A Bus Plus Potholes Equals More Bounce to the Ounce

My mother put another shovelful of instant coffee into her cup.

“Have fun at school,” she said.

  Fun? How could we have fun? We couldn’t even Google anything yet.

A school bus was bliss and despair on wheels, a consistent and reliable conveyance to amazing learning opportunities. Serenaded by the sounds of a door opening with a mechanical clunk and creak, I boarded the bus with robotic deliberation, hoping the driver wouldn’t captain the ship toward an iceberg.

I was an explorer on a jungle trail, never knowing what I might find at school.

My parents had to walk to school. I spent 53.6% of my life riding the school bus. I derived that figure using math I hadn’t learned in school. I felt like I lived on that bus. It took forever for the bus to take me home, but it took no time at all for it to get me to school.

The bus was a petri dish on wheels. Someone in the back of the bus sneezed and a mini-epidemic ensued.

As you aged, you moved incrementally toward the back of the bus. Miscreants who had their driving privileges unfairly suspended because they’d gotten seven speeding tickets in 90 days sat there. It wasn’t difficult for them to assay the depth of each pothole hit by a wheel of the bus. The bounce interrupted the penny-ante poker game taking place there. An occasional penny rolled to the front of the bus, never to return. The kids seated near the front split the money with the driver.

On a day off the bus, I talked to an elder as we stared at the same piece of pie at Vivian’s Cafe. It was during a time when horse operas ruled TV. I told him that Marshal Matt Dillon’s horse was named Buck. He told me about riding in a horse-drawn sleigh over the deep snow to school. Soapstone foot warmers, warming stones, had been heated on stoves or in fireplaces, and placed in the sleigh to keep passengers warm. The flat stone retained heat for a prolonged period, providing a safer alternative to setting socks on fire.

Warming stones? I told him the bus I rode on had padded seats. He wasn’t impressed, so I added a fireplace to the bus. He didn’t believe me. I don’t know why not. Sleighs used for school buses were sometimes covered and equipped with a small wood-burning stove to warm passengers.

The other day, I stopped a safe distance behind a school bus with flashing red lights and a stop arm extended, as school children exited.

The flashing lights caused me to flash back to being a member of the School Safety Patrol in grade school. It was a gig that paid nothing more than the gratification one gets from saving the world. The primary job of Safety Patrols was to help students cross streets safely, and to be safe pedestrians and bus riders. I took the School Safety Patrol pledge. “I promise to do my best to: Report for duty on time. Perform my duties faithfully. Report dangerous student practices. Obey my teachers and officers of the patrol. Strive to earn the respect of fellow students. Strive to prevent traffic crashes by always setting a good example.”

Once authorized, I’d be deployed to the street near the school where I’d halt traffic by extending a long pole with a red flag having “STOP” printed on it. I had a belt with a badge. I couldn’t arrest anyone, but I tried.

I don’t think it was a part of my duties with the school patrol, but when the bus stopped at a railroad crossing, a student was picked to get off the bus and cross the tracks while looking for trains. I was a keen lookout and often got that job. I looked up and down the tracks twice, and if I could not discern a train, I waved a go-ahead to the driver to proceed. Then I’d hop back on the bus when the driver allowed it.

“What did you learn in school today?” Mom asked when I got home.

I told her I fit into the bus.

Things have changed, but I can still fit into a school bus.