A bus driver guides a tour during the Double Decker Arts Festival. Photo: Thomas Graning, The Daily Mississippian.
The 2014 Double Decker Arts Festival was another long weekend of attractions, entertainment and shopping. The crowds flowed around the Square making purchases and socializing under the blasting, if impermanent, sun.
Between trips to restaurants, booths, the live music stage and art demonstrations, it can be far too easy to forget to experience the double-decker buses for which the festival was originally named.
The bright red buses are seen periodically around Oxford and the Ole Miss campus all year. Each spring at the festival, however, is their time to shine.
Lines wound up the road from the corner of the Square outside Rooster’s for much of the two-day festival this year. Families with smiling faces ascended the stairs before taking a stroll down Jackson Avenue, through Sorority Row, around the Grove and back through the city to end at the Square where they began. For those lucky enough to catch the buses before drivers turned in Saturday evening, it was an opportunity to see the Oxford community from a new perspective: up high.
Former Oxford mayor John Leslie purchased the double-decker buses from London, England, in 1994. They were featured in the first Double Decker Arts Festival in 1995.
There are two buses, both able to hold 64 passengers: 28 on the bottom and 36 on the top. Each bus is equipped with a driver and security guard, who coordinates the boarding and unloading of the vehicle.
“The people are great!” said Dale Quarles, a bus driver with seven years of experience.
Quarles isn’t just a driver, though. He handles the large festival crowds with his booming voice and calm demeanor. He steps down from his cockpit at the front of the bus for crowd control. He mingles with kids as they take steps down bus stairs, surprising them with a quick game of peek-a-boo through the glass window on the back of the bus.
After almost a decade of picking up passengers on the Oxford Square for the tourism route, Quarles said he hardly ever encounters a challenging fare.
“Every once in a while, you might get a rowdy one, every couple of years,” Quarles said.
The security guard on his bus, Tevin Turner, is a young man working his first Double Decker Arts Festival. Their unique mix of youthful energy and experience brought an interesting variety to the double-decker tours this weekend.
The buses are more than a tribute to the English namesake of the town; they are the symbol of one of Oxford’s biggest artistic celebrations.
The Double Decker Arts Festival brings in thousands upon thousands of visitors, as well as a multitude of vendors and talents.
Oxford is an arts town; theater, visual arts and music all thrive here. Though Oxford supports and promotes art all year long, the festival is a weekend when the city can openly exhibit this intrinsic adoration to any who are willing to attend. The buses are a symbol of Oxford’s commitment to not only the functional but also the beautiful and the symbolic as well.
For those who didn’t get a chance to ride this weekend, the trademark red buses can be rented through the Oxford Tourism Council during the year. However, riding the double deckers at the festival is something every Oxonian should have the chance to experience.
— Jared Boyd
jlboyd3@go.olemiss.edu
