On the Buses!

The superior mode of transportation in the 60s and 70s was the bicycle. With a bicycle, you could quickly and reliably get anywhere. Tapiola, the garden city, was not a maze-like stone city like Helsinki; nobody needed a bus to get around inside Tapiola. The furthest places, at least from the perspective of someone living in the eastern suburbs, were located on the outskirts of Otaniemi-Laajalahti-Mankkaa-Haukilahti – a slightly diagonal square. It took about half an hour or less to ride from my home on Menninkäisentie to those distant points. Of course, the return from Otaniemi after a Vesimies disco night was a different story. Either because I didn’t dare to get on the saddle due to the intoxication or because, while walking the bike, I could accompany the girl I met in the noise of the disco to her doorstep.

Helsinki, the capital city, wasn’t very far away. Several unpleasant shopping trips with my mother to Stockmann and Pukeva department stores taught me how to take a bus to Helsinki. Schedules were available at R-kiosks, but I didn’t really need them. Buses ran frequently. It was enough to walk past Mäntytorni, cross Mäntyviita, and continue along a small stretch of sandy road: the bus stop on Tapiolantie was visible at the end of this tree-lined path. All roads lead to Rome, and almost all Espoon Auto’s green buses go to Helsinki. Whichever bus happened to come was a coincidence: 1A, 1B, 4, and 5 were sure bets back and forth. If I had to wait at the stop for more than 10 minutes, I got annoyed – especially in the rain.

I began making my first trips to Helsinki alone, just as I started secondary school. There was always a little excitement tingling in my stomach on those first journeys. The routine I learned with my mother quickly gained additional confidence from successful visits to the city, alone or with my friend Hassan, who was about one and a half years older than me. Simonkenttä bus terminus was close to the big department stores Sokos and Stockmann, where we wandered around with a few coins in our pocket, without any actual intention to buy anything. Within a short walking distance, there were many other wonders of the big city, mostly museums: the Zoological Museum, the National Museum, the Postal Museum, and the Railway Museum. The animal museum was an absolute favorite; cramped, stuffy, and slightly scary. If we couldn’t wait for a movie advertised in the newspapers to appear at Kino Tapiola, we went to see a movie at Bio Rex or Bio Bio, two cinemas close to the Simonkenttä terminus. The bus took us there and brought us safely back. Children’s tickets didn’t cost much, and the journey itself was an adventure.

We had a car immediately after moving to Tapiola in the summer of 1960. We would use it to make trips to the Market Square and the Market Hall in Helsinki to buy food, usually on Saturdays. Having lived in the capital just a year earlier, my parents were apparently not satisfied with the offerings at Mäntyviita’s Elanto shops. We would also take trips to visit relatives all around Southern Finland. As for my own outings, I would rely on the bus. It never occurred to me to ask for a ride to Helsinki with my group of friends, for example, to go to the movies or pursue hobbies. Besides, having a bike or taking a bus provided freedom to move around as one pleased.

The drivers were very colorful personalities. Being frequent users of the green coaches, we became adept at recognizing the different types of coachmen. One driver, with thick eyebrows, would scowl at the group trying to get in, his peaked cap brim at eye level, without saying a word. Another would confidently wear his cap askew on his head and warmly welcome grannies, grandpas, and even teenagers as if they were boarding a cruise ship. He would ask of regular customers how they were doing and hum while driving. The funniest case was the legendary Whistler. He had no other speech impediment, but every time he said ”thanks” – and he thanked every passenger who got on – he would make the ”s” sound of the word whistle in a rising pitch: thaaankssh! thaaankssh! thaaankssh! We would laugh hysterically in the backseat, sliding down to the floor exhausted. There were several stops and many passengers to be transported. My asthmatic friend Olli once had such a severe fit of laughter that I had to lead him, with his face red and gasping for air, out to recover halfway to Helsinki, in Munkkiniemi. That trip left Olli with a phobia, and even as an adult, he would carefully check that ”the Whistler” was not behind the wheel before boarding.

The Otaniemi Vesimies-Täffä-Kaljakellari entertainment triangle satisfied most of our needs, but we also had to experience the pleasures of Helsinki. Going to the movies was soon accompanied by hanging out at concert venues in the capital. Tavastia Club was an easy thing, right by the bus station. Alibi also had the advantage of a stop just across the street. Botta required more planning in terms of schedules. It wasn’t just once or twice that we walked back to Tapiola getting completely sober, having missed the last bus. A variation on the theme was falling asleep on a bus headed towards Kauniainen: not quite as epic as a Helsinki-Tapiola hike, but still an excellent hangover cure.

As I lived so close to Helsinki, I couldn’t get a student apartment from the HOAS housing service. During my years of studying, the apartment on Menninkäisentie served mostly as a place to change clothes and wash up. Single tickets were replaced by a season ticket, a bundle of 30 colored paper strips stapled together. Rarely did I come straight home after a lecture or an exam. It’s common sense that when you’re already there, why not go to a movie or a concert on the same visit?

Once, on a bitterly cold winter day, I ran to catch a bus with my ticket already detached and ready in my hand, and managed to board just as the driver closed the door. The bus number 194 had only reached the beginning of Runeberginkatu when, to my horror, I noticed that the ticket booklet I had bought two days ago was missing from my wallet. I frantically searched through my belongings for a couple of stops. The booklet must have fallen into the snow when I jumped onto the bus. I pressed the stop button and jumped off the bus. Despite the freezing cold, I was sweating profusely running back, and fifteen minutes later, I was at Simonkenttä. I kicked the snow banks on the platform for a long time, searching for the booklet, but to no avail. Some lucky person had received almost a month’s worth of free rides. I paid in cash for my gloomy return to Tapiola. I got off at Tapiolantie’s kiosk and laid a few bills on the counter. As I stuffed the new booklet back into my wallet, I made a promise to myself never to detach a ticket from the booklet until I’m completely inside the bus.

I also traveled to and from work by bus. When my summer job place, Suomen Väri, was still located in Esplanadi, it was just one bus ride each way. Getting to Varisto in Vantaa required using two buses. The same pattern repeated itself with my next summer job at Valistus: getting to Särkiniementie in Lauttasaari took about half an hour by bike, but only half of that by bus. When Valistus relocated to Vantaa, it would have required two transfers. Luckily, my friend Timo had an old Ford Taunus at his disposal during those couple of summers in Vantaa. On public transportation journey took almost two hours, one way.

Still, in order to have a weekend getaway, I was ready to embark on a journey with three transfers. To get to my friend’s Tim’s island, I first had to take a bus to Kamppi, then another coach to Porvoo, from where the journey continued with a third bus to Tirmo’s harbor. The whole experience was crowned with a taxi boat ride to the island. I managed to read quite a few books while waiting for the connecting services during those three summers around the turn of the decade when I had the opportunity to visit Timsö. At the time, it didn’t feel impossible to travel like that.

Even moving away from Tapiola was done on an Espoon Auto’s green bus. It was a ridiculous task to transport LP records and books, but box by box, they made their way to Antti Korpin tie in Koskela, using two buses. Other than clothes and one guitar, there wasn’t much personal belongings accumulated. The green line 104 switched to Helsinki City Transport’s blue line number 55, conveniently stopping next to that Hämäläinen Osakunta’s student dormitory.

Living in the two-room apartment at Hämäläinen Osakunta, sometimes we have to rely on railway services after the last bus had departed. Taking the T-train on weekends is, to put it mildly, wild. Some of the people on board are completely out of control due to alcohol or drugs, likely both. The journey to Oulunkylä station is not long, but it is agonizing. The ticket inspector either doesn’t have time or doesn’t dare to pass through the rowdy section. Therefore, one has to endure this hellish spectacle.

Weekdays are quieter. The conductor flashes quickly for ticket inspection. Sometimes, the Afro-American lecturer from the English department, Mr. Holman, takes the same journey. He seems to enjoy being in our company, and it’s safer to travel in a familiar group. After a theater evening, as we sit on those stained blue plastic seats, the conversation revolves around the play we just saw. Holman suddenly falls silent, swiftly opens his attaché case, vomits into it, snaps the locks shut, and continues speaking as if nothing happened. The situation is over so quickly that it’s only when we’re back home in our apartment that we realize the hilarity and impeccable timing of the lecturer’s act.

In winter, we would take the bus from Koskela to visit my mother in Tapiola. During other seasons, we would travel by tandem bicycle. During Midsummer in 1983, we took a nostalgic trip on buses to Ritvala, Vekka’s summer home, where I spent my summer holidays in the 60s. Similarly, before obtaining a car in late 1988, we traveled to Vääksy with Koiviston Auto coaches. Two adults and a two-year-old daughter actually enjoyed the unhurried journey. In the summer of 1987, my wife and daughter were already on vacation at the Hakakuja’s large detached house, and I followed a week later on Koivisto’s “milk train”, a bus that toured all the possible sideways of Vesivehmaa, Urajärvi, and Paimela. The entertainment for the over two-hour journey was provided by Sony Walkman with primitive earbud headphones, playing Electric Light Orchestra’s double cassette album ”Out of the Blue.” The journey could have continued even longer, as the album sounded so good to a state official who was finally enjoying his first proper summer vacation.

In Järvenpää, we lived at four different addresses. All of them were within a reasonably short walking distance to the main railway station or to the Kyrölä platform. During the morning rush hour, there would be three trains per hour, and everything mostly went well and according to schedule. Then winter arrived, bringing a bit of apprehension for the morning and afternoon. The crackling of the microphone in the loudspeaker made the whole train car startle awake. ”Crackle! We have a bit of a rush on the tracks. We are running approximately 20 minutes behind schedule. Crackle!” And the same crackling while waiting for the return journey.

The longest delay caused by wintry weather was three and a half hours on a cold and snowy winter morning. I just managed to arrive in time for my lunch break at work. While spooning soup at a window table in Porthania cafeteria, I watched the snowfall thicken, obscuring the administrative building across the street, on the other side of Yliopistonkatu. I placed the tray on the transport cart, stamped myself out, and pushed against the horizontal sleet towards Kamppi. The bus departed on time. On the way, I wondered if I would even make it home in time for the six p.m. sauna shift. I was home before three o’clock. The journey took just under an hour…