Greyhound America: Traveling in the Shadow of the Country Pt.I

“At the end of the twentieth century, to cross
America by land, by public transport often means
to travel among the poor…,”
-Robert Kaplan, An Empire Wilderness

GREYHOUND AMERICA:
Traveling in the Shadow of the Country

Greyhound America documents people in transition. In bus stations across the country; black, white, brown and mostly poor people wait on long lines to board buses bound for better lives, new opportunities, another chance.

Passengers on the Greyhound are seldom on vacation. The bus rides are long, uncomfortable and almost always crowded.  At times, they have to live with each other for two-three long days and nights as they zigzag through back roads and small towns. These travelers will never see one another again, and this transitory relationship seems to work for them. They speak about two subjects, the past and the future. The past is filled with stories about problems with money, love and the law; the future filled with hope.

In Wyoming I met a woman afraid of her daughter on her way to Reno to help raise her granddaughter. I had breakfast in Salt Lake City with a mystic who told me “the angels bow their wings for the seekers of knowledge.” And in Miami, Aaron Wade Brown summed it up when he said, “I am a simple, complex man.”

On the bus, travelers have time to think about what they left behind and look ahead to what comes next. When old problems make new environments a necessity, the bus is transportation between one life and another. It is purgatory.