Our transportation supervisor added two drivers to the driver pool this year. One of the new-hires was a neighbor of mine from up the street. John recently retired from the state road department. He spent many years driving dump trucks, plows, and other equipment in the heat of summer and the blizzards of winter. Having driven trucks for years John assumed that moving to a bus would be a natural step.

Over the summer he attended forty hours of training. In July all of the bus drivers, including John, attended a mandatory eight hour in-service training. During the training the veteran bus drivers shared colorful stories of some of the more difficult situations they have encountered on their buses. We watched movies on everything from the many ways to get fired (laws not to break) to how to deal with problem children. John was sitting next to me and I recognized the look on his face—he was overwhelmed. I spent my first two years as a school bus driver feeling like that.

The actual driving of a bus isn’t more difficult than driving a snowplow, but add on all the laws and regulations, along with the complications of managing children’s behavior, and the snowplow job seems simple. John had the realization that if he broke one of those many rules, and a child just happened to get hurt, he could end up being censured, fired, or sent to jail. That realization is a real eye opener for a new school bus driver. You never really get over it even after years of driving—you just learn to live with it.

After listening to the veteran bus drivers tell their horror stories a new driver is understandably spooked. What if that happens to me? What will I do? I’ve tried to envision certain scenarios so that I can consider what I would do. These efforts often end fruitlessly. There are just too many variables. You just have to wait and see and hope that your reason and training don’t fail you.

John got put to the test on his very first day he drove a load of kids solo. He had picked up a load of students at the elementary school. He dropped these kids at their stops on the way to the middle school across town. At the middle school he loaded another 55 kids. Just as he was about to pull out the secretary at the elementary called him on the radio. She wanted to know if he had Jimmy Thomas, a kindergartener, on his bus. John, who was a substitute as well as a new driver, didn’t think so, but he would check. After some confusion while sorting through the middle-schoolers, Jimmy stepped out from behind one of the seats.

The secretary said that Jimmy wasn’t supposed to be on the bus. He was supposed to come to the office after school and wait for a van from a child care service to pick him up since his parents worked until later. John, being new, had no idea what to do about the situation. He asked the secretary what she thought. The secretary, new to the job herself, also wasn’t sure how to remedy the situation. She finally decided to call the child care service and have them come to the high school to pick up Jimmy. John agreed to wait thinking it would only be a few minutes.

This was playing out over the radio with all the other bus drivers listening in as we made our stops. I could hear the stress in John’s voice. I understood his stress. He had a load of middle-school students waiting to be taken to their stops in a small town ten miles south of the middle school. He also had a kindergartener who was not supposed to be going with them. The parents would be frantic if they knew their child was miles away from where he was supposed to be. The parents of the middle-school students expected their kids to be home by a certain time, too. How was he supposed to take care of both situations? John was feeling the weight of being responsible for living cargo.

The radio went quiet after the school secretary said she would call the child care provider. The rest of us bus drivers went on with our routes. Ten minutes later the radio came to life as I heard John call the elementary school and ask where the van was. The stress in his voice had increased. He had been sitting for ten minutes with a full load of middle school students and one kindergartener.

All drivers know that the longer you sit on a stationary bus with a load of kids the more restless the kids become. I’ve seen my bus rocking like a row boat carrying three drunks before when I was in a waiting situation. My heart, and I’m sure the hearts of the other drivers, went out to him. Even as I felt for him I smiled at the irony of the situation—a new driver having this problem on his first day.

The secretary, very apologetically, told john that she had called the child care service and that they should have been there already. She didn’t know where they were or what to do now. She finally suggested that John take Jimmy into the high school office. The child could wait for the child care service there.

“You want me to take him into the high school office?” John repeated

I’m pretty sure all the veteran bus drivers who were listening in recoiled at this idea. The people in the high school office wouldn’t know what to do with the kindergartener. John would be leaving a bus load of middle schoolers, who were already becoming unruly, unattended. It was a bad idea.  At this point the training supervisor, who is also a regular bus driver and had been listening to the adventure, showed mercy on John and gave a suggestion.

“Perhaps it would be best if you drove Jimmy back to the elementary school and he could wait there at the office.”

This is what each of the other veteran would have done immediately after learning that an errant kindergartener was on their bus. There certainly would have been no waiting around with a load of middle school students on board. Poor John, having no experience, didn’t know he could do that. Instead he waited in a panic feeling like the world was coming to an end.

“Uh, okay,” he said, seeing the sense in this.

I was fifteen miles into my afternoon run when John finally got back to the elementary school. Over the radio I listened as there was a little more confusion getting the kindergartener from the bus to the office. Finally it was resolved and John was on his way with his load of kids. The rest would be easy.

“990, 13” I called using our bus numbers as identifiers.

“This is 990,” he replied.

“Welcome to bus driving,” I said.

There was a pause. Then I heard him key his microphone. “Uh,” there was strained laugh—half stress, half relief, “thanks.”

A year ago, at a stop where I pick up a whole slew of cousins, a cousin I had never met before got on. He was going to kindergarten. His hair was combed and he wore a plaid shirt and new jeans. Cowboy boots festooned his feet. His face shone with excitement and anticipation. His brothers and sisters had been getting on this bus ever since he could remember. Now it was his turn. Alas, it only lasted two days.

On the first day I noticed that this cute little boy, who I will call John, had a self-amplified voice. John always spoke as if he were at rock concert. The second thing I noticed was that he had a way of annoying the other kids in such a manner that they got physical with him. There are a lot of annoying kids on my bus, but I’ve never seen anyone with this young boy’s skill. Ironically, he wasn’t trying to be annoying. He was just excited to be with the other kids and just couldn’t keep his hands to himself. On the second morning a second grader who was large for his size got physical with John. They were in a seat directly behind me and I couldn’t see what happened, but I heard his older fourth-grade sister intervene with “Stop it. You’re hurting him.” I thought, “Uh oh,” and yelled some questions back, but apparently the incident was over.

When John didn’t get on the next morning his sister told me that he wouldn’t be riding any more. I felt bad, as if I had failed at protecting him. His father brought the brothers and sisters to the bus a few days later. He came to the bus door and rather embarrassedly told me that John just wasn’t ready to ride the bus yet. He said they had a little more work to do. I learned later that John also got suspended from kindergarten for biting another boy’s finger. Apparently the other boy stuck his finger in John’s mouth and John decided that biting was the only way to remove it. It worked.

When John got on the bus on the first day of school this year I had misgivings. He looked pretty much the same as last year: plaid shirt, clean jeans, and a look of excitement and anticipation on his face. Within about four seconds I learned that his voice was still self-amplified. By that afternoon I learned to give him the front passenger-side seat all to himself. He got along with others much better if there was space between him and them.

One day he wanted to show me what he brought to school. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out two full-sized rolling pins. “My teacher has playdough,” he said, “but she doesn’t have anything to work it with so I thought I’d help her out.” I exclaimed on how helpful he was, but asked him to put them away. In his hands on the bus they wouldn’t be rolling pins, but weapons, and most likely they would end up banging him in the head.

Apparently John has a reputation in his own family. When he fell asleep on the fifty minute ride home, as he sometimes does, I noticed that his sisters, who come up from the back of the bus, aren’t in a hurry to wake him up. In fact a couple of times they left him and I had to wake him. I drove the high school volleyball team to a tournament and overheard some of the girls telling stories about their families. John’s sister told the finger biting story. She ended with, “He’s a monster.”

Now that half the school year has gone by John and I are starting to come to an understanding. We even like each other a little. Don’t get me wrong; I still have to exert quite a bit of energy to keep him in place, but his is a face I enjoy seeing each day. He likes my stories that I tell on the long run out to his stop. I’ve learned that green eggs and ham are his favorite breakfast. “They’re delicious,” he tells me. He was a cowboy for Halloween. He didn’t think my idea of being a ballerina-cowboy (wear a tutu with his chaps) was a good idea.

Recently I played a little game with him. I offered him a candy bar if he could keep himself from standing to see over the safety partition in front of him and to stay away from the aisle where he always reaches across to put his hands on the kids seated there. Honestly, I didn’t think he could do it. He did. He suffered through two days of disappointment when I forgot to bring the candy bar. On Friday I remembered. At his stop his high school sister, the one who called him a monster, got off the bus and waited by the door. John started to get off and then stopped.

“Oh, yeah, where’s my candy bar?” he asked.

I had brought it but after the process of thirteen other stops I had forgotten about it.

“Is it in here?” he grabbed the plastic grocery sack off the dash that, indeed, contained his candy bar. I nodded and he quickly reached in and pulled out his Twix.

“All right! Full size,” he said and he clambered down the steps. His big sister glanced at me with a look of surprise and amusement on her face. Just before I shut the door I heard him say, in his amplified voice, “Don’t worry. I’ll share it with you.” The last thing I saw as I pulled away was them holding hands as they began their half-mile walk up the hill to their home.

I drove the ninth grade football team to Grantsville the other day. We took the back route. That’s about 120 miles of sagebrush valleys and tinder-dry hills on a narrow, two-lane highway. Traffic was minimal. In fact for most of those 120 miles my yellow school bus was the only thing moving for as far as you could see in either direction.

Through the course of the journey we passed through or passed by several places that aren’t much more than names on a map: Goshen, Eureka, Faust, and Bauer to name a few. A couple of them actually appeared to have a population even if it was only five or six. Mostly they were just signs with a place-name and an arrow pointing out into the sagebrush next to a lonely road. Eureka is an old mining ghost town, except that people still live there. You don’t drive through Eureka and fear the ghosts of old miners. It’s the intermittent signs of living people that surprise you. One of those signs is a school crossing that still had a living crossing guard on duty as we drove by in the rain. At least I think she was living.

Eureka and Goshen are those types of small towns so hidden that they could be home to a cult that gives a human sacrifice at a secret ceremony once each year even though they are right in the middle of America. Actually, they are probably a little piece of paradise away from the insanity of big city living. I know a fellow who used to live in Goshen and he seems legitimate.

As a school bus driver I’m attuned to the colors yellow and black. When I’m driving bus and see those colors coming down the road I always think, “Ah, someone who understands.” Imagine my surprise when out in the middle of nowhere I made out the back end of a school bus far ahead of me. I was traveling faster and slowly caught up. The event I was traveling to was not multi-school so I knew I was the only bus heading to Grantsville. I wondered what this bus was doing so far out in the void. An active railroad line crossed the highway ahead of us. It was well-marked for such a remote area, probably to alert drivers hypnotized by the long empty miles of the possibility of death if they didn’t wake up. It was easy to see that the track was empty for ten miles in both directions, but this lonely bus in front of me turned on its hazard lights and came to a stop just like it was supposed to. I saw the doors open and the driver look both ways before beginning again. That’s a good driver.

I passed the bus soon after and saw a few elementary age kids rush to the windows to look at us. They probably don’t see many other buses during their ride. The bandana wearing driver was looking up in her rear view mirror when I glanced over. No doubt she was telling the kids to sit down and be quiet. As far as I can tell she was on her regular route taking the kids home from school. Home must have been ranch houses scattered here and there throughout the sagebrush. I watched the bus for mile after mile as the distance between us slowly grew. Then I checked my mirrors and the bus was gone. Maybe it turned up one of those lonely roads next to a narrow sign with a place-name and an arrow. Or maybe it was a ghost bus akin to the Flying Dutchman and had graced, or cursed, me with a sighting.

I looked for signs of the bus in the darkness of midnight on the return journey. I came to that desolate railroad crossing where we had both stopped before. My flashing hazard lights reflected off the raised crossing bars. I opened my door to listen for trains . . . and maybe for the sound of another bus engine. Only one engine idled. With a sigh I shut my doors and drove my sleeping cargo home.

The end of the school year makes for a busy bus driving schedule. There are activity runs all year long, but during the last two months of school activity runs multiply like rabbits. Just last week, in addition to my regular morning and afternoon runs I had four all-day activity runs. These make running my computer repair shop difficult, but they are also a lot of fun.

On Tuesday I dropped my elementary school kids at school and stayed where I was to pick up a load of first graders fifteen minutes later. Out they came in a line following a teacher. There were lots of parents with them acting as chaperones. First graders are sweet. Their innocence is refreshing. The destination was downtown Salt Lake City. I never look forward to Salt Lake City trips. There is the congested freeway, narrow city streets, one-way streets, railway tracks, and no parking—it’s an obstacle course for a school bus.

I dropped the kids and their adults off at Discovery Gateway and then began the next mission: find a place to park the bus for a couple of hours. This is downtown Salt Lake City. There is no open space and people have learned they can make a lot of money off of parking. I finally found a parking lot kitty-corner to Temple Square. This lot was not meant for buses but it was largely empty that morning. I had to squeeze between two cement posts at the entrance and then park using slightly more than two parking stalls. I paid for both stalls for two hours an made my way to beautiful Temple Square where I enjoyed two hours of reading among the blossoming trees and flowers next to the historic buildings. Moments like those are a perk of bus driving.

At noon I picked up the kids and we made our way out of the congestion of the Salt Lake Valley to the slightly less congested Utah Valley. We found a park in Lehi where we could eat our sack lunches. The kids and adults scattered about the lawn in groups in the dappled sunshine under the trees to eat. One of my regular kids called to me from her group, “Hi, Tory.” Some of my regular kids in other groups heard her and called to me, too. “Hi, Tory.” That is another perk of being a bus driver—the fame. After eating the kids ran off to the playground and mixed with kids from other schools who were already there. I wondered how they would ever get them unmixed. When it was time to go I heard a whistle and then saw a stampede of kids heading my way. Those teachers have trained the kids well. We got back to the school just in time to drop the kids and then reload for the afternoon run.

On Wednesday it was much the same. I took the third grade to a Utah history museum in Lehi. Parking was slightly easier and much less expensive there. I spent the two hours enjoying the museum with the kids and their adults. Quite often, between docent sessions, I would have a fresh-faced third grader sidle up to me, tell me a few things about his day, and then move on. Afterwards we went to the very same park to eat our sack lunches. The third-graders weren’t quite as sweet as the first-graders and far more complex. I ate lunch with a group of them that included a couple of my regular riders and observed the beginnings of social pressure at play among them. Once again we got back to the school just in time to unload and reload for the afternoon run.

On Friday I took the fifth grade to the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum on BYU campus. In my head we would drop the kids in the parking lot behind the museum and then park there. In reality there was a woman’s conference on campus with thousands of attendees and their cars. There were busloads of kids from other schools visiting the museum. There was a state track meeting with thousands of attendees using the BYU facilities. In other words, the campus was highly congested. My first, second, and third parking lot choices were full. As I drove down toward the BYU stadium I saw the biggest gathering of school buses I had ever seen. Luckily there was room for one more. I negotiated the tight corners and made my way in. I swung that bus around and backed it in between two other buses. Success. It’s always a relief to find a place to put a bus for a couple of hours. Picking up the kids was tricky. The lot behind the museum was clogged with parked cars and other buses. With some backing I turned the bus around in a turnaround that was too small for buses to turnaround in. Then I pretty much blocked the lane in front of the museum while waiting for my kids to load. Sometimes you have to be a bit of a rebel to be a school bus driver. I took the kids to Pioneer Park to eat their lunch. I learned that fifth graders are old enough to start experiencing popularity and posturing, but still young enough to enjoy the playground.

On Saturday I picked up the high school track team at 5:45 am. Ugh, that’s an early Saturday morning. I have to give credit to the kids’ commitment. I drove them up to BYU and parked in the same lot I parked in the day before. Knowing the parking layout in advance takes away a lot of the bus driving anxiety. I was the second bus there beating the other fifty two. The track meet would last all day. This was a real boon for me. I rarely get an “all-day” to myself. After parking my bus I stopped for a breakfast bagel and then climbed the hill to the main campus. The BYU Harold B. Lee Library was waiting just for me. I spent a sweet eight hours on the fifth floor writing chapter 28 of my novel. I relished every minute of so much time. At 5:00 pm I walked the mile-and-a-half back to my bus to drop my computer off and then made my way to the track.

An hour-and-a-half later, after some exciting races, we were loaded up and heading home. All-in-all the trip took fourteen hours. I enjoy the track kids. They are an inspiring bunch of kids. Most of them aren’t champions (as in first, second, or third place) and yet they work their butts off in practice and are willing to get up at 5:00 am on a Saturday morning for a meet anyway. Yes, they are inspiring.

So that was the week of a school bus driver. It was filled with challenges, interesting places, and beautiful faces. When people find out that I, a healthy middle-aged man, drive a school bus I see a little confusion on their faces. Should they feel sorry for me and come up with positive words to help me feel good about myself in my difficult situation? I personally think they should envy me. Although driving a school bus is an integral part of my plan as an author, the enviable part is how rich and fulfilling he experience is.

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.

The daily morning pick-ups and afternoon drop-offs are the routine of the school bus driver. It’s the activity trips that spice up our job. On Thursday morning at nine a.m. I began loading thirty-five FFA students who were on their way to the State FFA convention. The next three days were a nice break to my routine.

I live in a very small country town and signs of FFA (Future Farmers of America) are all around me. Often there are flyers announcing events and activities. Sometimes I see kids in the iconic blue FFA jackets. Even so I know very little about the program. I picture kids raising, grooming, and selling animals. It seemed probable to me that there would be animals at the convention. When the kids started arriving to load the bus I was surprised. These weren’t kids who were dressed to be working with animals—the boys were in black dress pants, white shirts, and ties; the girls wore black skirts, black tights, white blouses, and a tie. Both genders wore their short, blue FFA jackets with Mt. Nebo printed clearly on the back. They were dressed for business and they looked really nice.

The thirty-five kids filled the bus comfortably. Many had a seat to themselves while a few others had to share. School buses aren’t the most comfortable mode of travel. The high seat backs in the newer buses like mine make it so the kids can’t see those in the seats in front and behind them. So what do the kids want to do? They stand up to talk completely negating the safety feature of the padded seat backs. These kids were pretty good about staying seated although, “Sit down,” is the first call over the intercom after each loading.

I’ve been on other three-day trips where I drop the kids at their venue, and, except for lunch, leave them there all day. I get to go do what I want during that time. It’s like a vacation. Not on this trip. I drop them for lunch and then pick them up an hour later. I drop them at the venue and pick them up two hours later. I drop them at the motel for dinner and pick them up two hours later. I drop them at the venue for more meetings and pick them up three hours later. I drop them at the motel so they can change into street clothes for the night’s extra activity. I drop them at the venue where they see a hypnotist show and then pick them up at 11:15 pm for the last time that day. It is a lot of back and forth that keeps me on my toes. I can do what I want in those times in-between, but I can’t get so lost in what I am doing so as to miss the next pick up time.

The next day it’s much of the same back and forth. The activity on this night was a dance. It was fun to see the kids change out of their official FFA dress into their dance clothes. Their dance clothes were mainly jeans and nice button-up shirts, but I could tell they were brought special for the dance. It was mainly cowboy boots all around. I was able to come a bit early and look in on the dance. I watched 500 FFA kids do the Macarena. It was great.

Because this was a well-attended state event there were school buses everywhere. It was fun to check out the school district printed on the sides of the buses to see where they came from. The district names are usually the name of the county they serve. There are many like Wayne, Emery, and Garfield that I have no idea where they are in the state. I talked to one bus driver from a rural area who picks up kids in a town thirty-five miles away from the high school. That’s a long daily route. She talked of narrow misses with elk and deer in the canyons. I talked with another bus driver who had been driving for twenty-nine years. She was confident and pleasant after all her experience. I couldn’t help but feel what a rookie I am after my one year of full-time bus driving.

Parking at large events such as these is always an adventure. Bus drivers are on their own to find a place to put their forty-foot rig. Quite often a natural order will develop and buses will line up front to rear or beside each other. Other times buses just park helter-skelter wherever they can find space. There was a little bit of both at this venue. At the motel four of us lined up nicely on the vacant lot next door. I had a secret little lane I discovered where I dropped the kids off at the venue. It put them close to the entrance and we didn’t have to line up behind the other buses. On the second day another bus driver figured it out and beat me there. Sometimes you just can’t trust another bus driver.

The best part of the trip was the kids themselves. There is something invigorating about being close to youth. There was such a range of personalities that the more self-controlled kids balanced out those prone to acting out.

“No swearing on the bus!” one girl called out boldly as she got on and heard some farmyard language near the back. It was gratifying to see her in action. She wasn’t preaching. She was one of them and well-liked and appeared to just want to make the speaker be his best self. Another time I heard another girl call out amid the cacophony “This is a G-rated bus.” You don’t get that with all the different groups of kids you carry.

I sit in my seat as they load and their faces become familiar to me. After they see me a few times some of them will start to meet my eyes with a smile or a nod. I love it when that happens. A large part of this group would thank me for the ride each time they got off. Considering I dropped them sometimes six times in a day this almost got annoying. I try to respond sincerely and uniquely to each. Am I complaining about their consideration? No, I say keep annoying me!

I was opening the bus compound gate after I had made the final drop at our high school so I could pull the bus in and park it. The kids’ parents were picking them up and taking them home after their three-day adventure. As I pulled on the gate I heard a honk. I looked up to see an arm with the blue FFA jacket sleeve stretched out the window. A voice called “Thank you,” as the car passed and went on down the road. It had been a good trip.

Actual experience may vary from this recruitment video.

When I think of Valentine’s Day’s of my youth nothing substantial comes to mind except for a Valentine’s Day when I was in the second grade. We were each to bring a homemade valentines box to class and enough valentines for everyone. My Mom made my box for me. It was covered in shiny tin foil and had some colorful trimmings. I thought it was beautiful. In class there was a vote for the best valentine’s box. The teacher stood by the boxes and called out the name of the box’s owner. Mine was one of the first. Very few voted for it. This hurt my feelings so much I decided not to vote for anyone else’s box. I showed them. That’s one of my few memories of second grade. Consequently I don’t remember second grade fondly. Thanks a lot Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day was on a Saturday this year. On the Friday morning run I noticed many of my elementary kids getting on the bus with colorful valentine’s boxes. There were pink boxes with hearts; red boxes with “Love” printed on the outside; and this being a rural town there was even a hunter’s camouflage valentine box. The boy who sits in the front had a Minecraft themed box. Many of the students had bags of valentines they would be handing out. I could feel a warm excitement among the kids that took me back. I must have had better Valentine’s Days after second grade because the feeling of excitement I felt brought on Déjà vu. I can’t remember details, but the happy anticipation I felt on the bus was a feeling I knew well. It came from the hope of getting a special valentine from some cute little girl I liked or perhaps it was from the anxiety of giving a special valentine to someone I secretly admired. I reveled in the feeling. The morning felt light and happy.

“Are your kids getting on the bus with pretty valentine’s boxes, too?” I radioed one of the other bus drivers who I knew had a load of elementary kids.

“Yes, yes they are,” she responded. She didn’t sound as delighted as I felt. I put this down to her familiarity with the day. She had been driving for over twenty years and had seen as many Valentine’s Days come and go.

That afternoon the kids came running from the school and filed onto the bus. I still felt an excitement among them, but it wasn’t as charming as it was that morning. Most didn’t have their boxes with them now. I suspected they had thrown them away. What they did have with them was a backpack full of valentine candy. The valentines candy I remember from my elementary days included a few heart shaped suckers, maybe a piece of chocolate, and lots of little hearts with “Be Mine” and “True Love” written on them. Times have changed. The kids were eating cupcakes, candy bars, sugar cookies and every other incarnation of sugar you can think of. I commented to another bus driver over the radio, “It’s like Halloween, but pink.”

The kids bounced around the bus like Mexican jumping beans high from the sugar and the excitement. After I parked the blessedly silent bus in the compound I unhooked my seat-belt and turned around to walk my bus. I stopped in astonishment—it was like Valentine’s Day had exploded all over my bus. Candy wrappers were still falling to the floor like colorful snow. Now I knew why the other bus driver was a little reserved about this special day of love.

I grabbed my broom and began the chore of sweeping between and under each seat. I swept all the trash into the middle aisle before making a pass down the aisle toward the front herding the ever growing pile with me. On this day as I looked at the bank of trash down the aisle I thought I might need to get a snow shovel to finish the job. I eventually got the residue of Valentine’s Day out of my bus. It was a lot of work, and I was annoyed that the kids would throw their wrappers on the floor without a second thought. But when I remember the looks on the faces of the kids and remembered the feelings I’ve felt on Valentine’s Day in the past, I find that I’m still looking forward to seeing the colorful boxes next year. I suppose I’m just sentimental.

I was a new bus driver. I suppose every bus driver is at one point or another. I was still trying to find the answer of how to control the kids on my bus. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that you can’t. I learned that keeping order on the bus is more like a marriage—you can’t control your spouse, but you can work with him or her for effective (even spectacular) results.

Anyway, before I learned this there was this eight-year-old boy who I swear would be mistaken for twelve-years-old by any one of you due to his size. In the midst of all the noise on the bus there was a particular agitation about four seats back that always caught my attention. It was Steven. I’m not sure what he was up to to cause such a commotion, but he bothered me greatly. I finally moved him to the front passenger seat to separate him from the others. He wasn’t happy about this—at first.

My problem is that instead making kids hate sitting in the front seat for punishment I end up getting to know them and even liking them. I started talking to Steven and found him to be a lively kid with a lively imagination. In the course of our conversation I told him a story. I can’t remember exactly what it was about, but I’m pretty sure it was just some odd news item. He liked the story, or the way I told it, so much that he asked for another, and then another. The next day he sat in the front seat without being told to. He asked for more stories. Within a couple of days I realized he had decided to move to the front seat permanently.

It became apparent I had created trouble for myself. Steven expected stories every day. And not only him, but some of the other kids learned something was going on in the front of the bus. Soon I could sense three faces poking up over the divider behind my seat to listen to my story. Others leaned toward me from the front passenger seat. It became so distracting that I quit telling stories for a while. The kids eventually scattered back to their regular seats. Steven stayed in the front seat. He really liked talking to me stories or not. When he got off the bus he would turn around, stand there and wave until I finally had to quit waving back and shut the door.

Steven still pesters me for stories every day. After the most chaotic part of the route is done I tell him about the Battle of Bunker Hill, the bear story of Old Ephraim, or how Colonel Bernard Fisher won the Congressional Medal of Honor. What’s interesting is that even though he mostly rides in the afternoon on the way home kids who ride in the morning now move to the front and ask for a story. The morning run is so much quieter than the afternoon that it’s easier to tell a story. Because I have more time I tell the morning kids longer stories. I spent a month telling them, chapter by chapter, the story of Joey and the Magic Map, a novel I wrote.

Every morning it was, “Okay, Tory, tell us more.”

I have to remember where we left off, reformulate the chapter for an oral telling and time it for when I dropthem off. It isn’t easy, but on the country roads with the miles in-between stops I can do it. After Joey I told them The Graveyard Book. Then it was the Secret Benedict Society. Other times I just resort to odd news items again or funny stories from my life.

Sometimes, now, some random kid from the middle of the bus will come plop down in the front seat. This usually happens after the majority of the kids are off the bus and we have the long run to the scattered houses out in the fields. It’s usually someone in fourth or fifth grade who is usually too cool for the front of the bus. It’s often one who I have to call out on the intercom to settle down.

“You got a a story?” he will ask.

I’ll come up with something.

The other day it was little Kaye who suddenly appeared in the passenger seat. She usually resides in the middle of the bus, too. I think she is nine. I call her little, and she is only nine, but I have learned there is a certain sophistication to nine-year-olds.

“Can you tell me a story?” she asked.

There was a wistfulness—a hopefulness—in her voice. I think it was the same kind of voice she uses on her father when she wants something. She hadn’t made the trek up front for a couple of months so her appearance surprised me (and pleased me) a little. We had the eight mile drive out to the dairy and there are no more than ten kids on the bus at this point so it was a good time for a story. I told the first chapter of the Graveyard Book again. She hadn’t heard it yet. She, and a couple of other kids who moved forward when they heard me start, listened intently as I told them about the three-year-old boy who wandered up to the graveyard one night and ended up being raised by the ghosts who lived there. I loved the looks on their faces as I glanced in my mirror.

I’m still driving bus. I know there will be a call for more stories. Some days the stories flow easy. Other days the energy level on the bus is too much to tell a story and I have to tell the asker no. Those are bad days. But after those stormy days the rainbow comes out and a child will appear in the passenger seat and ask casually, like he doesn’t really care, “You got a story?”

And I can answer, “Why yes. Yes I do.”