A Conversation With Rachel Simon
Rachel Simon is the author of Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey. The Hallmark Hall of Fame film Riding the Bus with My Sister (starring Andie MacDowell as Rachel and Rosie O’Donnell as her sister, Beth) is based on that autobiographical work. It premieres Sunday, May 1, 2005 on CBS. Rosie O’Donnell also serves as executive producer. Simon, who lives in Delaware, and who teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr College, was interviewed in Washington, D.C.
Just click on a question to see its answer.
Tell us the back story, will you, of how Rosie O’Donnell fits into the ‘Riding the Bus’ picture?
Were you torn about ‘going public’ about Beth, and her ‘special needs?’
You’ve read the script and spent a few days on the set. How close is Rosie coming to the real Beth?
Just how unusual is Beth? After all, she spends 50-plus hours a week riding buses?
The producers met Beth. How did that go?
I gather she doesn’t exactly eat the healthiest of foods...
You actually rode the buses with your sister for a year before you wrote the book. Tell us about the drivers you met...
How did fellow passengers treat your sister?
Did you enjoy your time on set?
Tell us the back story, will you, of how Rosie O’Donnell fits into the "Riding the Bus" picture?
This is a shocking story, because it sounds unbelievable. But it’s true.
There’d been talk even before the book came out in September 2002 of turning it into a movie. But who would play my sister Beth – who has special needs – with sensitivity? I had no idea.
About six months before the book came out I was driving to work one day, and this idea zinged into my head out of nowhere: Rosie O’Donnell would be the perfect person to play my sister!
Rosie is feisty. Beth is feisty. Rosie is independent. Beth is independent. You can easily picture Rosie hanging around with bus drivers, and feeling a kinship with characters who have some kind of outsider status. That’s Beth to a "T." They even look alike!
I called my father. He agreed with my Rosie suggestion, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get in touch with Rosie. Problem is, we’re regular people, we don’t have connections. So this was not going to get anywhere.
Five days later, while I was traveling to New York for a meeting, I checked my phone messages. There was only one. A familiar-sounding voice said, "Hi, Rachel Simon. This is Rosie O’Donnell. I read your book. I love your book. I want to make a movie based on your book, and play your sister. Call me."
I dissolved in tears.
My father was convinced it was an imposter who’d called. But it wasn’t, and within just a few days my agent had set up a meeting with Rosie.
It turns out that my publisher had sent a chapter of the manuscript to Rosie Magazine. Rosie read it, loved it, and asked for the whole manuscript, which she said she devoured in one sitting.
Were you torn about "going public" about Beth, and her "special needs?"
I really love my sister. I’ve always loved her. Aside from the fact she’s my sister, she’s this burst-into-the-room, life-loving, exuberant kind of person. I feel very devoted to her.
But I’ve also struggled a lot, being the sibling of someone with special needs – as many sibs do. So I knew there was a big, layered story here to tell. I also knew I was going to have to ask her permission. Which I did, and which she gave.
So it was all done with her approval, and out of a place of love.
You’ve read the script and spent a few days on the set. How close is Rosie coming to the real Beth?
Well, Rosie doesn’t speed-talk the way Beth does! But she’s nailed everything else: Beth’s sense of humor, her irreverence, her love of the buses, her dedication to Jesse, her giving nature, her need to tell it like it is when she feels something isn’t right.
I think at their core they’re very similar.
Just how unusual is Beth? After all, she spends 50-plus hours a week riding buses?
Well, I have to tell you, I’ve discovered traveling and speaking all over the place that every city in the country has at least one "Beth." The Philadelphia Inquirer actually gave a name to it. They called it "serial bus-riding."
Every city you go to there’s a "Mister Smart" or a "Cool Amy," or some bus-obsessed person like that. They often – but not always – have cognitive disabilities. Like Beth, they know all the routes, they know all the drivers. They’ve created a wonderful, rich world for themselves.
Riding the bus, to Beth and her sisters and brothers, represents freedom and independence. I mean, when you have mastered the bus system in your city you can get anywhere on your own, and you don’t have to depend on other people.
The moment Beth got "hooked" on riding the bus occurred when she’d just moved into an independent-living situation. An aide came to see her a few hours a week, but Beth wanted to start depending on herself. How would she go shopping? How would she get to the doctor? Those were things she had to be able to do on her own. Her aide supported her in learning to do this. So, thanks to the bus system, she started to live a full life, on her own.
And growing out of that, she was able to develop an extensive social support system. So many of us lack that. We live these fragmented lives. We don’t connect with other people. We lose touch with our friends. We don’t feel a sense of community. Yet Beth has friends, she has a real "community" in which she functions – and thrives.
The producers met Beth. How did that go?
They were fabulous. They brought the right attitude; they didn’t treat Beth like a child. They came in with an attitude of respect for her, and they treated her with dignity.
They also really threw themselves into this serial-bus-riding life!
Beth starts her day riding the buses at 6 a.m. And the day we picked for the producers to join us, they were at the station at 6, and they rode all day long with us.
Then they took Beth grocery shopping. And they witnessed something which is not in the book, but which they put in the movie!
Whenever Beth and I have finished shopping, and have loaded up my car, I ask her to put the cart back in the cart stall. And she always refuses! Says she’s too tired! And being her sister, I always become unglued!
Anyway, they witnessed this first-hand, and they put it in the script!
I gather she doesn’t exactly eat the healthiest of foods...
No. But you've touched on a very important point.
My big journey with Beth has been coming to the realization that I can't control my sister. To love her does not mean to control her.
If I could control Beth, I would have her eat fruits and vegetables. And I'd make her exercise. Many other family members of people with developmental disabilities who have an "unhealthy" diet and lifestyle would do the same thing.
But she doesn't want to eat fruits and vegetables and other healthy things. She wants to eat what she wants to eat. It's called self-determination, and it's a civil rights issue, really. People with disabilities have the right to make choices about their own lives.
I know that sounds self-evident, but when you're a family member, it's incredibly radical, and very hard to deal with. It was a huge challenge for me.
I can - and do - inform her, educate her, but then she has to make her own choices. When you can do that, a lot of the emotional junk goes away. Beth had been angry with me for years because I was bossing her, but I didn't realize I was bossing her. So I was angry at her anger. Love and control had got all tangled up. Now it's untangled.
You actually rode the buses with your sister for a year before you wrote the book. Tell us about the drivers you met...
During that year, I got to know the drivers as individuals. And they're really the reason I decided to write the book, even more than my sister. They are so colorful, and each one had such an interesting story. I remember thinking, "Wow, these people are gems."
These are salt-of-the-earth people. They are school-of-hard-knocks graduates. So many have gone through trials and tribulations themselves, and they're giving back through their passengers.
One of the drivers in the book, Estella, says of her passengers, "I know when their wives have thrown them out of the house, and they're standing on the corner with nothing. I know when they're on their way to bail their son out of jail. I know when they just got the pink slip, and they're suddenly leaving the factory for the last time. I'm the first person they see when something like that happens. I'm the warm, broad shoulder they can lean on. I take that responsibility very seriously."
I've had drivers say to me, "What we really are is nurses on wheels." I've had others say to me, "If you don't care about people, if you're not willing to listen to them and treat them with dignity, you might as well drive a truck. It's not cargo we carry, it's human beings."
To be a bus driver, that's a position of honor.
Riding a bus and driving a bus isn't about getting people to destinations. It's about the journey on the bus. It's about the relationships that form on the bus and because of the bus.
It's about community and people. That's really what it's about.
How did fellow passengers treat your sister?
Some were very friendly to Beth. Others were stunningly rude, screaming things at her with no provocation.
But I've seen little kids who are very comfortable with my sister, and I'm very happy about that because they're not going to grow up to be bigots.
We are all worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of our IQ, regardless of being "different."
Did you enjoy your time on set?
"Enjoy" is probably not the right word. "Overwhelmed" would be better.
To live through something as emotional as this, then to write about it, then to see it in a script, then to see Rosie almost channeling your sister...it's overwhelming.
Everybody was so busy on the set they didn't seem to notice that I was in tears almost the whole time. I just kept thinking, "Gosh, Rosie is unbelievable. She's this complete force of nature who really gets it, who has become my sister."
I was filled with awe and respect.
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