Remembering The Huntsville Buses

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

Here's the text about the buses from my book "The Baby Boomer's Guide to Growing Up in the Rocket City."

Riding the Bus – When the destination was too far to walk or ride the bicycle, the Huntsville City Bus System was always available. I believe Huntsville bought used surplus buses from Atlanta, but cannot document the fact. 

Linda Beal Walker usually rode the bus to town for a fare of 10 cents; however, if the weather was really nice, she saved the bus fare and walked to and from town. She saved the bus fare to buy popcorn or candy at the movie.  She lived in the Five Points area so she didn’t think it was too far to walk. As far as it seems today, it is really less than a mile. She and her mother would sometimes walk three or four blocks to Corman's bakery, buy a dozen doughnuts and ate at least half of them before they got home.

 Collins Wynn recalls that one of the things which made Huntsville a kid's town, before the suburbs sprang up, was the bus system.  The buses ran everywhere and kids could roam all over town as long as they had a few dimes in their pockets for the fare. One of the routes he remembers went to Meridian Street, turned right on Oakwood, then a right on 5th Street back to Five Points, then a right on Holmes Avenue and downtown.  One route went by McCullough Avenue, up near the mountain, into Darwin Downs, and returned via Oakwood Avenue.  

Rainer Klauss was lucky that Darwin Downs was on the bus line. All he had to do was wait at a corner on Bide-A-Wee Drive and the bus would stop right there. After a 20-minute ride he would get off at the square on the corner of Greene and Washington Streets and then walk down to the Lyric or over to the Grand theatres, or later in life, the Martin.

The main trips on the bus I can remember (after the first grade school year) was going to West Huntsville to the Center Theatre to see the cheap movies. It was a dime to ride the bus, a dime to get into the movie, and a dime to ride back home – a 30 cent adventure. 

When Joy Rubins Morris first moved to Huntsville, her family lived in a duplex on Triana Boulevard behind the old Butler High School.  She and her sister would catch the bus in front of Butler High and would ride it downtown to see a movie or to swim at the Big Spring Park pool.  

John Drummond recalls that while living on top of Monte Sano, he and his friends went to Saturday matinee movies by hitch-hiking down the mountain, and back up before it got dark.  It was free, and was considered safe back then. 

I asked Microsoft's Co-Pilot to give me some information about Huntsville buses in the Sixties and got this:  

Huntsville Public Buses in the 1960s: A Glimpse into Transit History

In the early 1960s, Huntsville’s public transportation was modest but functional, reflecting the city’s transition from a quiet Southern town to a booming center of aerospace activity. Here's what we know about the bus system during that era:

Transit Landscape in the 1960s

• Operator: The city’s bus service was privately operated before transitioning to municipal oversight later in the decade.

• Fleet: Buses were typically mid-sized, gasoline-powered, and painted in utilitarian colors—often white or cream with dark trim.

- Routes: Focused on connecting downtown Huntsville with residential neighborhoods, Redstone Arsenal, and newly developing areas like Research Park.

Cultural Context

- Huntsville’s population was rapidly growing due to NASA and Army missile programs, which increased demand for public transit.

- Buses were a common mode of transportation for workers commuting to Redstone Arsenal and Marshall Space Flight Center.

- Segregation laws were still in effect in the early part of the decade, meaning seating on buses was racially divided until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

One of the options below should allow you to listen to the song!

"Huntsville Bus Riders"

Music Created By Tommy Towery With AI Music Generator

[Verse]

Ten cents a seat

A bus ride to town

Five Points to West Huntsville

Doors open with a hissing sound

Big old wheels

They squeek and moan

Poor folks riding

Dreams of their own

[Chorus]

Drop in your coin

The city rolls by

Riders faces like stories

Some laugh

Some cry

No cabs to call

No feet on the ground

Bus riders live where no rich folks are found

[Verse 2]

A boy with a sack

A man with no name

A girl with a song

Her eyes a flame

Lincoln Village whispers

Streets so tight

Bricks and shadow swallow the light

[Prechorus]

Bus windows closed

Seats that are stained

Hope rides along

In sunshine and rain

[Chorus]

Drop in your coin

The city rolls by

Faces like stories

Some laugh

Some cry

No cabs to call

No feet on the ground

Bus riders live where no rich folks are found

[Bridge]

Diesel buses go where the rich don’t go

The hum of the bus sings a song we know

No limousines

No big Cadilacs

All those cost money which poor folk lack

Diesel buses go where the rich don’t go

The hum of the bus sings a song we know

No limousines

No big Cadilacs

All those cost money which poor folk lack

Bus windows closed

Seats that are stained

Hope rides along

In sunshine and rain

Drop in your coin

The city rolls by

Faces like stories

Some laugh

Some cry

No limousines

No big Cadilacs

All those cost money which poor folk lack

Take A Look at What Artificial Intelligence Can Do!

I'm still investigating some of the features that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do and some of it is amazing. I took the audio from the song I had AI create and used a different AI program to generate a video of an AI person singing the song. I only used the free trial version of the program, so it only game me a 30 second video output. I did it again, this time uploading a photo of myself! Goodness gracious. Click below to see the results.

The Wayback Machine

"Radar Men from the Moon"

 Chapter 2 - Molten Terror

We continue the serial this week, just like they did back in the movies during our times.

In a recent interchange with Jim McBride, we were discussing the issue of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the music industry. I told Jim, technology is scary. For example, I spent nine months of my military life learning all the tools and procedures to navigate an airplane, and now aircraft like the C-17 fly across the ocean with only two pilots using GPS and other technological devices - no navigators. The pilots also have autopilots (AI?) which do most of the flying for them. My son-in-law has a Tesla Cybertruck. On his last visit to see me he put in the system that he wanted to go to Taco Bell and the truck drove there without him touching the steering wheel. When we got there it found an empty parking space and parked itself. (It didn't order or eat the Taco's though!)

I also told Jim that AI can never replace human emotions. It does not know what it is like to kiss a girl for the first time. It has never lost a parent or a loved one. It doesn't know joy or heartbreak. Only humans know those things, and only humans can really express those feelings in words and music. I can give my AI application a few topics and it can put together a little fun piece, and with that I can entertain a group of 50 or so readers with it. It could never achieve the accomplishments he has.

AI is replacing some things and augmenting others. No AI application can ever replace the human connection Jim adds to his music. His songs appear on over 70 million records sold worldwide.

Do you think any of my silly songs will ever have that impact? Of course not! 

I have been putting out the weekly Lee's Traveller for over 20 years, never missing a week's publication. This is the 1,216th issue of that run. I have been covering the same things over and over again, sometimes exact copies and sometimes with different slants. These silly songs are my latest different slants on the time-worn subjects. Sometimes I even let AI help me with some facts I may not know. I doubt seriously if I can ask AI to do my whole newsletter for me and get a positive result.

 I have a few other silly songs to share in the next few issues, and I don't have to worry if anyone likes them or not. I did it for my own fun, and share it because I need something to put out to continue my link with my classmates. Their popularity does not affect my livelihood one iota. I can still pay my bills, put food on my table, and pay my income tax without any assistance from any of them.

Back in 1968, how many of us every thought things might turn out like "HAL" when we watched the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Delores McBride Kilgore, LHS '66, " Thank you, Tommy for so many memories that we all shared! Seems like yesterday! Life sure goes by fast "