The Bus Station

Also known as the Greyhound Bus Station.

Now, the present bus station is a simple little unpretentious building on Cobb Parkway/the 4-Lane, not nearly as big. There were a lot of traveling by bus back then, therefore big waiting rooms were needed.

Maybe one reason it was so big because it had two waiting rooms, one for whites and one for blacks.

Another reason it had a grill in the back. As you walk into the grill area you are overcome with the smell of mustard, onions, and deep-fried grease. The background sounds were ping-ball machines, the juke box, grease frying, bus arriving and departing announcements over a speaker and farts, or emissions, of buses on the outside.

On the outside loading area there was a photo-booth and a machine that you could make your own dogtag with your name, it had the appearance of a big tin coin with a big star in the center.

I had a friend, Jimmy Pat, who had a warped sense of values, that had a fascination with the photo booth. He was always trying to contrive or scheme a shocking way to use it.

One time, he stood on the booth's seat and exposed himself for the camera. Then he tacked up the pictures on the bulletin boards at school.

The Terminal Taxi service in the picture normally parked next door in an unpaved vacant lot. It was first owned by Mr. Goddard, his son Ray was a class-mate. After that my late cousin Dalton Tyson owned it, which I'm sure there is a story in a story how he received ownership.

Terminal Taxi is shown here having a fleet of 10 cabs. That is pretty impressive.

On the way home from our scouts meetings we always stopped at the bus station to play the pin-ball machine, and at least one of us the photo-booth.

Before the bus station there was a big two story old house occupied by two sisters and their brother. We lived a block away in the Clay Homes.

When the Bus Station was being built after the workers went home we would go out and play in the mud and whatever. One time I threw a bottle over a bush and hit my friend Tommy Hadaway in the head. He was bleeding and was rushed to the Old Hospital. The doctor put a clamp over his wound.

See the building above, looking down? That was part of complex that was built to teach G.I.s returning from WWII a trade. We were also on hand to watch it being built and played on the equipment also. My sister Frances was on a large roll of fencing material, and it rolled out from under her and she broke her arm.

What used to be the bus station is a lawyers' building now.

Time changes.