I was determined to make something special out of my spring break this year. I found a ride to Tupelo, bought a Greyhound bus ticket to Tallahassee and coordinated with my childhood best friend, a Florida State student, a road trip to Miami. The Wednesday before spring break I packed up my bags and hopped in the truck of a fellow MSU student who was nice enough to drive me to Tupelo, the location of the closest Greyhound station.
When we arrived in the town neither of us had ever visited, we searched “Greyhound bus station” on an iPhone. There were no results. I told myself not to worry as I checked and rechecked the name of the town on the boarding ticket in my hand. “Let’s stop at a gas station and ask,” I suggested.
The woman behind the counter was friendly enough, telling us to continue on the road through four red lights and take a right behind the Bancorp building. We found nothing. Still in good spirits, we stopped at the Dollar General. The women working there were certain the station was past the railroad tracks on the left. We followed the second set of directions which led us to the same dead-end area as the first. The dark, vacant street didn’t look promising. It wasn’t until we kept our eyes completely peeled that we saw it: the shoddy, run-down building with a billboard that read “BUS.”
I started laughing until we got out of the truck and walked up to the door where we found a sign reading, “Sorry, this station is no longer in service. We are now located in Saltillo, Miss.” There was a phone number posted. We called to find the phone disconnected.
Panic found me, but we didn’t give up there. My anxiety heightened on the 20-minute ride to Saltillo. I read and reread my boarding pass.
We stopped at the first gas station after arriving in town, where we met some kind people who had never heard of a Greyhound bus station and were certain there was not one in their town. They thought there might be one near the airport in Tupelo, not in downtown where we had been. As nice as they were, they were not very helpful.
At that point, and not my proudest moment, I cried. I had one more idea, though. I looked up the number and called the Tupelo airport.
During my mini-breakdown, I asked the man who answered if he knew anything about a change in location of the Tupelo Greyhound.
“Oh, you know…” he said. “I read something about that in the paper this week.” He followed up with flawless directions which led us to a Texaco gas station. Upon entering, we learned it was the new bus stop.
When our two-hour ordeal was over, I realized what happened: my choice of profession had been validated. My colleagues’ work, the distribution of news, allowed me to reach my destination. As a journalist, I will make similar connections for others in the future.
This incident also proved to me one thing: newspapers have not died out, we have not lost use for them and they are continuing to be valuable sources of information.
Sure, the man at the airport was older and therefore still reading the newspaper, but he was informed and without him I would have wasted $100 on a bus I was never able to board.
This might just indicate that the elderly are keeping themselves better up-to-date than the rest of us. I hope not, considering all the technology to which we have access.
The Internet is a wonderful tool for gathering news. I am not suggesting that to be informed we must pick up a physical printed copy of each daily newspaper.
However, maybe if we don’t, relying on our own Internet searches will lead us only to the information we are looking for; not the general happenings of our surroundings.
The media we take part in is becoming increasingly targeted, allowing us to filter out what does not correlate with our interests or apply to our lives.
This sort of modernized news-sifting will result in a population of individuals with knowledge in only what concerns them and limited understanding of anything else.
The man who kindly gave me directions couldn’t predict he’d ever need to know the new Greyhound bus station location in order to save my spring break plans from total ruin. As a conscious and curious citizen, he did anyway.
In order to be active participants in our communities, we must have similar attitudes.