Dudleys Diary

running buses all over the country. Dudley remembers riding on a Trailways bus a few times growing up going from Wichita Falls To Fort Worth or vice versa to visit his grandparents or his father. Dudley always rode the bus without any other family members and at times Dudley remembers there were some scary looking people on those buses. Dudley always sat up toward the front and tried to sit by himself or tried to pick out the least scary looking person to sit by. Dudley would have much rather ridden on a train but sadly passenger train service was pretty much dead or dying by then. Once Dudley turned 16 and got his first car, he thought his days of riding on a Trailways bus were over. They pretty much were except for one last bus ride from Hell. When Dudley was away at college, he got Mono and got sick as a dog his Junior year. Dudley lived off campus by then and lived in an apartment with three of his friends. Dudley remembers being too sick to drive from Nacogdoches to Fort Worth so his mother drove over and picked him up and drove him back home. Dudley missed two full weeks of school and when he got well enough to go back to school, spring break was starting. Dudley wanted to go get his car but could not get anyone to drive him to Nacogdoches. Dudley remembers going down to the bus station and buying a ticket. He got on the bus, up toward the front and the bus started going east towards Dallas. Dudley knew he was in trouble when the bus did not get up on the turnpike to go to big D but instead stayed on the old two lane highway that linked the two cities. The bus stopped at every light and there must have been a hundred of them. it also stopped at as many bus stations at every little town between Fort Worth and Nacogdoches. The bus left around two in the afternoon and did not hit the outskirts of Nacogdoches until almost midnight. A trip that normally took Dudley about three hours in his Camaro had taken almost ten long hours! Dudley remembers getting the bus driver to stop within a few blocks of his apartment. Saved him from having to get a cab ride from down town. Dudley went inside the apartment, it was empty, all of his roommates had gone home for Spring Break. Dudley had thought he would spend the night in the apartment and then drive back to Fort Worth in the morning. Dudley opened the refrigerator to find it empty and Dudley said what the hell, grabbed his car keys, hopped in his Z-28 and hauled ass back to Fort Worth. Dudley made record time and got back to Fort Worth in about two hours. Continental Trailways went out of business not long after that trip from Hell. Gee, I wonder why?