Writings By Phil

Thoughts On This And That

Alone In A Crowd

May 1971 Billings, Montana

Tired and fatigued, I slouched in my chair. I just sat there staring at the pale yellow wall in front of me. I don’t know why. It wasn’t pretty; it was drab and dull, but I stared at it anyway.

Four hours before, I arrived in Billings, Montana. Shy, discouraged and lonely, I felt like a child, lost, frightened, and I wanted to run, but I walked. The city was strange and new. I didn’t know where I was going, and really, I didn’t care. I just walked to kill time!

At least, when weariness finally knocked me off my feet, I had found my way back to the bus station. Now I sat waiting for the north-bound bus. My legs were content to just rest, but my mind, like a bee in my mother’s flower garden, flitted from thought to thought, idea to idea, to whatever bloomed in the dazed furrows of my mind. My blank, staring gaze drifted from the wall to my feet crossed in front of me. My boots, clean and polished when I left home, were scuffed and covered with dust. I looked at my faded jeans and saw spots of white paint splattered on the washed-out denim. I remembered how they got there.

The stench of stale cigarette smoke filled the room, and occasionally fresh fumes from a burning cigarette would waft my way. My eyes stung, but I was too tired to care. People laughed and talked all around me, but their voices seemed far away. I was hearing, but not listening.

The door to my right opened and in rushed a sea of faces; people getting off a bus. Some were laughing, some sad, some lonely, but all were people. I found my eyes searching the mass for a pretty face, or fat chance, a familiar face, just someone to identify with.

As quickly as they had come, they were gone. Again I stared at the wall, this time I noticed it had small black specks on it, but other than that, it remained unchanged. I twisted around in my chair to glance at the clock which never seemed to go fast enough, then turned to stare at my wall with a blank expression.

End

More Photos and Commentary

To quote Billy Joel, this is “When I wore a younger man’s clothes.” I had to steal the picture from the yearbook of my first year at Prairie Bible Institute. I was a year behind my brother, Paul, but after my first semester, I decided I could do it in three and graduate at the same time as him.
I went home to Southwest Kansas at the end of school, but to lessen the study load for the next two and a half years, I turned around and went back to Alberta to attend summer school, and tick off a couple of required classes. That is why I ended up on a bus with a long stopover in Billings, Montana.
It was May, and my 19th birthday was still a few weeks away. It was my first long trip, made all by my lonesome, and I was a bit stressed out! The only bus I had ever ridden on was a school bus, so Continental Trailways was a big adventure.
One of my classes that summer was “theme writing.” It was my first class ever in creative writing. That cross-country bus ride gave me material to complete a number of my assignments. This one was to describe a “Simple Experience.” However, when I actually lived it, all was not so simple! For one thing, the bus company thought the tag on my suitcase said Casper, Wyoming and took it off the bus when we passed through there. I arrived in Calgary, Alberta with just the clothes I was wearing.
I was in a dilemma. In those long ago days at Prairie, one could only wear jeans for leisure or work-detail, not for class or church. Jeans were all I had, and just one pair, and there was little chance of finding dress pants long enough for my lanky frame in the little town of Three Hills where the school was located. The school was not without heart and let me bend the rules a bit. I did find another shirt and maybe some socks and underwear, but I did a lot of washing and overnight drying for the next few weeks.
I know the experience was good for me and helped me mature in facing the challenges of life, but though it was an adventure, I did not find it a lot of fun. I am a home-boy at heart. The trip was scary. I was just thankful that I lived to write about it!
Trailways did eventually find my suitcase and sent it back to Kansas three months later. Summer school was over and I was back home pumping gas for 31 cents a gallon and shoveling grain at the Ingalls Co-Op, earning money to return to Canada and my sophomore/junior year of PBI. I was glad they found it because it also contained my yearbook and that is how I found one photo with which to chronical this story!

This story was from the category Theme Writing 1971. If you would like to read more, please click on that link below.

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