The King Tut Show

By Tim Clancy

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In October of 1925, archeologist Howard Carter entered a 3,300-year-old Egyptian tomb, opened a solid gold coffin, and beheld what would soon become an international sensation and, eventually, one of the most famous artifacts in human history: the death mask of King Tutankhamen, otherwise known as King Tut—the Boy King. Between 1976 and 1979, an exhibition of fifty-five priceless objects from Carter's discovery toured seven American cities, attracting more than 8 million visitors. I was one of them. My initial attraction had come from the words on a hand drawn flier on the bulletin board at the Growers Market building in Eugene, Oregon: "Ride The Iron Horse to Seattle. See King Tut! Only $20!"

In the late 1970s, a handful of small, alternative, bus lines, like the San Francisco-based Grey Rabbit, offered long distance, no-frills trips at much lower fares than conventional lines like Greyhound or Trailways. They were often called "hippy buses," after their reputation for allowing their mostly college-age passengers to relax and enjoy the ride—in all the ways you might imagine young folks enjoying themselves on a long bus ride in the 1970s. 

I'd spent the fall, winter, and spring, working on a tree planting crew in the outback of the Pacific Northwest. Our company, The Hoedads, was based in Eugene, Oregon. Steve Berger, one of the two guys that owned the Iron Horse, had been a fellow crew member. He and another tree planter, Robert “Mouseman” McCarthy, had borrowed some money and purchased a 1945, thirty-passenger bus: a Flxible Clipper. And, no, that's not a misspelling. 

One of the older guys on the crew at 34, Steve was tall and always wore a beat-up white cowboy hat. He was laidback and affable, with a booming, raspy voice and an air of confidence that made him well suited to piloting a bus. As a member of my tree planting crew, Steve was our go-to person for troubleshooting and repairing mechanical problems with our crew vehicles, but he wasn't nearly as gung-ho about planting trees as he was about working on, and driving, big passenger rigs, so, for Steve, the tour bus idea was a good fit. He and Mouseman were hoping to cash in on the emerging market for low-cost, alternative bus service to events and locales around California and the Pacific Northwest. 

On the afternoon of the trip, I joined a handful of other riders in the parking lot of the Growers Market building. Each of us had a daypack, sleeping bag, and a verbal promise of a reserved seat. The bus had a steel, dark blue body with chrome trim. At the front end, just above the Flxible logo, was a two-paned wraparound windshield. Below that, two pairs of headlights, tucked into shiny chrome coves. Along each side, seven pairs of forward-angled aluminum-framed sliding windows allowed for nice viewing and fresh air. The rear of the bus had a strikingly aerodynamic curve to it, with an air scoop at the top that helped cool the rear-mounted engine and the luggage compartment. As we boarded, Steve greeted us at the door while he collected our fare: "Head on in, find yourself a seat, and make yourselves at home." 

Only about fifteen people had shown up, so several of us got a whole seat to ourselves. Steve stood by the door for a while, hoping more takers would arrive. While we waited, I made small talk with nearby passengers, one of whom was a retired schoolteacher from England. She was wearing a plaid pantsuit and was clearly the oldest person on the bus. A little while later, she politely declined one of the joints that was being passed around and went back to reading her spy novel. Steve finally stepped up and announced the itinerary:

"We'll get to Seattle in about five hours; then we'll spend the night, go to the exhibit first thing in the morning, and then meet back at the bus around noon for the return trip. Any questions?" Someone asked about where we would sleep. "That's entirely up to the individual," Steve replied. "But don't worry about it—you'll find a place to sleep." 

Neither the flier nor Steve had made any mention of overnight accommodations, but I had spent the previous eight months sleeping in a tent, in primitive forest campsites, so any accommodations at least as comfortable as that would have been fine with me. As for the rest of the riders—mostly college students from the nearby University of Oregon—the matter of where they would sleep apparently hadn't stopped them from paying their fare and climbing aboard. 

Steve turned the key, and the bus's eight-cylinder Buick engine roared to a start. We crept through a tangle of downtown traffic, merged onto Interstate 5, and we were on our way. We hadn't been but a few minutes outside of Eugene when, up ahead, we saw a couple of guys hitchhiking on the side of the onramp to the interstate. Steve shouted, "Should we pick them up?" Several people shouted back: "Sure! Yeah!" 

The hitchhikers noticed the bus slow down and pull over. They did a double take, froze for a second, then grabbed their duffle bags and sprinted toward us. When they got to the door, Steve pulled the handle, it swung open, and the following short conversation ensued:

"Where you headin'?"

"Portland."

"Okay, we can do that. Hop on."

"Uh, what kinda bus is this?"

"It's a tour bus. We're goin' to Seattle to see King Tut."

"King who? We don't have no money for a bus."

"Don't worry, there's no charge. You guys want a ride or not?"

They scrambled up into the bus and quickly sat down next to each other in the same seat. Someone immediately passed them a joint, which they readily latched on to. Still a bit mystified, one of them proclaimed, "We thought this was the goddam prison bus, comin' to take us back!" Apparently, only a few hours earlier, they'd both been released from a detention center. Before they got off in Portland, one of them turned to us at the door and shouted, "You all have a nice visit at King Tuck's!"

I was sitting close to a guy who had brought a boombox and an eclectic mix of cassette tapes—I remember Keith Jarrett and Joni Mitchell—and was delighted when he came through with my request for Santana. We made a pit stop at about the halfway point, where a few of us kicked a hacky sack and a few others did tai chi. A couple hours later, as the sun was setting, we rolled into Seattle. Steve must have gotten a special permit ahead of time—or not—since he parked the bus on a beautiful tree-lined side street, near a residential area, only a short walk from the venue, Flagg Pavilion. He turned off the engine, and announced the plan:

"Tickets are first-come-first-served, and tour groups get priority in the morning. We want to be in line when they open, so let's all meet here by 7 am sharp and walk over there together. If you're not here then, that's fine. But if you wanna go back to Eugene on the Iron Horse, make sure you're back here by noon." A few of the passengers had friends or family who were meeting them, or they walked or took a cab to a nearby hotel. The rest of us were now on our own. Someone asked Steve—again—if he had any ideas about where we might sleep. "Oh, just anywhere around here should work. There's lots of bushes and trees. I'd just go off over there"—he pointed towards a big, park-like yard—"and curl up under a couple of them yews. Nobody'll notice."

Several people shouldered their packs, grabbed their sleeping bags and, following Steve's advice, walked off into the dark. Not me. It was Seattle, and it was the 1970s, but I was not about to go sleep in somebody's yard without their permission and risk a ticket for trespassing or have to deal with an irate dog. 

The remaining passengers, along with Steve, would be sleeping on, or very close to, the bus. I tried my seat, found it impossible to get comfortable, and, with Steve's blessing, ended up stretched out on the floor of the open storage compartment, my feet hanging over the bumper. 

In the morning, we had no trouble locating the exhibit, since it seemed all of humanity was walking towards it. Just after 7 am, we were among several hundred people who were already in line, eager with anticipation to encounter the ancient contents of King Tut's tomb. But we also really wanted some coffee, and maybe a bagel or a donut. Fortunately, local Seattle vendors, already famous for great coffee, were stationed in kiosks all around the area, happy to do business. So as we snaked along in the massive line, we took turns dashing off to grab a quick fix and a breakfast snack. 

Around 9 am, I paid the very reasonable one-dollar entrance fee, got my ticket, and stepped into a dimly lit entryway, lined with life-size photomurals of the actual entryway to King Tut's tomb. The photos were stunning in their clarity of detail, thanks to photographer Harry Burton’s meticulous attention to lighting, angle, and exposure. Burton had been there, camera ready, on the day Howard Carter opened the tomb and for ten years thereafter, documenting the contents—roughly 5,000 objects—in what turned out to be five individual rooms, a facsimile of which I was now navigating. 

The museum's effort to recreate the layout and ambience of the actual tomb was working like magic. No need to willingly suspend disbelief. Within a few seconds, my sense of reality had shifted: I was now moving back through time, toward an ancient world adorned with statues and coffins and gold. Strategically placed speakers played gentle but dramatic instrumental

music, specially commissioned for the exhibit, employing traditional Egyptian wind and stringed instruments, and based on music that was known to have existed in the days and milieu of the Boy King. 

Though there were people all around me, I drifted in a dream-like state, through the entryway and the antechamber—past a life-size painted wooden image of Tut, past sleek, perfectly carved statuettes of goddesses and animals—as if I were alone. It wasn't long, maybe a few minutes, until I reached the burial chamber, where my eyes were drawn to the center of the room and the dazzling heart of the exhibit: King Tut's gold death mask. At almost two-feet-tall and weighing twenty pounds, it would have covered Tut's entire head, shoulders, and collar bone. Stripes of dark blue inlaid glass decorated the headdress. On his forehead were sculpted gold images of two goddesses—one a cobra, the other a vulture. In the center of the mask was a smooth, polished, glowing gold face, a striking contrast to eyebrows and eyeliner of dark blue lapis lazuli and black eyes of obsidian, creating an image Howard Carter described as "...a sad but calm expression suggestive of youth prematurely overtaken by death." Staring into that pair of black eyes, I felt an appreciation for my own mortality and a kind of reverence for the mysteries of the ancient past.

The rest of the exhibit is foggy in my memory, but I do recall uniformed guards, eagle-eyed and serious, standing quietly in the corners of each room. When I left, somewhat dazed, an abrupt change of scenery yanked me back to the present: I found myself in a noisy, brightly lit area adjacent to a gift shop, where smiling attendants displayed official, exhibit-approved, Tut-themed books, posters, and other memorabilia, including plastic miniatures of artifacts from the show. I milled around there for a few minutes, and then reality dawned on me: it was 1978, and I was in a huge pavilion, buzzing with live humans, fresh off a mind-blowing trip to the world of an Egyptian pharaoh—3,300 years dead. Some of those people now seemed eager to acquire a keepsake or two from that trip—others were looking around for their tour mates or a clock. What time was it?

I stepped outside, was blinded by a jarring mid-day sun, and soon spied the plaid schoolteacher from England and several other riders from the Iron Horse, standing together. We recognized each other and simultaneously waved. Though I barely knew any of them, they seemed like old friends: these were my people, fellow travelers, looking out for each other amid the hubbub of this big, Tut-crazed, crowded city. We had a distinct identity—we were the group from Eugene that had come to the exhibit on a vintage bus. Early that morning we had walked here as a group, stood in line together, and together we had seen the Treasures of Tutankhamun. I made my way through the crowd to join them, and we walked back to the bus together. 

The return trip to Eugene was uneventful. It was hot, so we opened the windows. Most of us were dog-tired, and we dozed as the miles rolled by. After we arrived back at the Growers Market, Steve made a pitch for upcoming events where he and Mouseman were planning to take The Iron Horse, including one later that summer—to see The Dead.

Afterword: 

As per an agreement worked out in advance by U.S. and Egyptian diplomats, more than $10 million dollars of profit resulting from the Treasures of Tutankhamen tour of the United States (1976-1979) went to The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo. 

After driving the Iron Horse for a few years, Steve Berger started a cab company in Eugene, called Emerald Taxi. Mouseman bought out Steve’s share of the Iron Horse, as well as two more vintage Flxible Clippers—The Pony and The Mule—and operated Iron Horse Stage Lines for another sixteen years.  Steve eventually sold Emerald Taxi, then spent twenty-five years working as a long-haul trucker. 

The last Flxible buses were built in 1995. A dedicated group of their owners meets every-other year in Loudonville, Ohio.

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Tim Clancy's writing has appeared in, among others, Catamaran, The MacGuffin, and Wilderness House Literary Review. He is a retired high school English teacher who lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.