Chapter 11 from Bus Driver Diaries: Stories from the Driver’s Seat
I wake up to five inches of snow with more falling. It’s just about six a.m. when I pull out of my driveway into the unplowed street. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself having to get up at five a.m to go to work. It feels like I am the only one leaving so early. The freshly fallen snow tells me a story that takes away some of my self-pity. On my way out of the small town where I live I see tire tracks coming into the road from four other driveways. They all left before me.
My Cummings diesel engine growls from behind as I pull out of the bus compound at 6:50. The houses across the street are still dark in sleep. I wonder if they are accustomed to my morning routine. Perhaps they use the sound of my engine and the flash of my headlights across their bedroom windows as an alarm clock.
I pick up my first stop of fifteen kids at the edge of town. Everything from kindergarteners to high school seniors get on. As usual, a kindergartener trips on the third step.
“Watch yourself,” I say.
It’s so routine that generally there’s no response. The child catches himself and files silently past me with the rest into the dark seats beyond.
“Merry Christmas,” I say to a tall high school boy as he climbs in. I’m surprised when he actually gives me a grin.
In just two blocks I reach the train tracks. On go the emergency flashers. I open my window, pop the parking brake, and open the door. I press the noise canceller and all the blowers on the bus turn off. The morning murmurings of the kids die with the blowers. I like to think they are helping me listen for trains, but I think they are only embarrassed to have their voices heard in the sudden silence. When I let go of the button the blowers kick back on and the murmurings begin again .
Once I enter the country I enter a world of black and white. It is black above and white below. The snow is falling heavily, but it isn’t an angry storm. It’s more of a scolding from someone who loves you . The narrow road is nowhere to be seen. The fallen snow is level from the field on the right to the field on the left. There are fences on both sides of the hidden road. I place the bus right in the middle and drive on faith . At the next house three of the four brothers and sisters are wearing Davy Crockett style raccoon hats. Furry tails trail down their necks and disappear behind their coat collars .
“Tory! Tory!”
I have just released the park break and we are beginning to roll when the little girl with the raccoon hat calls me from two seats back. She asks me if I like raccoon hats. I tell her I used to watch the Davy Crockett show on TV when I was a kid. She moves to the seat behind mine and tries to put her hat on me.
“Your head is too big,” she says.
She tells me about her mom “petting” her dad’s hair during morning prayer. “He said, ‘I don’t even have my Crockett hat on.’”
I drive down Airport Road, watching the big flakes of snow arc into the oversized windshield. I feel a childish gratification at making the first tracks on this road. Now, telephone poles on each side of the road give me my bearings. As two poles pass by, two more appear up ahead standing solid against the moving snow. Eventually I see the lights of the home that is my next stop. I squint and see three shadows moving up the driveway toward the road. Clusters of flakes lie on their hair like lace when they board. I see the wonder of the unexpected snow in their eyes as they pass me. I drive five miles to pick up one elementary girl. She walks slowly down her driveway and across the road—much more slowly than usual. She seems to be floating with the falling flakes. Her mind is elsewhere as she boards.
After dropping off the high schoolers I make my last elementary pickup in front of a church. One of the kids tells me that three of the others still haven’t picked up “their rocks,” which they threw in the church parking lot the day before. They had ignored my instructions to pick them when I dropped them off the night before. The rocks are big and create mounds of snow in the road. I call them up to the front and tell them to go put their rocks back. They obey without even a roll of the eyes. Three other boys ask if they can help. It’s a chance to stretch their legs and get out in the snow. In thirty seconds they have the landscaping rocks back where they belong and we are driving to their school.
The snow makes us late arriving at the school. Four girls from the back of the bus take their time getting off. As the other kids make their way toward the school doors these girls stop to play. They don’t seem to be aware that they are late. One girl puts snow in her mouth. The second girl kicks snow at the others. The third girl, the one with the brown eyes and freckles, tries to escape the snowball aimed at her neck by the fourth girl . She is laughing and waves to me as the bus doors close. Today there will be atrocities and horrors committed around the world, I know. But the beauty of this morning will be every bit as real and even more lasting .