Herschel and Silverado, La Jolla: The buildings on this corner in La Jolla don't reek of money: a print shop, a Travelodge, It could be a corner in another part of San Diego. But the people walking the sidewalks! For some reason La Jollans lend themselves to stereotypes. Especially these fashionable mesdames. They all look as if they've just come up from the Saks store down on Girard — nice opulent pants suits and winter coasts, imported shoes and perfectly coiffed hair: a uniform. The men, on the other hand, are two types, the retiree, white-haired, suntanned but wrinkled face, cardigan sweater, baggy slacks and comfortable shoes. He's come too far and lived too long to be fastidious about fashion. And the young stockbroker (are there really more stockbrokers in La Jolla than anywhere else?) with his expensively cut suit and longish but carefully styled hair. As the bus pulls up, it becomes clear that none of these sidewalkers are going to board. Only a few women in white dresses get on.

A small-boned girl in white uniform just makes it; she throws her quarter in the change box and plops down next to a middle-aged lady with bright red lipstick and a bright red turtleneck. "I just served my last customer!" she gasps. "It's an hour-and-a-half bus ride to North Park as it is, without missing my bus." It seems as though the lady is a friend, but then the girl launches into a life story ("...and then I worked for the Navy for two years...") so the lady must be a new audience. Occaionally the black woman on the sideways seat in front of the conversation turns her head to listen more carefully, as do two grandmothers on the other side.

Girard and Pearl: The streets are bulging with busy Christmas traffic, lots of El Dorados adn Continentals. More older people get on. A tall but frail man in his eighties is led by his wife, "Here, dear. You sit over here. Where there's more sun." Are they tourists? She has three little white and red signs knitted on her blue sweater, "Vienna," "Rome," "Madrid." Two small children with straw hair bounce up the steps and into their seats clutching brown envelopes of "School Portraits."

La Jolla Boulevard: Clean apartment buildings with large bay windows, palm trees and meticulous landscaping line this coastal artery. But the giant eucalyptus dominate the street and give it real grace. Unfortunately, there aren't any sidewalks here, so a passer-by can only experience this part of San Diego with a whirring window glance. The girl in the white uniform is talking about her first day with the cash register, how she made a 20-dollar mistake, and how embarrassed she felt. The red-lipped lady, who until now has maintained a transfixed gaze, finally breaks into a small laugh, "Oh, I know what you mean." Then the girl starts reviewing her childhood, "...couldn't walk til I was two and..."

Turquoise Street at Mission Boulevard: The red-lipped lady politely excuses herself. "I have to get off now," and an older, stocky woman in another seat who is burdened with two heavy shopping bags immediately moves next to the girl and starts in about the weather. She came to San Diego from Seattle for a 30-day vacation and decided to stay. She likes it here but she misses the apples. The girl and the woman both love San Diego and they get into a discussion of what a problem i would be to marry someone who wanted to live back East. Mission Boulevard is much more commercial than its northern extension: signs for Denny's, Jack in the Box, and Motel Vacancies reach out to grab the passing traveler.

Pacific Beach Drive at Mission Boulevard: Just as the bus leaves Pacific Beach for Mission Beach, two maids get on from the Catamaran, followed by a couple in jeans and army jackets. North Mission Beach, or Old Mission, is populated with one and two-story apartment buildings. Few highrises to block the view, but not much space for yards or lawns between homes. "The serious waterbed" say the sidewalk bust-stop benches, and the small shops hugging the boulevard speak of folk music, homemade clothes and handcrafts. "The Cave" bears its ugly fangs of stalactites and stalagmites and the Get It On Shop ("your full-service headshop") flashes the infamous poster of naked Burt Reynolds and a blow-up of the ubiquitous Zig-Zag cigarette papers man. North Mission is definitely poorer than South Mission (Mission Beach south of Belmont Park) and the fact that the buses no longer stop in richer South Mission tells you something about bus riders.

The older woman is now dominating the conversation with the girl, telling her about raising sweet peas. The girl manages to get in a word about her sister who was a medic in the Army.

Midway Drive: This street must be one of the best pieces of Southern California pop art. The signs scream "Everybody Loves Milk." "Smirnoff/We invented the Screwdriver," "Taco Bell," "Chinaland." The San Diego City Council's attempt to cut down on- and off-premise signs seems designed for Midway. Some students from the Midway Adult School, many Mexican and black, climb aboard. A man at the back door of the bus who has released wafts of alcohol throughout the bus yells at the driver that he's missed his stop.

Pacific Highway: After a brief stretch of freeway, the bus heads toward downtown by way of Pacific Highway. Now the girl is talking about her life in a convent and the woman begins her reply, "gotta lotta friends that's Cath'lic." Other passengers exchange comments about the weather, gloating over their relatives in the East: "Heard it was five below zero in Chicago yesterday," a man tells the bus driver.

Horton Plaza: One of a huge crowd, I wait for the "O" bus to San Ysidro, transfer in hand. A group of Mexican ladies and I almost get on an O bus for National City by mistake. A chunky Mexican man takes us under his wing and puts us on the right bus. Within a few stops almost all the passengers are speaking Spanish and ti's difficult to understand the three sets of housewives across the aisle. One pair seems to be complaining about food prices, another discussing marital problems.

12th and Imperial: This is a part of San Diego unmentioned by the Chamber of Commerce brochures or by the lady at the Horton Plaza Information Booth suggesting scenic bus rides. Wide yards of heavy equipment, Lang Parts Warehouse, Reliable Pipe Supply. A deserted gas station is boarded up with plywood which in turn is pasted with Tom Hom for Mayor and Jim Bates for Council posters.

National Avenue at Sigsbee Street: More Spanish in the signs. Panderia Nacional, Se Habla Espanol. Several large automobile wrecking yards, the skeletons piled high behind corrugated fences; it looks almost as if the dead cars themselves are trying to escape. Warehouses and truck parks of some of the more famous names in San Diego retail: Fed Mart, Dorman's Tires, Big Bear, Lucky Stores.

Main Street and 28th: A group of relatively new apartment buildings looks strange among the rows of smaller, older wooden houses. A "Navy Lodge." Down the street appears the Lou Conde Company, "service to the fleet" and then the Commissioned Officers Mess. Like tufts of fiber in a worn carpet, the tumbleweed bushes dot the brown vacant lots on the right and provide an interesting foreground for the hazy view of the Navy shipyards in the distance.

Chula Vista: Another stretch of freeway brings the bus into Chula Vista. but not without a frustrating traffic jam which gives all passengers time to read the large neon "Palm Reader" and the Masonic eye-in-triangle on the other. Hang your hat in Chula Vista, says another sign just before the bus gets off the freeway.

After inching through the traffic of downtown Chula Vista, we pass neat rows of bungalows, some plain, others fancier with pine and juniper planted along clean-cut lawns. The bus collects a group of shoppers from Chula Vista's answer to Fashion Valley — the Broadway, Sees Candies, Foreman and Clark. A ponderous Anglo woman aims for the seat next to me and sits down with a great sigh. "Going to the border?" she asks after a few minutes of silence. A nod. "Yep, me too. Got my son over there. No, I'm not visitin'. No, I live there with him. In Tee-uh-wah-nuh." A pause. "You married? No? Well, all I gotta say is watch out. Watch who ya marry. I think the boy really gets the bad part of that deal. Yessirree. The boy really loses out." Now my curiousity is really aroused. "Take my son Howard," the woman continues, "he never dated any girls in high school. Nope, never. We lived up in Fresno. Then he joined the Navy and he got stationed down here at Brown Field, and before I could stop him he married her."

Palm City: Just as the woman starts to talk about Howard, a young man with a Navy dress uniform on a coathanger slung over his back and a bulging laundry bag at his feet, picks up his laundry and steps out the front entrance of the bus. The bus is beginning a long, circuitous route through the hills south of Chula Vista. Trailer parks turn into monotonous tract homes: station wagons, basketball backboards on garage roofs, television antennae shooting up from every house.

"Yes, she's a Mexican," the woman complains. "She really takes advantage of my poor Howard.... Saw her smilin' this mornin', I know what she'd done. Poor Howard left his wallet in his pants, and she got ten dollars from him. Sometimes I don't know what he'd do without me. She's never kept the house clean. They're so dirty, those Mexicans." Uncomfortable, and somewhat shaken, I look around the bus to see if the rest of the passengers are listening. Most of them are chatting away in Spanish or gazing out the window. A few have dozed off. "I can't even get them to clean the mattress pads. What filth! Howard shoulda left her a long time ago. I woulda."

San Ysidro: Finally, as it nears six o'clock, and the sun has set, the bus turns on to a side street of this Mexican-Amercian town. There is dust in the air. Clumps of banana trees in front of some of the houses and homemade Nativity scenes in some of the yards. Bilingual signs: telas/hardage, botica/drugstore, muebleria/furniture. "There's my store I shop at," the woman points past some of the smaller businesses. "Safeway. Ya can't buy any food down there; it's not clean. Course I do buy a little milk now 'n then... Oh, I get so disgusted livin' down there. I tried to leave once, and poor Howard, he broke down and cried, poor boy, I just couldn't leave him."

It is easy to tell the last stop on the San Ysidro line. All the remaining riders stand up at once and file out. Most of them walk in clumps toward the signs saying Tijuana. A few dally. "No, you can't stay on. You have to get off and walk across the street to the other bus stop," says the bus driver.

"Isn't there an express back to San Diego?" I ask noticing from my watch that it's been almost four hours since La Jolla.

"Yeah, down at the Greyhound station; there's one that leaves around eight." Fumbling my only money, the quarter in my pocket, I decide to stay with San Diego Transit and walk across the street. The crowd at the bus stop here in San Ysidro is large, and the people couldn't be mistaken for La Jollans. They are gregarious, many of them wearing shawls, some wearing working clothes. The bus finally makes its U-turn and comes to its first stop on the run from San Ysidro. Only 25 cents back to La Jolla.