoming’,
much like I was.
The bus went through another complete renovation with real butcher block
counter and cabinets, an apartment size gas stove with oven, a jewelers bench,
and many more conveniences and extras. The one thing that held true through it
all is that the spirit of the dead teenager was with us always. He had a great
sense of humor and would hide things once in a while, move things some times
but always with a feeling of approval and joy.
Eekabus made several trips down to Haines, AK where my sons lived with their
mom and it would wait there for me while I traveled for the winter. I also
drove it down the Alcan to Oregon and back one winter. That was a great
adventure and I was able to help a woman who was traveling alone by using the
CB radio as we traveled through whiteout conditions.
I remarried and we lived in the bus the first winter near Denali Park . That is
another story. We moved to the Kenai Peninsula and bought land where Eekabus
became a guest house and I began the ultimate renovation with blown in
urethane insulation and knotty pine tongue and groove ceiling but I got
sidetracked and motorcycles got in the way.
We sold the land eventually with Eekabus included and moved on to the lower
48. The good news is that we now have another bus, a 1963 Dodge shorty with
the same 6’ 2” interior that is in the beginnings of a conversion.
More will be revealed.
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