OK you young whippersnappers, what is the "Merry Prankster Bus," who is Ken
Kesey and why would the Smithsonian want his old heap anyway? Ruth
At 7:11 PM -0500 3/15/03, Ken Follett wrote:
>This from one of my favorite sleeper writers Ed McClanahan:
>
>"It was a totally crazy project. About five years ago the Smithsonian
>started talking to Ken [Kesey] about how they wanted to get the original
>Merry Prankster bus for their collection--they literally wanted the whole
>bus. But the original prankster bus has been sitting in a swamp out behind
>Ken's house for years. It had grass growing in it; it was totally
>immovable. So he [Kesey] said, "Well, the original bus is in ruinous
>condition." And the Smithsonian replied, "Don't worry, we will renovate
>it; we will bring back to what it was." So Ken explained, "Why if you're
>going to do that you would have to renovate it aU the way back to yellow,
>because originally it was a yellow school bus!" And there is also the fact
>that there is no original bus in a sense that it was changing all the
>time. They would paint it wildly psychedelic one day and then go paint it
>black the next day if they had one particular event they wanted to have a
>black bus in. And immediately they'd go paint it wildly psychedelic again.
>There were places on that bus where the paint was literally over an inch
>thick. So Ken told the Smithsonian that "there is no original bus." But
>they kept insisting on it. So he went and bought a "new" bus; it wasn't at
>all new, though. I think the original was a 1939 International, and the
>"new" one was a '47, I believe. It looks pretty much the same, except that
>it is smaller, and very much in better shape than the [14] old bus ever
>was. It was a nice, tight, ready-to-roll little school bus that had been
>pretty well maintained. Ken redid that particular bus. And they did just
>an exquisite paint job on this version of the bus. It was truly beautiful
>inside and out--it had an astonishing sound system--all the stuff. So Ken
>did this, and did it secretively. And he pushed the old bus even further
>into the swamp and covered it with camouflage cloths, and declared to the
>Smithsonian that he was going to bring them the bus. This was all a hoax.
>It was all meant to--well, it was a giant prank. The Smithsonian very
>emphatical
>ly declared that it didn't want a reproduction; it wanted the original
>bus. Ken declared that despite that fact, he was driving the bus across
>the country for one last trip and intended to present it to the
>Smithsonian. And they kept saying, "We don't want it!," and Ken kept
>saying, "It's coming anyway!"
>
>Check out the conclusion:
>http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/95/hhr95_3.html
>v-z)^zڶ*'-X
>ZƧv^w(}hr쨺 اm"-g"rzۺYZkbvi
--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Westminster, VT
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
|
