Yesterday I launched the peeks into my 1980's which come from the musings of many notebooks and letters I kept through the years. Gone are the "innocently cryptic" calendar entries of the 70's and in with the quips and observations of a fashion display maven/bar girl looking for love and comedy and herself...
General Westmoreland died yesterday and it briefly made the end of the evening news. It reminded me of my bus riding days in 80's Hollywood where I was lucky to have regularly ridden the 180/181 route with General Hershey Bar, who always got on at Vermont & Hollywood. The bus was such a depressing thing for me, it was always a bright spot when he got on, greeting the driver and pert near everyone else with, "Hello, General; How ya doin, General", etc. General Hershey Bar was a former vet I believe, who became a war protester along with his side kick, General WasteMoreLand, who I assumed had died before my bus riding time. The Hersh rode, carrying lots of literature and papers, engaging anyone who would listen in a very heated discussion about the current affairs. Man, did he hate Reagan. You're conditioned to ignore everything that happens on the bus and a lot of people tried to ignore The General, but I always perked up when I saw him at the stop. Not only was he enlightening, but his attire was in fashion with the times and I took many cues, as my friends would attest. I even went as him on one particular Halloween to a great Hollywood party where the artist, Tomata du Plenty walked up to me and said, "I know who you are!" The General was always in full military garb with hundreds of medals and buttons and accoutrement sewn on his jacket, including metal airplanes jutting out from his epaulets and on his cap. Mine were plastic and some hung from my ears but it still came across.
I stopped riding the bus on a regular basis eventually but still used it when I needed it and always looked for him. He was pretty old in the 80's so I stopped looking by the early 90's. He was pretty infamous around LA. I'm sure some time between '75 and '90 even General Westmoreland saluted him and if by some miracle General Hershey Bar outlived Westmoreland AND Wastemoreland, I salute him - though what's been going on for the last five years would be enough for him to call for that last bus.
Posted by nora murphy at July 20, 2005 07:39 AM | TrackBack