Yes, we will walk with a walk that is measured and slow

And we will go where the chalk white arrows go

For the children they mark and the children they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

 

That is the last stanza to Shel Silverstein’s poem “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” Aria just repeated it to me along with the preceding stanzas.

“Did I get it?” she asked.

I dug out a king-size Butterfinger candy bar and gave it to her.

“Really?” she said. She took the candy bar and skipped her way back to her seat.

Aria learned to take advantage of my little games a long time ago. It must have been the “Ice Water Bucket Challenge” that got things started. When I look in my rear-view mirror during the afternoon run and see all those unfocused kids making so much noise it makes me want to do something with them. But what can you do as a bus driver? Your job is simply to get them safely where they are supposed to go. That mainly involves keeping your eyes on the road and a third eye on their behavior on the bus.

One day an idea slipped into my head. I challenged one of the children as she got off the bus to do something nice for someone she didn’t know very well and to do it anonymously. She came back a day later and reported what she had done. I gave her a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Other kids found out about this and wanted in. I typed up the challenge and made them write down what they did before I would give them the candy bar. They brought back bits of paper with wobbly print describing how they had written a note to someone and hidden it in their desk or some other similar thing.

“Give me another challenge,” Aria said.

I thought for a couple of days and came up with the “Letter Writing Challenge.” They were to write a letter with actual pen and paper and snail-mail it to the recipient. They had to describe the stamp they put on the envelope to me. I thought this would be something they hadn’t done before. It was. Several took the challenge and earned a Payday or a 100,000 Grand Bar. Then there was the “Do the Dishes When It Isn’t Your Turn” challenge. That wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be for some of them. They have good parents.

Only a few kids were participating in the challenges and I wanted to get other kids involved. I came up with the Question of the Day. I got on the intercom one morning just before we got to the elementary school and asked, “What’s the square root of 64?” I thought they would have to go look that up. Several didn’t. They knew it and it cost me several candy bars. I had to make things a little harder or I was going to go broke. I came up with questions that would require a little research.

“What is the capital of Azerbaijan?” I asked.

They couldn’t say Azerbaijan and I had to have them repeat it several times. I thought they would ask a teacher and look it up. They didn’t. Actually, one kid did, but he said his teacher said there was no such place. Go figure. Finally, when I asked over the intercom if anyone was ever going to get it, someone looked it up on their smartphone.

“Baku?” a girl asked, struggling with the pronunciation. We had a winner.

There were many other questions like what is the chemical formula to heavy water? or What is the deepest fresh water lake in the world? Some of these questions hung for days before some ambitious kid became motivated enough to find the answer. When we had a winner I always announced it over the intercom and made sure everyone knew what candy bar the winner got. All the kids wanted candy bars and would beg for them when they got off the bus, but if they weren’t motivated enough to look up an answer they didn’t get one.

One little second-grader wanted a chance at a candy bar. I had asked some older kids to name the planets of the solar system from closest to the sun outward. They couldn’t do it and lost interest. I told him he could have a candy bar if he could do it. It would be okay if he asked his mom and dad and told me tomorrow. He was unhappy that it was a question he couldn’t answer right then. He sat in the front seat near me in deep thought as we neared his stop. Then, quietly and deliberately, he began, “Mercury, Venus, Earth . . .” and went on to Pluto. My mouth dropped open.

“Did I get it?” he asked.

“Did you! How did you know that?” I asked.

He thought a moment and answered, “I don’t know.”

He got his candy bar.

I changed things up to memorization for the fun of it. A few kids actually memorized the first two paragraphs to the Gettysburg Address for a king-sized candy bar. Then I pulled out “Someone Ate the Baby,” by Shel Silverstein. Aria balked at the length, but in the end she memorized it. Shen then went back and taught two other girls the poem. One-by-one they came up and recited it to me without help. It got a little annoying as they practiced. Several times they came up before they were ready to show me what they had memorized. I heard the line “Someone ate the baby,” about a million times. The poor kids who sat in the front were groaning in pain before it was over. Some of them almost had it memorized even though they weren’t trying.

This last poem, “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, was difficult for Aria. I don’t know why. It was shorter than “Someone Ate the Baby.” I memorized it while walking the mile to my bus for my afternoon run. Aria struggled. Three times, after she failed to recite it, she said, “I don’t want the candy bar anyway,” and stomped back to her seat. Her friend decided she wanted to do it. Mara memorizes things really fast. She is gifted. One night, after Aria had stomped back to her seat again candy-bar-less, Mara almost completed the poem. I knew she would have it the next morning. When I gave her her candy bar I knew that Aria would be back up to try again.

That’s exactly what happened. In the morning Mara came up, and in spite of all the noise on the bus, recited the poem perfectly. She had to stop while we loaded more kids, but she picked up where she left off and finally finished. She went back with her king-size Butterfinger. Aria came up almost immediately. She was really nervous. This was hard for her. It took her four stops, but in the end she recited it sufficiently well. She was so happy.

Not everyone wants to play my games. I don’t even try with the middle and high school kids. Although one day one of the middle school girl came up to argue that an answer I had just rejected was correct. She described how she had researched the answer. I realized that she had done the research for her little sister and friend.

“It sounds like you deserve the candy bar,” I told her. “You did all the work.” She looked at me like she hadn’t thought of that. She accepted the candy bar. Her little sister pouted a little but got over it. Ah, the games we play.