I have up to eighteen stops on my bus route. Each stop has its own smell, flavor, and color. My second stop, right at 7:00 am, is a buffet of all of the above. Some are waiting at the edge of the road. Others are waiting in parent’s cars because it’s cold out. Others are waiting in their homes from which they come running when I stop. They are neighbors, but not necessarily united. Some are friendly and sit up front to talk with me. One girl always makes a point of giving me a cheery “good morning.” Most of them don’t give me much more than a glance before making their way back into the dark of the bus. I’ve had some dramatics from the kids at this stop when two different families were feuding. There were tears and yelling as a close friendship broke apart. Someone in this group complained to their mother that the bus was cold in the morning. The mother called the district. The district called my boss. Of course the kids don’t wear coats even when it’s below freezing outside. I start the bus twenty minutes before I pick them up. It takes over thirty minutes for the bus to warm up. There’s not much I can do for them. This stop is complicated.

At the fourth stop I pick up a family of four kids. The high schooler and sixth grader never say much, but the second and first grader are always lively. They, a boy and a girl, will stop at my seat to point out the cat crossing the road or the foxes over in the field. They will point out their hideout they are making out of a piece of fencing and a railroad tie. Sometimes their dog Loki is at the stop with them. I’ve seen Lizzie dancing with the dog as I’ve pulled up. I’ve seen Danny feeding weeds to Hercules, their miniature horse. Once after I dropped this family off I went up to the cross roads where I made a 180 degree turn and came back down their road like I always do twice a day. Lizzy was up on the landscaping rock waving at me with both arms. She’s never done that before. I waved happily back and went on my way. It wasn’t until three miles down the road that someone discovered Danny asleep on his seat. Lizzy was trying to let me know Danny hadn’t gotten off. He had to ride another half hour before I could get him home. I radioed the office who called his home to let them know. The fourth stop is always interesting.

Then there is the dairy. The dairy is far out of town up on a hill. There is the big milking barn down lower where I stop the bus. Farther up the hill, about half a mile, are a row of houses. The dairy is family owned and operated. The residents of those houses are related. Even so they all have different last names. There are Sherwoods and Englands and Blackhursts and others. The kids are cousins. I can easily tell which kids are siblings because they look so much alike. Some of the kids are always waiting inside the milking barn where it is warm. They come running out when I pull up. Another group of kids are waiting in a white pickup with their dad. A third group of kids may or may not catch the bus at this stop. They want to catch it, but often they are late and miss the bus. I will sometimes find them waiting at my eighteenth stop with my churchyard kids. Their mom had to drive them eight miles to get them there. When they don’t miss the bus it is usually because I see tail lights pulling out of a driveway far up the hill and decide to wait for them. I’ll watch the headlights guiding a speeding vehicle down the gravel road. A van skids to a stop near the bus and all the doors open and the kids spill out. They will be smiling as they get on the bus and more than one will thank me for waiting.

Just the other day at the dairy an eighth grader got on. He had been waiting in the barn with some other kids. At my seat he leaned down to look out the window and said, “My sister is coming.” I looked back to see a small figure running full speed down the gravel road. She is a first grader and very short in height. I don’t think she comes up to my waist. She ran like the wind through the dim, pre-dawn light to the bus steps. She climbed up breathing and smiling hard. I complimented her on her swiftness. She was proud. I shut the doors to go, but glanced once more over my shoulder. I saw more car lights swinging onto the gravel road from a driveway. Here came someone else. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew it was the bus they were coming to. They were very late, but I didn’t want to make them chase the bus for eight miles so I waited. The car came to a stop beside the bus. I still couldn’t see who it was because the windshield was frosted over. The door opened and, remember the little girl who just ran the half-mile in record time? This was her second-grade sister. A brother and two sisters all arriving at the same stop at different times and in different manners. This stop never gets old.

I’ve already dropped the high schoolers and middle schoolers when I arrive at my eighteenth stop at the church parking lot. As I come the two blocks down the road it usually looks like they are having a party. The fifteen kids are scattered all over engaged in different activities like at recess. When they see me turn the corner they hurry and form a line next to their bags which they placed previously. Sometimes a family of kids is arriving late. They see the bus and start running down the sidewalk ahead of me. It’s a race. I honk my air horn to encourage them. The sun is up when I get to these kids. Their noses are red from the cold. These kids range from kindergarten to fifth grade. They seem homogenous, but they have their differences. I hear about who was mean to who; who said the swear words; and who was bold enough to “butt” (butt in line). And yet they all seem like friends. The little kindergartener with the buzzed head climbs up the steps (not easy for him) and says in a bold, husky voice, “Bus driver! I hope you have the heat on because I’m cooollllddd!” I love him.

The town I drive school bus in is a small town. To an outsider the kids may appear to be the same. After all, how different can you be and still get along in a small town? I suppose there are many similarities and conformities, but if you really can’t see the differences, perhaps it’s because you aren’t their bus driver.

At 5:00 am, when my alarm goes off, the faces of my bus children are already in my mind’s eye. This is strange to me because most of my day has very little to do with the bus. I pick up my first stop at 6:55 am and deliver at the school at 7:55 am. In the afternoon I pick up my first stop at 2:30 pm and drop my last drop at 3:30 pm. That’s basically just two hours of my day. The rest of the day is running my computer repair business, family affairs, and writing. Yet the faces of my bus kids are there in my head.

During the short time we are together on the bus these kids do things or say things that are like pieces to the puzzle of who they are. Over the days, weeks, and months I get a more complete picture (but never complete) of what makes each child tick. There is one, I’ll call him Eddy, who has caught my eye. He is one of a group of about twenty kids who get on at the Church stop and get off at the elementary school which is the very next stop. I have no assigned seats for them since they are on for less than ten minutes. They just clamber to the back of the bus.

Eddy, a second grader, got my attention by misbehaving. Mind you, most of the kids in the back are loud and boisterous, but Eddy always went too far. I would see him climbing over the seats or hanging out the window. More than once he threw trash out the window. What bothered me most was his telling other kids f*&% You and flipping them off. He only did this when he was mad, but he got mad easily. I had seen him get off the bus after I had asked him to quit climbing over the seats and he would flip me off and say his favorite phrase.

Before you picture an ugly bully of a kid let me tell you that he the cutest little second grader you will ever see. He has dark, fuzzy hair; dark eyes; and a warm smile (when he smiles). I turned him in to the principal once when his imperative sentences (f*&% you) got out of hand. The principal already knew him well. He said he would call him in and talk to him although he was already on detention. It wasn’t long before Eddy’s language was making some of the older kids mad at him, so I turned him into the principal again. The principal, who really seems to love his kids, scratched his head. He told me he had talked to the Eddy and his mom. His mom doesn’t have a car. Throwing him off the bus would be throwing him out of school. I saw the problem. Eddy needs school. I didn’t want to get in the way of his possible progress if there was another way.

I moved Eddie and his brother (I’ll call him Shawn) to the front of the bus. I didn’t think for a moment Eddy would quit using his language just because he was up by me, but it would limit who heard him. To my surprise Eddie and Shawn seemed happy to be in front. They often had verbal altercations with the kids in the back. Shawn would tell me stories about the cars he is going to own when he grows up. Eddie was quiet, but when he spoke I heard a sweet, high voice of a typical second grader. Other than his favorite phrase I had never heard him speak before. I didn’t get to know him well, but I started seeing the little boy that he was. Surprisingly I never heard him swear once during the few weeks he was up front. He showed me his Hot Wheels cars and shot me his winning smile more than once.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. Shawn would bully Eddie sometimes when Eddie didn’t do what he wanted. I saw them fight more than once. Usually it was heated wrestling, but once I saw them exchange punches. Eddy won when he bit Shawn on the hand. Shawn, who is much bigger than Eddie, complained that Eddie was acting like a first grader. I was driving during this and by the time I got stopped they were best friends again.

The other day Eddie’s teacher followed Eddie onto the bus after school. She sat with him in the front seat while the other kids boarded. She had a quiet chat with him while he sat with an angry pout on his face. As she left she said,

“I’m sorry. Anything could happen. Anything.”

I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about, but I could guess that she was dealing in the classroom with the behavior I had seen on the bus before I moved him. The next day Shawn got on and told me that Eddie wouldn’t be getting on.

“They threw him out of school. He was kicking chairs over and flipping everyone off.”

I learned Eddie had to complete an anger management class before they will let him back in school. I feel bad for the teacher. I feel bad for Eddie. I feel relieved that a potential problem is off the bus. I feel bad for feeling that way. Life can be so conflicting.

It’s true, I don’t see the kids very long each day, but they still work their way into my life.

School bus drivers have their regular morning and afternoon routes. You pick up and drop off the same kids morning and afternoon every school day. It’s very routine. I find myself looking forward to special activity trips that give me a break from the routine. The special activity trips might be anything from driving the volleyball team to a match to taking the sixth graders to a natural history museum. However, not all activity trips are equal.

An easy activity trip is one that takes you to a place with little traffic and lots of parking space for a bus. I find the majority of activity trips for our school district fit the easy category to one degree or another. I drove to Mt. Pleasant the other day. I was able to drop the team at the front doors of the high school and then drive to the public library where I could do some writing. A couple of hours later I had a bite to eat and then drove back to the school in time to catch the varsity match. It was a pleasant trip.

A few weeks back I had a trip on the other end of the spectrum. I drove the cross country team to a picturesque city up in the mountains for a huge meet. I like driving the cross country team. They are well-mannered kids and are fun to watch run. It was the location that made this such an obnoxious trip.

Another bus driver had told me about her experience a couple of years before. She had dropped the kids at the venue—a place that has absolutely no parking for buses. You are supposed to go park at the high school. The difficulty is that drivers new to this location can’t find the high school. The high school is built in conjunction with a performing arts center and happens to look like the performing arts center, not a high school. She had gotten lost looking for the high school and found herself on the extremely narrow roads on the hillside of this “charming” old mining town. She had a miserable experience.

I have unexpectedly found myself on narrow back roads in a bus, too, and took her warning to heart. I dropped the team off at the venue via a narrow two lane road with two little parking lots just barely big enough to turn a bus around. There would be thirty buses so, of course, no room to park. I went searching for the high school which was supposed to be about a mile up the road. I saw a bus in front of me and decided to follow it hoping that the driver had been here before. I was right that the drive had been here before. I was wrong in assuming he was going to the high school. I followed him into a school complex where I saw eight buses already parked. They were parked nose to tail very closely in a double line, which was unusual, but I thought this must be how they do it here. They I noticed that all the buses were from the same school district—the district of the city I was in. To my horror I realized that I was in the bus pickup line for an elementary school. All those buses were picking up the local students for the afternoon drop. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Local bus drivers are ornery about “other-district” drivers getting in their way. Luckily I was able to pull aside (barely enough room) and get out of the way. There was no way to leave until all the other buses left. Finally I made my escape.

I drove toward town worried that I was going to miss the high school and end up on those narrow mountainside roads. I saw a some buses parked in front of a building that did not look like a high school (it was). The parking lot was full of cars, but there was a curb with enough room for a few buses. I pulled in not caring if it was the high school or not and parked at the curb. Now there would be a four hour wait. It turned out I was only there forty-five minutes before a man came by telling all of us that we had to move our buses somewhere else because they needed this curb for the local shuttle to the meet. Argh! I found room around on the other side of the performing arts center with fourteen other buses parked higgledy-piggledy amid the cars. For such a large meet the planning for transportation was very poor. I usually like to find a good place to watch the kids run and cheer them on, but I couldn’t at this venue. Instead I had to stick around the bus. I read a book, took a nap, and walked around the parking lot for exercise.

After four hours I got a call from one of the coaches. He wanted me to get there fast “and, for heaven’s sake, stay out of the line of buses picking up the teams on that narrow road.” It would take an hour-and-a-half to cycle through that line. He had a fine idea, but how else was I supposed to pick up the team? It seemed the only other alternative was to park on the busy four-lane highway and have them come to me. That was not a viable alternative. As I approached the venue and saw that creeping line of buses I was motivated to find a way to avoid it. I saw a possibility and formulated a plan. The plan required a couple of U-turns that, while not dangerous (if timed right), made me uncomfortable. I ended up parking temporarily on an unused sidewalk with three other buses. I called the coach and the team came to me. Off we went returning home an hour-and-a-half sooner.

The coaches showed a little appreciation for my efforts, but not nearly enough. That is definitely not an activity run I want to do next year. Now I appreciate those small town runs with the quaint little libraries even more. I drop the kids, then find the library and kick back in an overstuffed chair amid shelves crowded with books and walls covered with colorful posters. I can catch the end of the games, meets, or matches and then drive back after an enjoyable afternoon and evening. I will to keep these runs in mind as my “happy place” when I find myself on the next monster run.

I’m glad I started driving bus as a substitute bus driver. It gave me valuable experience and an important reference point. Having said that let me also say I don’t ever want to be a substitute bus driver again. Substituting is tough. You don’t know the routes, you don’t know who’s supposed to be on the bus and who isn’t, and, here’s the hardest part, you don’t know the kids’ names. I’ve learned that not knowing the kids’ names is like riding a horse without a bridal—you don’t have a lot of control. When you have your own route you get to know the kids names. That makes a difference, but just because you have a bridal doesn’t mean you know how to ride a horse.

I started my own route half-way through last school year. It took me quite a while to learn some of the kids’ names. The other kids’ names I never did learn. It took many of the kids the rest of the school year to quit asking me where their bus driver was.

“I’m your bus driver now.”

“Oh. So when is our bus driver going to be back?”

Some of the kids who weren’t afraid to sit up front started to get to know me and tell me things.

“You’re nicer than our last bus driver,” they told me. “You don’t yell as much.”

Another student mentioned that I got around the route much faster than the old bus driver.

“She stopped a lot to yell and make kids sit down.”

These sound like compliments to me, but even then, in my naiveté, I wasn’t so sure.

“I think I should be stricter,” I said.

“No! No!” they yelled.

The truth was I didn’t want to be like the other bus drivers I drove with. They did a lot of serious intercom enforcing. They scared me. I wondered if I was going to have to be like that. I wondered if I could be like that even if I wanted to.

First of all let me tell you that the bus driver I replaced drove for fifteen years and was a very fine bus driver. I rode with her a couple of times to learn the bus and the route and I did notice how quickly she got on the intercom to call kids out. She wanted kids in their seats facing forward and she wanted a low noise level. It took a lot of effort (and noise) on her part every day to make this happen.

When I started driving the route I was much more laid back. Even though I didn’t want to be a bus driver who did a lot of yelling my “laidback-ness” wasn’t so much a conscious choice as it was I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know the kids’ names so it was, “You! You in the back. Sit down.” The two kids standing and facing backward ignored me while the two kids sitting properly in the seat across the aisle looked at me and pantomimed, “Who? Us?” It was frustrating.

My line in the sand for the student’s behavior was a wavy one. I made sure they didn’t stand in the aisles, but other than that neither they nor I knew the boundaries. I did get the feeling that I was known as a nicer bus driver, but I also had an uneasy feeling that I wasn’t as good a bus driver as the one I replaced. The worry comes down to that possible moment you are in an accident. Kids could unnecessarily get hurt if you are letting them get away with unsafe behavior on the bus.

This year I determined to quiet my worries by drawing the behavior lines more clearly and enforcing them more consistently. I have learned a majority of the kids’ names and this helps a lot. I’m calling out names often telling them to “turn around and sit down.” I even stop the bus when I have to in order to enforce more safely. I’ve stopped the bus several times already. Oh, the looks I receive through the rear-view mirror. They roll their eyes. They salute. Their faces say, “I can’t believe I put up with this.” But they sit down and they are safer.

To those who think driving a bus is a nightmare, it isn’t. These kids, even the ones who give me the looks, are good kids. It’s true that they know the rules and are breaking them anyway, but that is usually just them trying to figure out who they are and how life works. Growing up is harder than most of us adults remember . . . or maybe it isn’t.

I know there are days when I am ornerier than other days. On those days I am gruff on the intercom. Mostly I try to remember the human being behind the breaking of the rule and to speak calmly. I’m often hearing myself telling them “thank you” whey they comply. The bus is doing pretty well this year. I feel a lot better even though I’m learning how to get my bossy on.

School bus drivers have their regular routes that they cover every school day. Then there are the special activity runs. Bus drivers want their share of these trips mainly for the extra money it brings. I like the extra money well enough. I enjoy being with the kids on these special activities even more.

Special activity runs range from overnight trips in distant towns for sporting tournaments to a two block drive to the school district office so the choir can perform at a luncheon. These special activity runs have taken me to towns I never would have seen before and to events I never would have experienced. They are as exciting for me as for the students.

Girls’ soccer is a new sporting event at our high school. When I drove the soccer girls they were still classified a club instead of a team. The first time I drove the girls to a match the acting coach told me that this was the second time most of them had ever played a match. I don’t have much interest in soccer and in spite of the sunshine the wind was nippy that afternoon. I stayed on the bus and read a book for a while, but then curiosity got the better of me. I raised the hood on my hoodie, zipped it up to my chin, and ventured out of the bus to see how the girls were doing. The score was 3-0 when I arrived at the field. Our girls were losing. I didn’t have to watch long before I was impressed, in spite of the score, at the teamwork of our girls. They were passing well and showed a lot of hustle and determination. If they were cold, and I’m sure they were, they didn’t show it.

On the bus after the game one of the girls asked the coach what the final score was.

“5-0,” she answered.

“Again?” another girl said.

“My dad came to the game,” the coach said, “He asked, ‘This is their second game?”

“Was that a good thing?” a girl asked.

“Yes! He thought you were playing far better than such an inexperienced team.”

The girls, losers at 5-0, cheered.

It was dark by the time we headed home. It was even darker being on a remote highway on a moonless night. The darkness lightened by the strains of music I heard coming from the back of the bus. The music wasn’t from an MP3 player or an iPad—it was from the girls themselves. Several of the soccer club girls were in the concert choir. They were singing choir songs in harmony. It was delightful. You don’t get that when you drive boy teams. The only selection I ever heard from the boys was when the track team sang “One-hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” They didn’t miss a bottle.

I took a group of boys to a summer basketball tournament in a town located four hours away. I picked them up two days later. It was hot. Really hot. The temperature was 114 degrees. School busses don’t have air conditioning. As we started the journey home most of the windows were down. We hadn’t gone five miles before the windows were closed. The wind coming in the window was so hot it was slightly less miserable to bake with them shut. There were plenty of seats up front, but high school students are drawn to the back of the bus like moths to a porch light. The bus engine is in the back. This raised the temperature in the back easily ten degrees compared to the front of the bus. I told the boys this, but they wouldn’t move up. Instead, a few of them just took their clothes off. They sat there in their underwear sweating profusely. The bus overheated three times and we had to stop to cool the engine. It was a miserable ride home.

One day I drove choir members to a regional competition. Kids sang in duets, quartets, and octets. Eventually the special choirs would compete. While the kids waited for the choir competition to begin they hung out in the gym. There happened to be a keyboard and a basketball present. A few kids, in their tuxedos and concert dresses took up the basketball and started shooting hoops. Another boy sat down at the keyboard and started to play music the choir had practiced. He started with “A Bridge Over Troubled Water.” A few kids circled the piano and started to sing. Soon more ran over to join in. They moved on to more difficult and more sacred pieces. They ended with “Jaberwocky,” a silly, but very difficult piece. By then most of the choir was present. There was no audience other than me and there was no choir director. The kids were singing for the sheer joy of singing. They sang in each other’s faces and acted out the parts, all things they couldn’t do on stage. The joy and fun of it was palpable in the air. Even the kids playing basketball were singing along.

I’ve driven the wrestlers, the girls’ basketball team, the boys and girls track teams, the drama club, elementary school field trips to dairies and zoos, just to mention a few. I’ve had many very memorable trips along with a couple of nightmares. The trip I had the most fun was the concert choir to state competition. The location was good for the choir (a concert hall on University of Utah campus), but bad for bus drivers. After dropping the choir at the venue it was every bus driver for himself to find a place to park and wait in that congested part of the city with the narrow streets. The fun didn’t occur until we got back to our fair, little town. Juab high is a small town high school, but in the arts it has to compete against the big city high schools. On this day the Juab Concert Choir scored right up there with the big schools. The choir director thought it appropriate to have an impromptu parade through town. She called the police and arranged for official emergency vehicles to meet us at the exit. Kids called their parents so they could join the parade.

Escort vehicles in front of the buses.

When the parade started we had a police car, an ambulance, two fire trucks, two busloads of choir kids, and about six family cars in the procession. The emergency vehicles ran their lights and sirens. The other bus driver and I blew our air horns to our hearts content. The kids stuck their heads out the windows and cheered. Cars pulled over wondering what this was all about. Many honked their horns and cheered with us. People stopped and stared in the parking lots. Some families quickly made up congratulation signs and got balloons and stood on the street corners to wave and yell. The police blocked traffic at the one red light in town so we didn’t have to stop. We made a ruckus and had the most fun on a school bus ever.

I’m just the bus driver. I’m not a part of the clubs, classes, and teams that these kids and their teachers and coaches are. I just haunt the edges of these events like a ghost observing life after his own is over. But the life of the kids and the excitement of the events are strong enough that they spill outside the lines and I get to bask in the glow anyway. I’m just the bus driver, but that still makes me lucky.

Why would anyone want to be a school bus driver? I don’t think I have met anyone who planned on being a bus driver. Most bus drivers ended up in the job because they needed a part-time job when the opportunity to drive a bus came along. The pay is pretty good for a part-time job and the hours aren’t bad. But driving a school bus isn’t for everyone. Recently in just one week three “bad bus driver” stories hit the news. The bad behavior of the bus drivers in response to the bad behavior of the kids was appalling. The interesting thing is that when most of us bus drivers hear these stories we usually don’t rush to condemn the offending driver. We don’t try to excuse him either. Our response is tempered by the fact that we understand how the bus driver was feeling when he acted so badly. Perhaps we have had days where we stood close to the line that shouldn’t be crossed and seen clearly the other side.

Most days are not like that. On most days there is at least one thing about being a school bus driver that I like. For instance:

I like the kids. It’s true that some kids are easier to like than others, but generally I like them all. I like the energy I feel from their youth. I like their laughter. I like their smiles. I like to read their t-shirts. I like to listen to their banter. Each of these things can go bad at times, but usually it is a positive and invigorating experience.

I like the way the five-year-old who sits behind the driver’s seat will pat my head after I get my hair cut. My hair is cut in a flattop and she likes the way it feels.

I like the way one six-year-old showed me her loose tooth and asked me to pull it. I respectfully declined.

I like the way kids will move to the front seat on the passenger side just to talk to me. The seat is left open for troublemakers who need a time out. Every-once-in-a-while I will look over to see a child I haven’t called up sitting there. After a mile or two of silence they will call my name and start telling me a story from their life. They will continue to sit in that seat from anywhere between two days and a week. Then, when their need is over they will move back to their regular seat.

I like the way one precocious eight-year-old takes the time to show me her color coordinated socks, pants, shirt, and hair-bow. Sometimes there are even matching earrings.

I like the way some kids will sometimes stop and turn around when they get off the bus so they can wave to me. One boy often turns and says, “Thanks for the story.” He asks me to tell him one every day. The look on his face is so sincere. At another stop the kids cut across a parking lot after I drop them off. I catch back up with them when I turn the corner. Sometimes they run to race me. They yell and wave when I honk the air horn.

I like the way the middle school girl stopped and slowly and deliberately thanked me before she got off the bus. For some reason she had forgotten to get off at the middle school. I had delivered the rest of the kids to the elementary school then drove her back to the middle school.

I like the way the kids gently wake up a first grader who often falls asleep on the way to school. I have to hold his shoulder and steady him for a moment before he goes down the steps to make sure he’s fully awake.

I like it when some of the older students will take the time to respond to my greetings or questions with more color and energy than the usual grunt. One girl descended the steps then turned and spoke to me about her new hair cut (she thought it was too short). A boy took a moment to describe to me how, Joe, their mule, can unlatch the gate to his corral with his lips. I actually saw Joe do this once. These unexpected, brief communications are always a pleasant surprise.

I like the playful laughter I hear from the back of the bus on the way to one of the last stops. It’s coming from eight kids who are brothers and sisters and cousins. All the seats between me and them are empty. I can’t hear what they are saying, only the fun energy they are saying it with. Often there is something one group is trying to grab from another group. Every-once-in-a-while it takes a few words over the intercom to get them back in their seats. The life and fun they are creating leaks like liquid sunshine from the open windows of the bus.

At the very last stop four siblings get off and start up the gravel lane to their home. It’s a half-mile walk. They range in age from fourteen to five years old. The five-year-old is the little sister. The others are her three big brothers. They are a beautiful sight as they start off down the lane side-by-side.

There are plenty of things that can make being a school bus driver miserable. In-between all the “things I like” are the mundane, the annoying, and the downright irritating. But “the things I like” are such beautiful jewels that I am inclined to overlook the gravel and dirt in which they are found.

What do I know about Zen? I know how to spell it. I know about Zen gardens: some sand, a rock, and a little rake to make lines in the sand. I’ve read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. So, actually, I know very little about Zen, but I do know a little about school bus driving.

I’ve learned that school bus driving isn’t for the faint of heart. In saying this I don’t want to mislead you. School bus driving isn’t particularly dangerous. The children in our district don’t seem prone to violence or delinquency; but five days every week a school bus driver has to face the fact that for a two hours a day his will alone stands as the barrier between order and total chaos.

From my college freshman physics class I learned that the law of entropy has to do with ordered states naturally moving into disordered states. The law of entropy is especially apparent on school buses. On a normal day I can feel the energy on the bus contained in the kids behind me pushing and bending the space-time continuum.  It is my presence, and my presence only, that keeps a singularity from occurring. This is hardly fair. When Yoda or Professor Charles Xavier confront the forces of chaos and destruction they get to do so with their full attention. School bus drivers have to confront these forces while keeping both eyes on the road. Can Yoda wield his light-sabre magnificently while safely driving a school bus? No he can’t—not even with the help of a green screen.  Okay, I’ll give you that the students on the bus aren’t bending the metal like Magneto or using the Force to send other students flying through the air like Darth Vader, but with all the energy seething behind me almost anything could happen.

In my imagination I’ve looked up into the mirror to see sixty-five students sitting correctly in their seats talking quietly and happily to each other as they await their stop. That’s only been in my imagination. In reality I will look up into my mirror to see kindergarteners standing on their seats facing the back, middle-schoolers  with knees and heads out in the aisles so they can conference with kids on the other side of the bus, and high schoolers sitting high in their seats with their backs against the windows. Third graders will be singing about chickens farting, a fifth grader will be walking up the aisle to get a tissue, and hidden behind one of those tall seatbacks a fourth grade boy will be having a screaming contest with a fourth grade girl. This is what happens on a good day.

First and foremost a school bus driver has to worry about what is happening on the road. Other cars and trucks pose the greatest danger to the kids. In the event of an accident the kids have the potential of becoming flying objects injuring themselves and others if they aren’t sitting properly in their seats. Ironically, trying to minimize the “flying object” risk inside the bus increases the collision risk outside the bus by taking the bus drivers attention off the road.

My greatest challenge is trying to find an inner peace and composure with the energy on the bus so that I can keep my awareness level high on what is going on outside the bus. Some days I achieve what I call the Zen Zone. With quick glances in the mirror and efficient use of the intercom I am able to keep the energy on the bus reasonably contained while being aware of the car unexpectedly braking in front of me or the kids darting out into road. Other days the Zen Zone is harder to achieve and I become a surly curmudgeon snapping at the rule-breakers over the intercom while spending less attention on the road. Twice on these kinds of days I have grabbed the radio microphone instead of the intercom microphone and told all the other bus drivers to “turn around and sit down and don’t make me ask you again.”

The bad days happen when I start taking what is happening on the bus personally. Billy will suddenly leap into the aisle and meet my eyes in the mirror. He knows the rule about staying out of the aisle. He’s been told of the danger. Yet, for no apparent reason he steps into the aisle and stares at me. Is this not a personal challenge? It probably it isn’t. A simple, “Back in your seat, Billy” gets him to sit back down. Maybe his legs were cramped. Maybe he just wanted a little adult attention. I don’t really know. I do know that if I start taking the students’ rule infractions personally my driving becomes more dangerous. I tend to drive faster. I hurry to the next stop just so I can let more students off and be done with them. At some stops where I let up to seventeen off at once I feel the same relief as when a boil is lanced and drained.  This isn’t a healthy state-of-mind for a school bus driver. I’ve been learning that what happens on the bus really isn’t about me. The kids are just living their lives. I do have to enforce rules now and then to keep chaos at bay, but mostly all that energy is just being dissipated in friendly talk and laughter.

I carry quite a load of middle-schoolers. There is a lot of angst amongst this group. Even so there are a few who have enough self-confidence to talk to the bus driver. Most of them seem almost afraid that I might talk to them. It’s strange. They walk by and look the other way just as they reach me.  There are two girls who get off together at one stop. Several times I’ve said, “Bye” or “See you tomorrow” only to be ignored. I’ve seen them put their heads close together as they cross the street in front of the bus. I imagine they are saying “Can you believe he spoke to me? The nerve!” It’s a scene with the “mean girls” from a Disney movie.  One day I noticed that one of the girls was wearing a necklace with an old-fashioned bicycle hanging at the bottom. It caught my attention that such a young person would wear such a unique decoration. She was wearing it the next day as well. She got off alone on this day. As she passed I said, “That’s a great necklace. I love the bicycle.” I feared she might be offended that the bus driver liked something she wore. She mumbled something as she went down the steps. I didn’t catch what it was. As she crossed in front of the bus she ignored me as usual, but I saw her smile slightly and touch her necklace. Maybe she was pleased to have her necklace noticed? We’re not going to be friends anytime soon, but it made me feel good to know she heard me and didn’t resent it.

Today a third grade boy walked up the aisle at one of our stops and handed me a ticket. It was from the Nephi Police Department. Apparently I was in an oversize vehicle and the fine was $10,000. This would have disturbed me if the ticket wasn’t written on a lined sheet of paper torn out of a pocket notebook. It also helped that it was written in pencil in third grade handwriting. Do the creators of this ticket have it in for me? Are they wishing me ill? I can’t tell for sure, but the truth is I enjoyed their creativity. I saw them in the mirror watching me as I read the ticket. They were delighted by my mock consternation.

I drive more slowly now whether the bus is quiet or loud. Every-once-in-a-while I have to call a kid on a stunt he or she pulls, but mainly the noise I am hearing behind me is just the noise of kids growing up. I am capable of giving someone the “eye” to influence them to “stop it,” but I am just as capable of being   a cheerful “hello” and a “smile” in their day whether they like it or not.