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Published Sunday, May 11, 2008 in Local

Photo by Brenda Pedraza-Vidamour

Ron and Linda Wassenberg’s bus is for sale, but hurry. The offer may only be good for another decade. Wassenberg admits he has no real hope of selling or donating the bus with fuel prices nearing $4 a gallon.

What's with that bus on Highway 34?

By Brenda Pedraza-Vidamour

The Times-Herald

There's the Big Chicken in Marietta, the Varsity in Atlanta and "Washrag's Bus" on Highway 34 East in Coweta.

The 1961 Flxible bus has been for sale and parked on the same grassy spot along the county's busiest stretch of highway, off and on, for the past 10 years so it's earned landmark status. About 47,000 drivers pass the old silver bus every day.

Ron Wassenberg, 69, will pull the 35-foot passenger bus off the highway every now and then to turn the engine over, recharge the battery and give the tires a good rotation, but his wife won't let him stow it in the front yard too long.

He has several trucks and other farming equipment already occupying space on their 25 acres, Linda Wassenberg said.

Wassenberg admits that he has no real hopes of selling or donating the bus with fuel prices now hovering close to $4.

"It's getting dimmer and dimmer," he said.

He got the nickname "Washrag" from the late Marvin Cole, a longtime Sharpsburg leader and co-owner of one of Sharpsburg's own landmarks, the Bridges & Cole store.

Cole couldn't pronounce Wassenberg's name so he took to calling him Washrag, Linda Wassenberg explained.

The Wassenbergs said as Coles' sight worsened in later years, his son would drive him "into town for dinner," and Cole would judge how close he was to the restaurants by asking, "Have we passed Washrag's bus yet?"

The phone numbers on the "For Sale" sign are barely legible anymore, long faded by the sun. The windows are dirty, the seats long gone and a thief has recently pried off the Flxible logo.

"It still runs good," Wassenberg said. "It has low mileage on it and brand new tires."

It's a 1961 model with 37,000 miles on its diesel Cummins engine. About 2,000 of those miles were added to the odometer when Wassenberg drove it back to Coweta County from Colorado Springs, Colo.

Wassenberg who has made a hobby of buying and reselling government surplus equipment -- everything from planes to boats -- bought the bus from the U.S. Air Force Academy back in 1998. It was used to transport members of some of the sports teams, he said. Wassenberg speculated that although the bus had low mileage, it had reached the end of its life span in military years so it got surplused.

"The government has a shelf-life on everything they have. They'll put a shelf life on a rock," he said.

The retired Delta pilot bought the bus for $11,000 at the auction. Initially, he wanted to convert it to a camper for use by the family which is made up of six children and 12 grandchildren. But he changed his mind about the conversion and put it up for sale.

"I sold it once for $13,000," he said.

A Carrollton buyer, who collected antique cars, bought the 34-seat bus in 2000. The payment terms were that he'd pay Wassenberg $500 a month until he sold one of his cars to make up the balance, and that he'd finalize the purchase within a year. The man paid Wassenberg $500 for six months, and stopped the payments. He told the Wassenbergs he had some "medical problems," and would not be able to pay the rest.

"We came home one day and the key was taped to the door with a note," Linda Wassenberg said.

The buyer had driven the bus, worked on it a little bit for its planned conversion into a camper, and even removed the seats. After leaving the key, he hasn't been heard from since. The Wassenbergs have tried to contact him to get the seats back, but have not been able to locate him. Ron Wassenberg speculates that the man sold them.

The bus, off the market during the time, went back up for sale again about three years ago.

He has it for sale this decade for $10,000.

"I was going to donate it to a church or something, but they don't want it because he took the seats out," he said.

He figures he gets about 10 calls a year about it. Most callers are interested in converting it into a RV like he once wanted to do. One caller thought about turning it into a home. But the callers were eventually turned off by the price. He said the callers assume the bus is worn out because of its outward appearance so they are expecting to get it for next to nothing -- some offered as low as $1,000.

The Flxible holds about 100 gallons, and with fuel prices at an all-time high, Wassenberg reasons no one is interested in putting $400 in the tank.

Linda Wassenberg admits that if it does happen to go anytime soon though, it'd be bittersweet.

"I think it'd be kind of sad to get it sold," she said.