‘Parlor coach’ takes couple on sentimental journey

You don’t need a map to find Robert and Earline Cole’s house at the corner of Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue.

It isn’t necessary to program your GPS, look for a number on the mailbox or a fern on the porch.

A bus stretches for nearly 40 feet, swallowing most of the driveway at “Cole’s Corner.” It has a dead battery, flat tire and hasn’t made a road trip in more than a dozen years. This has become its permanent bus stop.

Its age has reached 55, which is still the speed limit on some two-lanes. It has been to the Alamo, around the block and down many happy trails in between.

It has climbed mountains, crossed deserts and stopped beside swamps. Its tires have touched sandy beaches and been stuck in the mud. A billion bugs have splattered on its windshield.

There was a time — and still is, to an extent — when the highways were filled with Winnebagos, Airstreams and Wanderlodges. The Coles have their own antique roadshow — a converted “busmobile” that has been around since Eisenhower, the U.S. President who introduced the interstate highway system to America.

They purchased the 1952 GMC bus in 1979, so it had almost a generation of travel stories under its fan belt before they hit the road, bound for campgrounds, state parks and family reunions.

They affectionately named it “Trailhound,” a highway hybrid of Trailways and Greyhound. Robert later wanted to call it “Road House.” They settled on “Parlor Coach” and steered it toward places like Hiawatha, Kansas, Tickfaw, Louisiana, and Matamoros, Mexico. They kept a travelogue of where they went, who they visited and what happened along the way.

The Coles have put a few miles on their own odometers. Robert will be 91 this week. Although they no longer roam the countryside, it doesn’t stop them from rolling down memory lane. They can laugh about the time they agreed to deliver clothes to Texas for a local church ministry. The “Parlor Coach” was so loaded down they almost didn’t have a place to sleep.

They were married in Griffin on the Fourth of July in 1948. Robert began working in electronics at Robins Air Force Base in 1951, and the family settled in Bonaire in 1954.

Robert enjoyed the great outdoors, so their vacations usually weren’t spent under orange roofs at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodges. Earline loathed sleeping in a tent on the ground. She was not a happy camper.

Still, she tried to be a good sport and go along for the ride. They upgraded their tents, then bought a Chuck Wagon. Robert soon built his own camper on a 1973 Chevrolet pick-up, and they made several church mission trips to Mexico. It was so small they had to wedge themselves in and pry themselves out.

In 1979, Robert returned home from a Temporary Duty Assignment and found a diesel bus parked in the yard. Earline was a member of church gospel group called “Happy Hearts.” The bus was the only means of transportation for the guitar player. He eventually traded it in. It sat on a used car lot in Perry, where the sales folks kept pitching it to Earline. Her reply always was the same: “I don’t want it.”

She bought it anyway, for $1,500. The look of surprise on her husband’s face was priceless.

“He had always talked about diesel, diesel, diesel,” she said. “I thought it was time to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.”

And driving the drive.

She began cleaning and stripping the inside before her husband returned home. For Robert, it was a daunting project.

“I couldn’t sleep at night trying to figure out what to do with it,” he said. “I hadn’t planned on a bus.”

He took measurements and started searching for parts, accessories and appliances at dealerships and junk yards. He scraped the “barn paint” from the roof. (All it lacked was a “See Rock City” sign.)

There was more time to work on it after he retired in June 1981. They had a “test run” on Aug. 23, 1982. They didn’t travel far, just 16 miles to the Interstate Campground in Byron. They took their first major trip to Navarre Beach, Florida. The following year, they went to Fort Worth, Texas, for the birth of their first grandchild.

For almost 15 years, they made an annual pilgrimage to the Citrus Valley RV Campground in McAllen, Texas. They became friends with many of the “Winter Texans,” another term for “Snowbirds” from the northern states. They helped organize pot-luck suppers, ice cream socials, gospel sings, bingo games and a Hawaiian luau.

On the road, the “Parlor Coach” had an air horn so loud you could practically hear in the next county. They once parked behind a fast-food restaurant and went inside. “Where is everybody else?” the employees asked. They thought it was a tour bus.

“When I rebuilt the engine, I put on an exhaust pipe that stuck out instead of down,” said Robert. “People would wave and pull up beside us, just to listen to it.”

When they weren’t traveling, the Coles often would invite friends to visit inside the “parlor” in the driveway. Robert’s brother, Jim, once told them: “You know, every place should reflect the personality of its owners, and y’all have done a good job of that.”

“Jim was right,” said Earline. “The ‘Parlor Coach’ is not fancy. It is simple, practical and homey. It is us!”

As it became stationary for longer periods, neighbors would stop by to say how they always had admired the bus. It was an icon, a conversation piece. When Earline asked young men from the neighborhood if they wanted to buy it, they would smile politely. “My wife would kill me if I brought that home.”

They once had an offer from a man who wanted to purchase it for spare parts, but the Coles would not part with their sentimentality journey.

On a recent afternoon, Earline was watching an episode of “American Pickers,” a popular reality series on the History Channel where a pair of antique and collectible enthusiasts search for items to fix, resell or add to their personal collections.

“The thought entered my mind if ‘American Pickers’ should come our way and make an offer, we might strike up a deal,” she said. “We would know they have an appreciation for our ‘Parlor Coach,’ and it would not end up on a scrap pile.”

This story was originally published June 9, 2017 at 5:28 PM with the headline "‘Parlor coach’ takes couple on sentimental journey."