Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 25, 1993 TAG: 9312270290
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Johnson, 21, thought he'd be at his parents' house by Friday morning.
Then the fuel injector on his 1990 car went out, and he found himself stranded in Roanoke. He spent the night in a motel and found out the next morning that it would cost $700 or $800 to fix his car. He decided to leave it in Roanoke and worry about it later.
So at noon on Christmas Eve he found himself at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Roanoke, trying to buy a ticket to Syracuse.
One problem: By the time he'd paid for the motel and $20 for a taxi to the bus terminal, he had just $150. A round-trip ticket to Syracuse cost $180.
After a few frantic phone calls, he had a solution. His parents would go to the bus station in Syracuse and pay for the ticket there. That decided, he settled in for a five-hour wait.
Johnson, who is working construction and living with an uncle while trying to get into the University of Georgia, wasn't sure when his bus would get to Syracuse. Sometime Christmas afternoon.
Tucked in a plastic garbage bag with some of his clothes was a clock, decorated with images of Native Americans, that he was going to give his parents for Christmas.
This was the first Christmas since he moved away from home. Would the hassles of getting home make this one more special?
Johnson wasn't sure. "It might have been cheaper to stay in Georgia and just say hello on the phone."
\ Donna Hurtekant, 17, also found herself stranded at Roanoke's bus station on Christmas Eve.
In her case, she had been on a bus from Conyers, Ga., to Charlottesville. She expected to be there by 7:10 a.m. Friday.
Somehow, though, she failed to change buses in Lynchburg, and ended up in Roanoke instead of Charlottesville. She said the driver never told her she was supposed to change in Lynchburg.
She'd already spent 16 hours overnight on the bus from down South. She didn't want to wait seven hours for another bus to Charlottesville. So called her parents and asked them to drive down to Roanoke to pick her up.
The gifts for her family were already wrapped - cologne for her dad, a decorative teapot for her mom and a shirt for her 15-year-old brother.
She passed the time by sitting and watching people come and go in the waiting room. Strange beeps, music and moans from an "Addams Family" pinball machine provided background music.
\ Ricky Coltrane had nowhere to go. But he was going anyway.
"I'm just a man on my own," he said. "I am totally alone. Not totally alone. There are some people in my circumstances - cold, dirty, homeless."
He was heading from Richmond to Silver Spring, Md., where he expected to spend Christmas Day in a homeless shelter.
Coltrane claimed he had done secret work for the Pentagon and that the Mafia had asked him to be a Don. He had bought his bus ticket with money from his monthly disability check.
As he waited for the bus at the Roanoke terminal, he talked about his life:
"I'm a Leo. I was born in 1962.
"I believe in God's way.
"I've been brutally beaten for living in the streets.
"I've been used, abused, humiliated, shot with dope.
"I am not a philosopher but I believe the end time is coming.
"All drugs are self-destructive.
"People don't harmonize with people like they should.
"I wish I could work. I've made things like pizza. They wouldn't give me a job."
\ Tyrone Bryant, 42, was waiting for the bus back to Staunton. He said he had come to Salem to break the news to a cousin about the deaths, within just two weeks, of three family members.
Earlier in the day, he'd been having coffee at the Capitol restaurant near the City Market. He struck up a conversation with another man - "I make friends real fast" - and then went out the door with his bus ticket still sitting on the table.
He came back and the man was gone. So was his ticket.
Bryant, a Vietnam vet, did his best to raise some money for another ticket. He sold his watch. Then he sold a pint of blood at the Roanoke Plasma Center.
When he returned to the bus station, he found out that the guy he'd sat with at the restaurant had brought his ticket to the teller desk and left it for him.
That left Bryant with money for pinball. He also bought Ricky Coltrane a cup of coffee.
Getting his ticket back was a great Christmas present, Bryant said.
"And I've got $18 to spend."
He headed across Campbell Avenue to Woolworth's, where, thanks to a going-out-of-business sale, everything was marked down 40 percent.
by CNB