I wish I was on a bus headed to...
Ken Leinart's Into the Light
I heard an odd saying the other day.
I was in line at one of my favorite convenience stores last week when some little boy kept picking up a candy bar and handing it to his mother.
I assume she was his mother. It may have been a random stranger.
I almost hope it was a random stranger because after about the 100th time the woman grabbed the kid’s arm and leaned down and whispered something in his ear.
It was more like a terse whisper.
And it wasn’t really a whisper.
“I said leave that alone. I will deal with you later.”
Okay, so after finding out that there would be a “later” it kinda made sense this woman was the boy’s mother.
I mean, otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned “dealing with” and “later.”
If the woman was a stranger she might have said something like, “Give it to your mom,” or something like that.
After this high convenience store drama played out and the woman frog-marched the little fellow out of the store some guy behind me said, “I bet he wishes he was on a bus to Bakersfield right now.”
Bakersfield?
You know there are four Bakersfields in the United States: Texas, Missouri, Vermont and California?
There are 34 Clintons in the United States.
Thirty-four!
Bakersfield, California, is probably the most famous of the Bakersfields.
If I’m not mistaken, country music legends Merle Haggard and Buck Owens created the “Bakersfield Sound.”
Haggard was born in Oildale, California, near Bakserfield.
Owens was born in Sherman, Texas. I’m not sure how close that is to Bakersfield, Texas.
Bakersfield, Texas, isn’t even a real town. It’s an unincorporated crossroads.
I’m sure it’s a beautiful place to drive through.
Bakersfield, Missouri, has something like 250 people.
Bakersfield, Vermont, is a place you drive through when you’re going to a place you want to visit and it just happens to pass by your window.
I’m sure they are all great communities.
Just like all the towns named Clinton.
Did I mention there are 34 Clintons in the United States of America?
Thirty-four!
Bakersfield, California, is also the hometown of Philo Beddoe, the fictional bare-knuckle fighter in Clint Eastwood’s “Any Which Way You Can,” and “Every Which Way But Loose.”
Those movies also featured an orangutan, “Clyde.”
The orangutan was awesome.
Still, I’m thinking that if I tried to give my mother (or a stranger for that matter) a candy bar 100 times and knew I was going to be dealt with “later,” I’m not sure a bus to Bakersfield is where I’d rather be.
I mean, there’s only four. How hard could it be to track you down?
Not saying the guy behind me was wrong.
Maybe when he’s in trouble he wishes he was on a bus to Bakersfield.
Maybe he likes Merle Haggard and/or Buck Owens.
Maybe he likes those Clint Eastwood bare-knuckle fighter movies.
They were, after all, very entertaining.
Maybe he just likes bus trips.
I took a bus trip when I was a young person. I rode from Memphis to Chicago.
I don’t remember the names of all the towns the bus drove through.
It was a long trip, so there had to be a lot of them.
Maybe as many as 34, though those towns couldn’t all be Clintons.
Or maybe the guy in line behind me likes Clyde, the orangutan.
Did you know (and you may want to to turn head while you read this because it’s kind of disturbing) that the trainer of Clyde beat him to death with an axe handle after the orangutan stole some doughnuts?
I read that on Wikipedia.
That’s just ... Sad.
Yes, the trainer was arrested. He was sent on a bus to the pokey.
But if you are running away from being dealt with later I would think a bus to Bakersfield wouldn’t be such a great idea — did I mention how there are only four Bakersfields in the United States and the one in Texas doesn’t really count?
Looks like it would be pretty easy to track you down so you could be dealt with later.
I think that if I was that little boy and someone promised to deal with me later, I’d wish I was on a bus to Riverside.
There are 46 Riversides in the United States.
That would make me a little harder to track down.
Unless you just want to get away and enjoy the “Bakersfield Sound.”
I don’t think there is such a thing as a “Riverside Sound.”
I could be wrong.
There are only 34 Clintons in the United States of America. Only 34!
There are 15 Knoxvilles.
In case you were wondering.
So.
I wish I were on a bus to Riverside.
Try and find me later to deal with me then.
