CINDY
MARCUM, who joined Beach in May 1979: One day,
Bob (Beach) was out on a bus with a group of people who
were going to church to sing, or something. After looking
for this church and not finding it, he got on the radio
and called back to base and said, "Where in hell is
the First Presbyterian church?" Theresa Hunt was at
the desk, and she got on the radio to Bob and said, "I
don't know, but when you find it, I think you ought to go
and make amends for what you just said."
HERB
ROEHL, who joined Beach Transportation in 1974 after
retiring from the Missoula Police Department. Roehl drove
on many of the company's long-distance charter assignment:
I'm a gypsy at heart, and the charter driving was just down
my alley. We got going with busing people across the country,
and the more I went the more I wanted to go. I just love
it. The appeal ... is the fact that I love to see new country.
That's probably the number-one reason I like the job ...
The second thing is that I like meeting different kinds
of people; I'm not traveling alone. I'm always with people
... It's a job I hate to back away from; I hate to think
about retiring.
Over
-the-road work takes a lot out of a driver, but when you
get 10 or 15 minutes you learn to go into the bus, push
the seat back and take five. You do that a lot ... You sleep
wise, you don't drink, and you take care of yourself like
you would the bus.
When
you're assigned to a trip ... the first thing you do is
take your itinerary and put in hours going over the map.
You figure out the highways you're going to take and the
exits you're going to use to get to motels and restaurants.
You get everything figured out ... before the trip ever
starts ... You also take notes on paper day-by-day as you
go along. Then you go back and study them. You check and
re-check.
BOB
NARUM, who joined Beach in August 1981 after a long teaching
career:The first time I drove a bus, I took it around
a couple of times and parked it back in the barn. About
a week later, I got a phone call about 1:30 in the morning.
A man said, "This is Bob Beach. Would you like to go
out on a fire run?" And I said, "What was that?"
You know how you are first thing in the morning - everything
is foggy. So he said again, "We have a fire run (to
carry forest-fire fighters into the woods); do you want
to go?" I thought for a minute, and then I said, "Who
is this really?" Well, I finally got it.
Then
Bob said that Randy (Davis) had about 10 buses that had
to go to the Aerial Fire Depot to pick up fire fighters.
I thought I might as well go, so I asked Bob what bus I
should take. He said, "Take the bus that you've been
practicing on." I took it out there and waited around
for a while, and pretty soon, the fire fighters cam aboard
and told me, "Turn on the (interior) lights."
I didn't know where the switch for those lights was, so
I started filpping buttons. The heaters cam on and light
flashed and everything else came on. I still couldn't find
the switch for the interior lights, so I said, "They
must be burned out; you have to find your seats in the dark."
We
ended up down in Salmon, Idaho. Then we drove about 40 miles
up the road from Challis back into the boonies. We spent
the night there, and the next morning I came out. About
a mile from the main road, I got a radio call from bus number
55. He was having mechanical trouble coming in with the
bus load of fire fighters. So they told me to transfer buses
- pick up the broken-down one and let him take mine. We
met at a certain place and transferred.
I
took number 55 and turned around and just barely got to
the highway, and the thing conked our completely. (Beach
Driver) Chuck Burgess was with me in another bus, and the
only thing we could do, being 30 miles from Salmon, was
to tow it in. The only tow rope we had was a tire chain,
so we had about seven feet in between the buses as we were
going down the highway. Remember, this is my first experience
with a bus. There was no engine; so I had no power brakes.
I leaned over and had the emergency brake on half the time.
We never bumped once.
We
got into Salmon and got the bus fixed. I was coming toward
Missoula. I got near Florence and blew the left front tire
out. I ended up clear over the left-hand side of the road
and came to rest on the right side of the road on one of
these big, sweeping curves.
This
all happened the first time I ever drove a bus on a trip.
It was my first experience.
CAROL
STOBIE, who joined Beach in the fall of 1976:
About four years ago, I was carrying a little boy, a special-education
student. As he got on the bus one morning, he told me, "Tomorrow
is my birthday." I said, "Well, mine's tomorrow
too!" His birthday really was the same day as mine.
He kind of smiled, and then I said, "Maybe that means
we're the same age." And he said, "We are?"
So then he thought a minute and he said, "Are you my
girlfriend?" I said, "Well, I don't know; do you
think so?" He said something like, "Yeah."
Then he thought a minute more and said, "Can we get
married?" I said, "Oh no, we can't do that because
I'm older than you, and I have a husband. What about him?"
And he said, without even cracking a smile, "Well,
I'll shoot him." I said, "Oh no, that's not necessary;
we could just all be good friends, couldn't we?" And
he said, "I guess." He really believed in the
direct approach when it came to solving problems.
RANDY
DAVIS, who joined Beach in September 1975: I
was with the Sentinel High School band and drill team when
they were going to perform at Disneyland. The drill-team
girls were on my bus. We had left our motel in Anaheim that
morning and had driven to another place to eat breakfast.
We were going from breakfast to the staging area at Disneyland
so the girls could dress and get ready for the performance.
Breakfast took longer than it should have, so we were runnng
a little late ... The girls and their instructor though
it was essential that they begin dressing en route because
they were going to be late when they got there.
Those
bus windows are tinted, and if you're not close to them,
you can't see inside. I told that to the girls because here
wer were in crowded, downtonw Anaheim, and they wanted to
know if people could see in the windows while they were
changing .. I also promised I wouldn't look in my mirror
- even though there were 30 girls behind me with no clothes
on. There were clothes flying everywhere when we pulled
up to a stoplight next to another lane of traffic going
the same way. Everything was fine, but just before we got
to go with the green light, a Greyhound bus pulled up right
beside me. It was matching me window for window, so its
passengers could look straight across. The bus was very
close to us - maybe five feet away at the most. I noticed
this little kid sitting in the seat right behind the driver.
His eyes lit up like you couldn't believe. For the rest
of the trip, those girls reminded me that I probably didn't
know what I was talking about."
JO
DEMERS, who joined Beach in September 1974: I remember
one morning when we pulled up in front of a house to get
these girls. We were sitting there, like we always did,
and here comes this mother out with this little orange jacket
on. She was kind of tugging at the two sleeves and kind
of pulling it down around herself. She was built like a
Kewpie doll - quite stocky and pretty busty. She got the
children on the bus, and then she turned around to go back
inside. You know how your jacket sometimes curls up after
you've sat on it? Hers did that. The woman didn't have a
stitch on underneath, and her bare nothing was exposed ...
My aide just let out a squeal and started laughing. I said,
"Quit that!" Of course, she just laughed all the
harder.
TIM
ONSLOW, who joined Beach in 1974 after driving tour buses
in Yellowstone Park: We took eight buses and went down
to the Cotton Bowl with a Missoula band group about seven
years ago. We got into Houston and to the motel and the
next day were were going to drive the kids to the Cotton
Bowl, itself. I was with Bob (Beach), and he was driving.
We got lost. So we pulled into the ghettos there, trash
all over the streets, and Bob pulled over and said, "Tim,
go ask those people for directions." I kind of muttered
unter my breath, "You go ask them." I wasn't getting
off that bos. Anyway, a minute later, (driver) Warren (Chochran0
got on the radio and said to Bob, " Do you see a big,
tall tower?" Bob said yes. Then Warren said, "The
rest of us (other buses) are sitting right under it."
So we worked our way out that way. That was a real fun trip
...
A
lot of things can happen - a lot of things you don't expect.
Like, sometimes we drive all night, and it's hard to find
fuel. Getting across the (Canada) border is another thing.
Sometimes its hard to find out if the borders are open 24
hours - or when they close - until you get right there.
You might be stuck until the next morning.
And
we've heard horror stories about other drivers taking kids
into Canada. The kids, when the Customs people come on board,
make smart comments. Like when the Customs people ask if
there are guns on board, the kids will say, "The machine
guns are down below." When you get one of the Customs
people who doesn't have much sense of humor, they can tead
the whole bus down and detain you as long as they want ...
One
thing we're getting a lot better at are ferry crossings,
like over to Victoria, BC. You have to be at the ferry an
hour in advance. ... You just really have to plan. The way
I do it, if I'm going anywhere, the night before I'll look
at my maps and write information on a note pad for the dashboard.
Then I put in an alternate route in case I miss a street
or something ...
What
I hate most are back-seat drivers. You know exactly where
you want to go, and they say, "Turn here. Turn here."
I really encourage people to help me look for signs because
in these big cities, you really have to concentrate on the
road. It gets a little hairy sometimes, but it all works
out ...
With
this job you have to have a good sense of humor. You can't
get mad. because if you do, you won't accomplish much. ...
You've just got to be cool and things will work out. Like
last fall, when Mike (Keyser) and I were in Washington DC,
on a 28-day senior citizen tour. I told him, "Mike
you took the wrong turn." We ended up coming to a tunnel
that we couldn't get through. We had traffic backed up,
so we had to back over a lawn and then back over another
lawn to get turned around. It's really embarrassing, but
it happens to everybody.
If
we're going to take a big trip, like to the Rose Bowl, we'll
alwasy sit down together and map it out and see where we're
going to go. We get input on where would be good places
to fuel, because you don't want to take eight buses into
one station. That takes forever, so you have to disperse.
The same way with restaurants. Disperse and regroup ...
You want to plan ahead or you'll hate yourself afterward.
SCOTT
BEACH, who joined Beach full-time in June 1979: In 1984,
wa had a pretty good forest fire season around here. We
had 10 buses with fire fighters up at St. Mary's on the
Napa Peak fire. It worked out to where we had a KOA campground
next to the area where the major fire camp was. So we had
tiny-tee golf, and we had St. Mary's Lodge right down the
road. After we got done hauling fire fighters, we could
buzz down there and have a beer if we wanted. We had hot
showers and all the food you could want, so fires like that
are great with the exception that you have to sleep in your
bus. After five or six days of doing that, your back gets
a little sore and a little tired ...
You
sometimes get these (Forest Service) fire crew boses who
tell you that you can go down this or that road, and there's
a Cat (bulldozer) trail that's cut out for you to turn around
on. I remember on the Gibbons Pass fire (summer of 1985)
I was driving down the road taking firefighters back to
eat. I looked up on a hill, and I saw a tree on fire ...
I got the people down, showed them where the fire was, and
took them back up that night. I was going down this one
road, and I asked the crew boss, "Can I turn around
here?" And he said, "Oh, yeah." He assured
me I could turn around, so I went down into this area, and
I got within 50 yards of the fire and left off the fire
fighters. Then sure enough, I heard my tire going psssssssss.
I already had had a flat tire earlier that week, so I'd
used my spare. I jacked up the back end and tried to change
one of my real duals to the front tire. I didn't have a
cheater bar big enough to do that, and in the meantime the
fire was getting closer to me. ... Time was running short,
so I told the crew boss that I was going to have to rip
through the fire in the bus because there wasn't a turn
around. It was a real rough, rocky place, and I sure enough
would have backed off the road. There was a road that went
through the area where the fire was burning, so I cleared
everybody out of the way. I had very little time with my
tire going flat. I just punched it and whipped through the
fire for about 100 feet. ... Flat tires are one of our biggest
problems on forest fires.
JACK
TRAXLER, who joined Beach in 1977, after retiring as a master
chief petty officer with 31 years of Navy service: I
enjoy driving on fires. I'd do it for nothing. I guess it's
the challenge. I like challenges. It's exciting, and it's
more fun than it is work. When you come down off a forest
fire, you feel like you've accomplished something. You can
say to yourself, "I got a bunch of guys up there, and
I brought them down again."
The
first year I was with Bob, we had an outbreak of fires in
the western end of the state. I learned a lot from my first
fires. One thing is that you always stay in touch with camp
coordinator, who's the transportation officer on a fire.
You never leave a fire until you're relieved bu authority.
Driving on fires is a little like some military operations
in that you're carrying people who know what they're doing
and have been trained for it. You get yourself inot some
pretty peculiar spots at times.
One
year, on a fire I was on, they wanted me to drive up through
a very windy, treacherous canyon. That didn't bother me
a lot, but what I was worried about was getting back out
of the area. I wasn't familiar with it ... and I had questions
about the turn around area. They told me not to worry, just
take my fire fighters in there. I didn't feel like sticking
one of my friend Beach's buses up in a spot I couldn't get
out of. I told the Forest Service pople that. They weren't
very happy about it , but I found out later that I was right
in doing that. You don't have to go to a place you question.
It's the driver's discretion, and Bob has always backed
us on that. ... You get up there at the end of an old logging
road, and mayboe you're ina patch of lodgepole or larch
or something where the trees are growing about three feet
apart. And you're confined to a 25-foot space, and they
expect you to get that 44-foot long rig turned aound. It's
just not going to get done. (Traxler eventually went into
the area in question, only to find no turn around. The Forest
Service sent in a bulldozer to clear a turning area.)
I've
found that those buses will do a lot of things you wouldn't
think they'll do. They're more powerful than most people
give them credit for. ... I've come to the conclusion that
I can put that bus anywhere I ahve enough road to get her
on. I've done it many times. Last summer, on ther Salmon
River fire, the sent us clear in on the top of a ridge where
at one spot I had my outside dual hanging over the edge
and a straight drop below. ... My feeling is that if those
loggers can get those big old trucks up there and then get
them out with a load of sticks (logs) on, I can get that
school bus in there.
This story
has been excerpted and edited from Second
to None: the story of Beach Transportation Co. and its buses
written by former newspaperman Steve Smith and published
for Beach Transportation by Pictoral Histories Publishing
Company in 1986.
