I bounced an idea off of Daily Republic managing editor Glen Faison about doing a biweekly column featuring local history and it was hard to articulate what I meant. What I wasn’t proposing, for instance, was doing in-depth articles on Captain Waterman and his dealings with Sem Yeto.

What I will be doing is focusing on recent or pop or living local history. Often, history is presented as a top-down thing with a learned person who has done extensive research bestowing facts upon others. That’s great, but I’m neither inclined nor qualified to do that. Stephen Ambrose I definitely ain’t.

The idea for this column came from the more than 3,000-member-strong “I Grew Up in Fairfield Too” Facebook group. It’s wonderful to revel in shared memories and also learn things that happened either before my family moved here in 1976 or before I was born.

I feature the FART buses as my leadoff batter for three reasons.

First, as a teenage boy, that was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen. Second, I mentioned the buses back in a “The Last Laugh” column in 2007. I got an email response from Ed Krochmalny, who used to be a driver. He has since died, but his email helped tremendously with my research.

Last, I figured if this topic is seen as low-brow, I have nowhere to go but up.

If you hadn’t heard about the FART and are offended rather than amused, here’s a little perspective: In Seattle they have a trolley system called the South Lake Union Trolley and sell T-shirts that say “Ride the SLUT.”

In the late 1970s, the rather crass word for the bodily function commonly called passing gas painted on the side of buses was not graffiti. It was indeed the Fairfield Area Rapid Transit, or FART bus.

In the face of competition from Sprint, AT&T consolidated some of its operations and shifted numerous employees from various other cities to San Francisco. Many of those employees settled in Fairfield and other suburbs and commuted to the city. One of them was Al Cardenas Jr. who still resides in Solano County’s seat.

“All the AT&T employees who lived in this area commuted to San Francisco every day and a co-worker named Bill Childs saw a business opportunity,” Cardenas said. “He asked us if he got a bus would we ride it and we all agreed.”

The unorthodox name for the new bus line was simply a play on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) trains and local Dial-a-Ride Transit (DART) vans. Childs worked in the marketing department at AT&T and he used those skills to entice riders outside his co-workers and soon they had to add another bus.

The gas shortages of the 1970s were referenced in the destination sign: “Gas Pains? FART to San Francisco.” Advertisements and the “are you kidding me?” name of the bus helped spread the word locally.

Of course there was a downside. Former Fairfield resident Valerie Knowles recalled once being tardy and feeling reticence about revealing exactly why. “I was late for a medical appointment and I just could not say the FART was late,” Knowles said on Facebook. “I told them the bus was late.”

After a few years, AT&T relocated to Pleasanton so the FART added a run there. Eventually the system had about six drivers who would take turns driving for a week and not have to pay for their commute.

While the FART flourished, it was not without challenges. Childs struggled to find a place to park the bus overnight and would often leave it on a Fairfield side street until the police made him move it. He later found a spot off Peabody Road and Cement Hill Road. Also, doing maintenance on his diesel buses in front of his house didn’t go over very well with his neighbors.

The audacity of giving a bus such a controversial name seems to have reflected the fun-loving spirit of those involved. Cardenas related stories of decorating the inside of the buses for Christmas as well as taking trips to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire when it was still held in Novato.

The buses had an onboard bar on the way home but were not equipped with bathrooms. According to Cardenas, the record a rider set for onboard beer consumption from San Francisco to Vacaville without a bathroom break was 10 beers.

“One time though we had a situation when a FART bus was out of commission so Bill had to rent a bus, which did have a bathroom on it,” Cardenas said. “Well, there was one rider who was a real big mouth who no one cared for. When he went to the bathroom they locked him in. He was in there from Berkeley all the way to Fairfield. Ooh, he was mad! That was the kind of rapport we had. We worked hard together and partied together.”

Local actress/singer/dancer Liz Towne Andrews’ experience with the FART bus was anything but fun: she rear-ended one.

“We were at a stop sign and the bus started to go, so I was rolling forward, and was distracted waving at a friend and I didn’t notice that the bus stopped again,” Andrews said via email. “The bus driver got out and was really mad at me and said he needed a police report. The funny thing was, there was no damage to the bus but my front grill was crushed. I talked the driver into skipping the police report because I needed to get to the theater!”

The FART crew also had a softball team that used to play other local companies at Todd Park in Suisun City. Cardenas still has a picture of them on display in his home.

Eventually, the FART buses faded away in the late 1980s when AT&T employees started to retire and Bill Childs moved away.

Feel free to make your own obvious joke. I’m history.

Reach Fairfield freelance writer Tony Wade at [email protected]. Ideas for future columns about the past are most welcome.