School Bus Days 3

Today, I’ll finish up this little discussion about riding the school bus – especially as I remember it when I grew up.

If you were lucky, you had a “cool” bus driver. I don’t know that I was that fortunate all of my school years, but in my last years in High School, “Jim” was our driver. He played KJR (our great local rock and roll station) nice and loud so we could rock out the latest tunes (remember – we didn’t have the option of our own music in our ears). He also drove aggressively. This is not to say he was reckless or dangerous, - he just punched it here and there, took corners kind of fast, you know – just made it a bit exciting for us kids. Of course he looked the part – long hair, cool sunglasses, smoked. Anyway – he was a great!

For the record – when I was in school, almost all the bus drivers were guys. There was one woman driver, and that was “weird” back then.

One thing that was always a big fear was if you missed the bus. My mom had a part time job by the now and so we didn’t really have a backup plan. If I missed the bus, I had to high-tail it to school. That was a mile and a half to Junior High, and three miles to High School. Skipping class wasn’t really an option, so I did my best to get there asap. Missing the bus after school wasn’t as big of a deal. I had to call mom from school to let her know I would be late – from, you know, a phone that was connected to the wall at the school – but I still had to walk home. It only took a few times of doing this in bad weather to help convince me to be a little more careful to make sure I caught the bus after school.

So – to wrap this all up – I know that plenty of kids still ride school buses. Probably the biggest differences today is that they can totally disconnect from their surroundings from the minute they get to the bus stop until they get to school using personal electronics… be it a phone, mp3 player, hand held game, PDA, etc. I would also hazard a guess that while there are still the many different cliques and social levels that kids either fall into or try to attain, the advent of video surveillance on the buses has probably reduced the fears that we had of the consequences of sitting by the “other” ones.

The public school buses are a great and safe thing for kids. They’re also a great memory that helped to define my childhood, and probably plenty of yours, too. What memories do you have about riding the bus? (And for those who youngin's who might think this is what our buses looked like - we're not that old!)

School Bus Days 2

There were many anxieties associated with riding the school bus as a kid. One just had to do with waiting at the bus stop. You didn’t want to get there so early that you looked like an eager beaver, but you also didn’t want to run up last minute – especially if you made the bus have to wait for you.

While you stood waiting for the bus, you had to decide where you were going to stand, who you were going to stand with, and what you would do while standing there. Remember – these were the ‘70s – you couldn’t bide your time with some hand held device. There was nothing to play, listen to, read or look at. And - you couldn’t talk to anyone who wasn’t within earshot of you. Nope – the options were pretty limited – it was you and the people around you.

Winter was the worst ‘cause you had to stand out there in the dark just hoping that you didn’t freeze, get beat up or be made fun of; pray that you didn’t forget you lunch, homework or that you had a test today, and all the while try to look like you were “cool” and “didn’t care”. I can vividly remember the sights, sounds and my feelings of those mornings… shifting around to keep warm, wishing I was still in bed, dreading some unavoidable event at school that day.

It’s kind of a sad commentary on the times we live in now when I drive by bus stops on my way to work in the morning and I see moms parked in cars across the streets – watching their kids until they actually get onto the bus. Some even keep their kids in their cars until the bus arrives. That would’ve never happened when I grew up, but if it did, you can bet it would’ve been fodder for relentless teasing and bullying once you were out of the protective gaze of mom.

At one time during my high school years, my bus ran a route that would go by my house on our back street, and then eventually come up our front street where my stop was. This made it easy to get all ready to go, catch a few zzz’s and still get up and out to the stop just in time to catch the bus. That was sweet!

I have to add one thing to my last post about riding the bus. Peer pressure is an incredible thing! I’ll never forget when I was in 9th grade and my “little brother” started riding the bus since he was now in 7th grade, now. One of the first mornings of the year, we get on the bus and it’s really full. There were only a couple of places left to sit, and I found a pair of open seats on one side. I sat down and immediately prevented my brother from sitting by me. There was no way I was going to be seen sitting together – my classmates would’ve teased me to no end. He ended up standing the entire time, all because I wanted to look cool in front of my peers. Kind of scary, when you think about it…