Not once in all my years did driving a school bus cross my mind. Not when I was in elementary school (I was going to be a fighter pilot). Not when I was in high school (I was going to be an astronomer). Not when I was getting a master’s degree in college (I didn’t know what I was going to be then, but it wasn’t going to be a school bus driver). All I knew about being a school bus driver was from the TV show “The Simpsons” with its long hair, acid rock listening, slightly stoned-sounding bus driver. It wasn’t until I reached a slightly more desperate time in my life when a friend and school bus driver made me aware of an upcoming opening on the school bus driving force. I was ready.

I remember the first time I climbed into the driver’s seat of the bus, popped the parking break, and eased out of the bus compound onto the public streets. In my youth I had driven a ten-wheel truck during the potato harvest in Idaho. While in college I had driven a dump truck and even a garbage truck (that was fun). I had never driven something forty feet long where the front wheels are six feet behind me. It was exciting.  What made it so exciting was that driving the bus felt like I was driving a truck—you know , the big semi kind of truck. Every man has thought at least once of getting behind the wheel of one of those and rumbling down the freeway. My bus had air brakes that hissed and squelched. It had clearance lights along with many other exterior lights that lit it up like a circus. Best of all, I had an air-horn just like a truck. Yes, I pulled the cord a few times just for the fun of it.

On my first highway drive  I passed a semi going the other way. The truck driver and I looked at each other levelly in the eye. I commented with pleasure to my trainer, “I’m sitting as high as a truck driver!”  She just smiled.

Even though my bus had everything a semi had it was still just a school bus. I may sit as high, have as many lights, and have an air-horn, but I’m still not driving a truck. There is a difference seeing a bright yellow, flat faced school bus coming down your street and seeing a semi with its long trailer rolling slowly past. It hadn’t occurred to me that I had passed the same test that truck drivers passed. The only difference was that I took the passenger angle of the test while they took the cargo angle. Yes, I had a Class C commercial driver license. Us professionals call that a CDL. I had no reason to feel inferior to the truck driver because he carries frozen potatoes and I carry eighty-four screaming kids. (Actually the kids aren’t screaming most of the time.)

It wasn’t until I was driving the choir on a special event trip that I became validated as a professional driver. The freeway was busy. Cars and trucks weaved in and out as they sparred for position. Buses aren’t particularly fast, but on a hill I passed a semi which must have had a full load—it struggled a little. I signaled that I was going to pull back in front of him. In my rear-view mirror I saw him blink his lights at me to let me know that I was clear. What a thrill. I had seen truck drivers do that for each other throughout my years of driving, and now one had done it for me. He had shown me a professional courtesy. I sat a little higher in my seat. It wasn’t too many more miles down the road when I passed another semi. I looked over as I passed. The truck driver gave me the two fingered salute that starts at the brow and swings forward. It’s done casually like, “we professional drivers understand each other.” I almost gasped with the thrill. He had shown me the respect of an equal. Now I sat completely straight in my seat. (It’s an air cushioned seat, by the way.) I held my head high and proud.

A month later I was driving the girls’ basketball team and their coaches to a game in Coalville, UT. To get there I would have to drive 101 miles and navigate the 7,120 foot Parley’s Summit.  In  Nephi, where the trip began, the sky was overcast, but the roads were dry. By the time we reached Salt Lake City the overcast skies had gone from gray to black. When hail-like snow started hammering against the bus I saw drowsy heads pop up behind me to see what was going on. They should have kept their eyes closed because it only got worse. By the time I turned onto the belt-route it was snowing heavily. The roads were covered. Oh, great, I thought. My anxiety level was rising. By the time I reached Parley’s Canyon we were in an all-out blizzard. Snow wasn’t falling; it was attacking. The wind drove it angrily across the road. It would swirl and rise back up into the sky against the current before falling suddenly again. I saw what looked like 100 trucks pulled over putting on chains.

I slowed down to residential neighborhood speed and wondered if I should drive on. I contemplated how I came to find myself in the driver’s seat of a bus full of kids on a mountain road in an angry January blizzard. I could feel the weight of their lives on my shoulders. I wondered if any of my passengers were scared. I was. The answer came when one of the coaches made his way up to the seat behind me. Leaning around the side he asked, as casually as he could,

“So this is your bus?”

“Yes.”

“You drive it every day?”

“Every day.”

“Okay,” he said. He returned to his seat.

Translated, he was asking “How experienced are you and how scared should I be?” My answers were as vague as his questions, but he seemed satisfied.

The drive was slow.

“What time does the game start?” I asked a coach.

“They won’t start without us,” he deadpanned.

The girls were fairly quiet in the back. The windshield wipers groaned on every other stroke. We passed several cars along the way that had pulled off to the side to wait out the storm. The drivers looked up at me with frightened, questioning eyes as we passed. The storm didn’t let up until we reached Coalville.

After I dropped the team off at the high school I felt euphoria come over me. It was the same feeling I felt after coming through Haystack Rapids on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The chaos and danger was behind us. I had driven safely and in control the entire way. This was an accomplishment I was proud of as a professional driver. The safe arrival also made me feel grateful and humble. I know I didn’t want to drive back through that storm. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. The storm had passed south by the time we returned.

It was some weeks later when I was driving the girls’ basketball team to another game. We had to drive through an even nastier canyon to get to this one. Fortunately the skies and roads were clear. After the game and after we had stopped to eat the girls were boarding the bus. There was a lot of chatter and laughter as the girls filed past me. Suddenly one of the girls stopped. She put her fingers on my shoulder to get my attention. It worked. Passengers never touch the bus driver.  “I just wanted to say thank you for driving so safely through that blizzard a few weeks ago. I was so scared.” Then she went on to her seat. I don’t know who she was. It was dark and I couldn’t see her face. Can teenagers be so thoughtful and kind? A school bus may not be a truck, but the kids we haul and the pleasant surprises they bring make up for it.

I woke up the other morning to five inches of snow. More snow was falling. It was just about six a.m. when I pulled out of my driveway. The street had not yet been plowed. There was one set of tire tracks in the snow. I’m pretty sure they were made by the other bus driver heading into town. She always leaves just before I do. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself having to get up at five a.m. to get ready to go to work. The freshly fallen snow told me a story that took away some of my self-pity. Along with that first set of tire tracks I saw tracks coming from the driveways of four more houses. They had all left before me.

My Cummings diesel engine growled 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, one kindergartener trips on the second step.

“Watch yourself,” I say.

It’s so routine that generally there’s no response. The child just 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 for this.

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 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!”

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. Telephone poles on each side of the road give me my bearings. As two poles pass by me 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 lay on their hair like lace when they board. Their eyes show delight at the snow. 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. I sense that 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” that they threw in the church parking lot the day before. 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 has made us late arriving at the school. Four girls from the back of the bus take their time getting off. While 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 to eat. A second kicks snow at the others. Another girl, the one with the brown eyes and freckles, bends over trying to escape the snow in the fourth girl’s hand aimed at her neck. 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.

My bus route covers thirty miles. They call it the West Fields Route. Nephi is a town of about 3000 people. The amount of space that Nephi covers would hold 20,000 or more in a bigger city. Still there are people who like more space and live west of town out in the fields. On a couple of roads, out in the middle of nowhere, there is suddenly a row of houses all on the same side that look like a neighborhood in the town. Mostly the houses are far apart, separated by fields and pasture. There are children growing up out there that need to get to the schools in the city. Each morning I take my forty-foot bus and collect them. Each night I bring them back.

Every bus route has its nuances. In the morning mine starts with a girl standing by herself in the dark. In the winter she is typically standing on top of a pile of snow the snow plows have left. I teased her once about being queen of the hill. She is a middle-schooler. Mostly they don’t talk to their bus driver, but this girl is friendly. When I called her queen of the hill, she stopped and considered it. She smiled and said, “Yes, I am.” One morning she stopped by my seat to show me pictures of the moon she had taken on her school iPad. The moon was full that morning and setting in the West. “Cool,” I said. Then I watched as she made her way down the narrow aisle to the last seat on the driver’s side—her skinny form a silhouette against the back window. She often reminds me not to start rolling until she gets to her seat.

The roads are narrow out in the west fields. They make odd, unexpected turns as they adjust for property lines. On one intersection the front end of my bus swings out over a ditch on the far side of the road while my rear duals clip the corner of another ditch on the near side. Not too much later the road turns ninety degrees to the right. Eighty feet later it turns back ninety degrees to the left. Sometimes I will meet a farmer’s truck carrying hay there. One of us has to wait for the other to negotiate the turns. There is always a friendly wave. The funny part of this route is that after picking up the kids on this road I drive to a lonely intersection where there are no homes or traffic, do a three point turn, and go back the way I came. This is the only practical way to get to the other kids.

There are three stops where just one house sites off the narrow road far down an even narrower lane. The kids at these houses have to be brought up to the road to catch the bus. Some mornings they are late. As I approach the corner I will see headlights swing out from the driveway and then a plume of dust as the car speeds up the lane hoping that I don’t pass by. I turn on my yellow flashers to let them know I see them.

There is a dairy on my route far out on the west side up on the hill. Several houses were built for the families who work at the dairy. The houses sit further back and up higher on the hill. I can see them from miles away as I make my way across the valley. I’m sure they can see me, too. I look for taillights in the driveway at one of the houses. This car is often late to drop off point down at the dairy. When I see the taillights I can envision the harried mom trying to hurry the three kids to the car so they don’t miss the bus. They missed it once and she followed me five miles to the next stop.

At one point I turn onto the airport road. The stretch is three miles long. There is only one house in that length and I don’t stop there. There are cow pastures on the right and further down the road on the left sits the quiet, little airport with its lone green and white light rotating atop a striped pole. One day we passed three bald eagles sitting out in a field. Another day a red fox with its bushy tail ran across the road in front of me. I have to take this road so that I can turn right where it Ts off, go down a field length, and then turn onto another road and go back two miles the way I came. It’s the only way to get to another line of houses on the way back to town. One morning four kids came running out of one home. Three of them slipped and fell on ice covered by a skiff of snow. One of them fell twice. They were okay and got on the bus grinning sheepishly.

Two little seven-year-old girls sit on the seat right behind me. Both are cute as buttons. Both have a lot of energy. At the high school one of these girls hopped over to the seat by the door and touched each student on the head as they came up the stairs. Most ignored her. A few gave her the evil eye. She didn’t seem to mind. At times I will be driving a long and suddenly I will hear in my left ear, “Bus driver! Bus Driver!” One of these girls has stuck her head between my seat and the window to talk to me. Her face is so close to mine I can feel her breath on my cheek. This is a little disconcerting. I have to scold her back to her seat.

Some of the kids are on the bus for over an hour. Twice now a third-grade girl has called to me, “Could you hurry? My little brother has to poop.” I can only hurry so fast while keeping it safe. My bus is a new bus with the padded, high-back seats. The seats are a safety feature. The problem is the kids can’t see over them so they stand up or hang out into the aisles so they can talk with the other kids. It’s a constant battle for the bus driver to keep the kids down in their seats for the duration of the ride. One day I noticed a middle-school girl leaning across the aisle to show a friend something on her phone.  Using the intercom I called her back to her seat. Our eyes met through the rear-view mirror. Hers told me very clearly that she couldn’t believe she had to put up with this.

My last stop in the mornings is in town. There are about fifteen kids who get on at the church parking lot. Some of the kids will still be walking to the stop when I turn the corner. When they see me they break into a run. Sometimes I will honk the air horn for their pleasure and mine and to hurry them along. The other kids are sliding on the ice in the parking lot or playing with bouncy balls. One cold morning they told me excitedly that they had been trying to build a fire to stay warm. I looked where they had been huddled together on the sidewalk. There were no signs of a failed fire. It made me wonder, though.

Every day those thirty miles are an adventure. Some days the bus feels happy. Other days the stress level is higher. Each child is an ingredient, but even though the ingredients stay the same the recipe never produces the same results on any given day. There is only one thing that is the same every day—the quiet after the last child has steps off the bus. This quiet would be sadder than the relief it is except for the knowledge that tomorrow we are going to do it again.

At 6:45 a.m. on a morning when the temperature was -20 F I received a call from the bus coordinator. Two of the three buses in our little town wouldn’t start due to the cold. He asked me to see if my little bus would start. If it would I was to pick up as many kids as would fit and take them to school. The school was located thirteen miles away in the neighboring community. Our little town may be tiny, but there are a lot of children. The three regular buses are normally fairly full.

I dressed for the cold and ran out to my little bus. Compared to the big buses it looks like a baby bus. It’s not nearly as tall and far shorter. A normal bus has seats for eight-four passengers if you squish three to a seat. My baby bus had seats for only eighteen. The only reason I had a bus at my home was because I drove the activity bus to our little town the night before. The activity arrives at the school at 5:30 p.m. to bring any kids who have stayed late for tutoring, sports, or other extracurricular activities home. There aren’t that many kids staying late from my community so I use the baby bus to save fuel. Instead of returning the bus the same night I take it back the next morning since I have to go to work in the neighboring community anyway.

It was cold. My door opened with a crack. My bus had an engine core warmer plugged in, but so did the other buses that wouldn’t start. I turned the key. The bus belched thick, grey smoke, but then the diesel engine started to chug. I got in on the radio and told the supervisor the bus was running. I could hear the stress in his voice as he repeated his instructions to pick up as many students as I could safely fit. He had 150 kids to get to school from this community and not enough buses to get them there. I was thinking the eighteen kids I had seats for wasn’t going to help much.

The other bus that was running in town radioed and asked if I would go to the west side and pick up kids there. When I turned onto 4^th South and the line of kids saw me they broke into laughter. Their smiles pushed so hard against their frozen cheeks I thought their cheeks would shatter like ice. The baby bus doesn’t get the same respect as the big buses. The baby bus is the “Little Train that Could” compared to the big diesel locomotives. When I pulled up beside them and opened the doors I heard one boy say incredulously, “No way!”  He was wondering if he could survive the indignity of riding such a little bus.

More than three-quarters of my eighteen seats filled up on that first stop. Normally morning runs are quiet because all the kids are still half-asleep. The severe cold and the surprise of the baby bus had fully awakened the kids. They chattered and laughed loudly as we continued. There was a large number of kids at the next stop. Like the first group they looked at the baby bus with wide eyes and grins as it pulled up beside them.

“Three to a seat,” I called as the new group started filing on.  Three to a seat was asking a lot since all the kids wore bulky winter clothing and toted backpacks. I got up to help arrange kids. A mother, who had walked her student to the bus stop, stood outside saying nothing but giving me a look that said, “You really think you are going to get all those kids on that little bus?” I was thinking the same thing.

The seats ran out very quickly. However, there was a large empty space in the back of the bus. It was there because six seats had been removed to make room for a wheelchair lift.

“Shall we stand in back?” asked some of the high school students. The sign in the front of the bus announced an occupancy limit of 32. That’s how many could be seated if all the seats were available.

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t want to leave any of the kids at this stop waiting out in the -20 F cold for another bus that might not come for thirty minutes. Bigger kids gave their seats to the younger kids and squeezed shoulder to shoulder in the back behind the seats. No one complained. They laughed at the fun and felt warmer standing close. One of the students counted heads. I had thirty-one on that little bus when I pulled away. The other bus that was running was packing them in. Somehow she was able to pick up all the remaining kids in town. They were sardines in a can, but no one had to stand.

“It was kind of like the miracle of the fish and the loaves,” said the supervisor, with relief, when all the kids had been taken care of. Several parents had taken their kids to schools rather than have them wait in the cold. That had helped.

I drove slowly and carefully to the high school. If anyone was watching the kids unload they might have thought they were at the circus watching a large number of clowns pile out of a tiny car. I had a difficult time keeping the grade-schoolers in their seats on the way to the elementary school. They wanted to stand in the back.  They arrived at school late, but they arrived alert and excited. All the buses were running by the afternoon run, so the stress was over.

I attended the town Christmas celebration that night. Several elementary students waved at me excitedly as I got in the chili line. “Hi, Tory!” they called. They had been on the bus that morning. After getting my chili and a roll I found a seat near a covey of middle-school girls. Middle-schooler’s generally won’t make eye-contact with their bus driver let alone talk to them. That’s why she had to speak twice before I realized she was speaking to me.

“That was crazy this morning,” she said with a smile.

“It sure was,” I answered.

The girl next to her chimed in, “I was, like, ‘that little bus isn’t going to stop for us.’ When it did I was, like, ‘No way!’”

“Everyone at school was talking about it all day,” added the first girl. “It was so much fun.”

“I don’t think it would be so fun a second time,” I said.

They laughed, but I don’t think they were so certain. There was no need for a second time. That was a bus ride I will never forget. I will never look at “the baby bus that could” the same again.

Driving a school bus involves anxiety. The first thing that comes to many people’s mind when they think of driving a bus is having to deal with rude and riotous children. Yes, there is anxiety in that. The anxiety is even worse when you have a load of forty high schoolers and you are trying to change lanes on the freeway in heavy Salt Lake City traffic. You can hear the kids in the back teasing and laughing oblivious to the semi-truck on your right, the mini-van on your left and the wave of brake lights rising up in front of you. The anxiety gets even worse after you are shown a video during the yearly bus driver safety training. The video features a man who had been a bus driver for fifteen years. He is of a humble disposition—maybe even a little broken in spirit. We quickly learned why. During a moment of distraction, after unloading two little boys, he unknowingly ran over one of them. The boy died. When the video ended one of our longtime bus drivers broke the silence saying, “I quit.” Yes, there is anxiety involved in driving a school bus.

There are a lot of rules we are trained and retrained on aimed at keeping the kids safe. Most are involved with loading and unloading. When you approach a bus stop most of the kids are already in a huddle or a line waiting for you. Often you will see others who are late running for the bus stop. They might be approaching from the rear or running across the street in front of you. There might be some shoving going on in the line of kids and a child might be pushed out in front of the bus. I’ve seen frisbees land in the road and a child will ignore the approaching forty foot bus to retrieve it. We are taught to turn on our yellow flashers before we arrive to let following cars know we are stopping. The yellow flashers turn to red and our stop signs extend when we open the door. We keep the bus well out in the road to help discourage traffic from passing. We stop before we reach the line of kids to make them come to us.

After the kids load you take the time to look in all your mirrors to make sure there are no kids standing beside the bus, or worse, crawling under the bus after something they dropped (it happens). You close the door and let the bus roll forward without pressing the gas pedal so that you can stop more quickly just in case you suddenly see something you didn’t see before. Doing these things isn’t necessarily difficult. What is difficult is doing these things consistently day after day week after week. You might be distracted by difficulties at home, a headache, or a student who is having a bad day. Keeping the safety focus is difficult for a human being.

I was unloading children at various stops along a highway that sees a lot of traffic. A car was following close behind my bus. I’m sure the driver was frustrated each time he saw the flashing, red, “STOP” sign extend. As I braked and stopped at the house with the cute, little, miniature horse out front my attention turned to a ten-wheel dump truck that was approaching. I had turned my yellow flashers on before I stopped warning him of what I was going to do. If he was empty he would have had plenty of time to stop. He had a full load of gravel. I had a brother and sister who were getting off and who would be crossing the highway  to their home. The speed of the dump truck and the look in the truck driver’s eyes told he wasn’t going to be able to stop. His load was too heavy. His brakes were squealing, but the truck wasn’t slowing. He was imagining what I was imagining—that kids would  run across the road as he arrived. I was able to stop the kids before they got out and the tragedy in my imagination didn’t happen.

On another day I stopped on a residential street to unload a boy. Two cars obeyed my red STOP sign and stayed behind me. In my rear-view mirror I saw the boy who was to get off stand up in the back of the bus.  I looked out my windows and in my mirrors while waiting for him. When he didn’t reach the front I looked again. He was still in the back. He was working his way toward the front, but was taking time to hug each person on the bus as he went. I was substituting on this route and didn’t know this boy. Apparently he was mentally handicapped in a manner that made him very friendly. I watched the other student’s reactions as he reached them. Some smiled and hugged back. Others just endured the love. I was aware of the drivers waiting behind the bus. I imagined them slapping their steering wheels in impatience. I was tempted to yell at the boy to stop it and hurry and get off. When I checked in the mirror again I decided to keep my mouth shut. Seeing the boy’s good will and seeing the good nature of the kids being hugged, I didn’t want to stop such a happy thing.

As he finally approached the front of the bus I looked at the twelve-year-old girl who had been giving me directions and said, “Here comes your hug.” She rolled her eyes in a cute way and nodded. When the boy hugged her I saw her grin. He got off and I turned the corner letting the cars behind me escape.  I don’t know how impatient the drivers’ of the cars actually were, but I thought they could probably use a hug.

Buses have personalities. Every school bus compound is filled with a variety of buses built over a decade or two. School buses are always assigned numbers. That seems a shame to me. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if the buses had names? The middle school bus with all its unruly seventh and eighth graders could be The Beast. One of the buses that make the long run to Rocky Ridge would be Geronimo. The bus with the sweet, little kindergarten kids might be Serenity. The daily bus ride could be more meaningful if each bus had a name. I think Tennessee Williams understood this when he wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire.” But of course we are dealing with the public school system—“public” being the operative word. You mix creativity with “public” and you are going to have trouble. Someone is going to suggest we burn “Huckleberry Finn” for being racist, or destroy Michelangelo’s “David” for being obscene. No, we give our buses plain, inoffensive numbers.

In our district the bus numbers represent the model year. Thus, 097 is a 1997 model and 014 is the 2014 model. If two buses were purchased the same year you might have 011 and 011A. You might think that bus drivers would jump at the newest bus. They don’t. They tend to stick with the bus they trust. The driver of 006 has been driving twenty-two years. With her seniority she could take the new bus when it comes in. But the new bus is unproven whereas 006 has never let her down badly enough to be fired. She forgoes the heated seat and exhaust brake to stick with her partner—006.

The other morning it was 22 below zero. The temperature was in the 40’s the day before. We were all caught off-guard. In-spite of engine block heaters and anti-gel additive in the diesel some of the buses wouldn’t start. Pneumatic doors wouldn’t open or close. One windshield defroster couldn’t keep up with the moisture emitted by seventy breathing kids. The bus driver had to stop because she couldn’t see.

I was called at the last moment by a driver whose bus wouldn’t start. This was her backup bus. Her regular bus’s transmission went out the day before. She keeps her bus at her home, fifteen miles from the compound. She couldn’t get to another bus in time. I ran out to 001 and started my bus. It struggled desperately before dieseling properly. The cloud of half-burnt diesel that engulfed my house could have gotten me a citation from the EPA. When I finally put it in gear and gave it a little throttle the bus wouldn’t move. I checked the park-break, but it was already disengaged. I gave it a little more throttle, there was a crack and the bus started rolling. The heat pump was on, but it would be twenty minutes before it produced any heat. A frosty windshield and thick ground fog—the kind with a blue sky above—shrouded my way. I had to drive slowly. It was so cold that kids who had been waiting on time at their stops had run back to their homes. I stopped at one rural home to see if the kids would come out. Sure enough the door opened and two faces peeked out. A brother and sister came running up their long driveway (more of a country road).

“Where were you? My hair froze solid!” the sister tells me.

I apologized.

Two other boys came running out of their home when they saw me. They were a block from the official bus stop, but I stopped anyway.

“We waited,” they told me, apologetically, “but we went back home.” I felt bad for being late. The other kids normally at that stop weren’t there. I didn’t blame them.

There was loads of chatter on the radio. Arrangements were being made for drivers to pick up another driver’s kids.

“014, after dropping off your kids at the elementary can you go back out 012’s kids on the highway?”

“I’m at Bursten’s Road. I think I’m closer,” says 002.

Complaints about non-functioning doors were coming in. Suggestions were being given on how to defrost the windshield. Another driver whose route overlapped mine called to ask me where I was. She told me she would tell the frozen kids I was coming. I turned a corner and there was a large group huddled together. Their breath rose into the sky as if from a smokestack. There were several running vehicles sitting there with slightly warmer kids inside. I opened the door and the kids started filing in. Wouldn’t you know it, they were smiling. At least the elementary students were. The teenagers—not so much.

“Cold, cold, cold,” exclaimed one girl as she passed. She wasn’t even three-feet tall yet. Her cheeks and nose were red. Her blue eyes peeked out from under a penguin hat. Fuzzy tassels ran down each side of her face.

My door still wasn’t closing all the way. I asked a little fellow in the front seat if he would step down and push on it for me. He happily complied. The door shut and the stairway light went out.

“At each  stop I have to push on the door, okay?” He felt important.

We came around the corner and I saw 008 sitting in front of the fire department. It was the bus that had broken down there the night before. The tow truck hadn’t come to get it yet. All the windows were frosted over. It looked lonely and out of place. I could almost sense its sadness as all of the kids that would normally ride it passed by on 001.

“Don’t worry,” I tell it silently as I steer 001 out of town. “You’ll get better and they’ll be back.”

Substitute bus drivers don’t get no respect. Some regular-route bus drivers are aware of this. They tell me that they won’t tell their kids when there is going to be a substitute so that the kids won’t have time to make nefarious plans.

It’s a fact that the kids act differently for the regular bus driver than for the substitute. I will ride with the regular bus driver to get familiar with the route before the day on which I will be substituting. The regular bus driver, who may have been driving for as many as twenty years, knows each of the kids by name. As she negotiates the traffic and the bus stops she will be keeping an eye on the kids in the rear-view mirror. As quick as a flash she will grab the intercom microphone, call a kid by name, and let him know what’s going to happen if he does that again. For good measure she will add “And don’t give me that look!” This routine might happen several times on a morning or afternoon route. Does it work? Yes. On the routes where I’ve ridden with the regular driver there is a semblance of order and the noise is held to a dull roar.

In comparison, when I drive that same route as a substitute it’s like New York City during a blackout—there is looting and lawlessness. The bus driver has given the kids assigned seats. She knows which kids to keep separated and who should be sitting in the front near her. If a kid dares sit amiss the regular bus driver catches her quickly with a quick glance in the mirror. Sometimes she doesn’t even need to use the intercom; she just gives the kid “the eye” via the mirror and the errant kid repents.

“Do we have to sit in assigned seats?” kids will ask as they board when they see they have a substitute.

“Yes.” I say calmly. I don’t feel calm, but I can’t let them know that.  I am at a huge disadvantage. I have no idea where the kids are supposed to sit. Some of the kids have figured this out. They take advantage of my ignorance and sit next to the friend the regular driver has taken pains to separate them from.  I know this only because sometimes another kid will call them on it.

“Bus Driver! Billy isn’t in his assigned seat!”

The noise and physical activity level spikes when I drive.  I catch glimpses of kids popping from one seat to another like popcorn. I see no rhyme or reason to it—it’s just because they can. They can because I don’t know their names. If I get on the intercom and yell, “Hey, you!” I have sixty-five kids staring up at me with eye’s that say, “You talking to me?” Sometimes the popcorn kid will make the mistake of making eye-contact with me in the mirror in the act of changing seats. I raise a questioning eyebrow and they sit still for about two intersection. Then they pop again.

The dull roar that accompanies the regular bus driver turns into a deafening cacophony when I drive. Again, not knowing any names I can’t single out the epicenter of the noise to apply some noise cancellation. On one particular afternoon route the noise went from cacophonous to insane.  All the kids were yelling. Some of them were screaming. I don’t mean screaming words; they were just screaming noise for the sheer joy of it. Others did scream words.

“BEEEE QUIIIIIETTTTTT!” they said. They were trying to do the right thing, but they enjoyed their part of the noise making.

As a sub I have learned to hunker down and tell myself, “Just forty minutes and the bus will be silent again.” On this day I I couldn’t take any more of it. I pulled the bus over onto the shoulder and stopped. This alone quieted the bus. The kids knew something was up. I unbuckled my seat belt, got up, and turned to face eighty-five pair of eyes.

“Shut up!” I told them, collectively. I was very articulate. Then I went on. “I don’t mind you talking and enjoying yourselves, but what’s with the screaming?”

That was it. I beat Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for brevity.  Most had looks on their faces that said, “Whoa, that was unusual for a sub.” They were back up to a dull roar before we went a quarter-mile, but they did keep it just under insane. When I dropped them off many said, “Thanks for the ride,” or “See ya.” I was the only traumatized one on the bus. That route has become one of my favorites to sub on.

There is another route that drops kids at different spots along ten miles of highway.  The regular driver knows just where on this highway to stop. I don’t. One tree or fence post looks like another to my inexperienced eyes. Even after a familiarization ride with the regular I can’t make heads or tails out of the stops. As Blanche says in A Streetcar Named Desire, “I have come to depend upon the kindness of strangers.” This translates into me asking the nearest student where the next stop is. In almost every case the students have been extremely helpful. They seem to take pride in getting me where I need to be. When they haven’t been helpful, they’ve been playful. Several high school students were getting off at the next stop. I called back to them, “Right here?”

“No,” called out five voices. “It’s up there.”

“Okay,” I say, and continue to roll up the highway.

“NO,” call out five different voices. “It’s right here!”

I’m in a predicament. I have no idea how to tell which group of kids is telling the truth. I question them again and both sides are adamant. I make my decision and roll to the “farther” stop. There are yells of triumph and cries of anguish from the back of the bus. Five kids get up to get off the bus. The last one, a tall girl with long brown hair, speaks as she passes. “It was back there,” she said.  I had been got.

Being a substitute bus driver is not easy. But it’s not so bad, either. For all the noise and being-taken-advantage-of I am meeting an awful lot of really nice kids. I meet many more kids than the regular drivers because I drive so many routes. Everywhere I go kids will wave at me. These kids don’t just give me a quick wave; they wave enthusiastically with a big smile.  Most of the time I don’t recognize them, but I know they are from the bus. This always touches me. I’m only a substitute bus driver, but for some reason I matter to them. This makes the entire experience matter to me.

My daughter, a high school senior, likes to sleep as long as any other teenager. I have seen her get out of bed at noon. She is also well-practiced at early mornings. Last Friday I was to pick up the elite high school choir and band at 7:00 am. My daughter got up extra early to be with me while I fueled the bus and performed the pre-trip inspection. When I engaged the parking brake in the loading zone with its “Hushhhh” and opened the doors sleepy-eyed high school students began boarding. They carried music folders, instruments, blankets, and bags filled with snacks. One student lugged in a double-bass that was bigger than him. A girl followed holding her green-frog pillow close. Like all good high school students they gravitated toward the back of the bus. The double-bass got the coveted last two seats. Those students who were planning on sleeping chose seats in the middle of bus where it would be quieter.

Finally everyone was loaded—except for one. He hadn’t arrived.

“I know he’s in bed asleep,” said the choir director in a resigned voice. “Anyone have his number?”

Someone in the back of the bus yelled, “He doesn’t have a phone. Neither does his house.”

“What?” Several people including the choir director asked the question. Not having a phone today is almost rude.

The choir director hesitated a moment, the she said, “Let’s go get him.”

We drove across town and up his street. In front of his home I pulled the parking brake with relish. I loved the sound on the sleeping street.

“I have an air horn,” I said, reaching for the cord. I was mostly teasing. All the houses on the street were dark, including the neighboring house with the highway patrol car parked out front.

“Let’s just send someone to pound on the door,” said the choir director.  The boy we were missing was on the football team. We sent out a fellow team member. We could hear him pounding on the door over the idling engine of the bus. Eventually a light turned on and the door opened. I caught a glimpse of a long nightgown. We had awoken his mother. Not two minutes later the sleeping beauty came bounding onto the bus with his favorite red-fuzzy pillow. His classmates cheered. With him now on board, we were off on our eighty mile journey. These students had been selected to be a part of the honor choir and band along with top musicians of nine other schools.

In Richfield I dropped the band student’s at the high school. I took the choir students a few blocks south to the middle school. This brought back memories.  Thirty-three years earlier I had been in the high school band and choir. A bus driver had dropped me off at All-State events for a day of music. Then, I hadn’t foreseen the day when I would be driving a bus and seeing the face of my seventeen-year-old daughter in the rear-view mirror among the other kids.

It must be strange when your dad is he bus driver for a high school trip. If he was cool looking maybe it would be all right. I’m not so cool looking. I’ve got a flattop haircut and a baby beer belly even though I don’t drink beer. My fashion sense is lacking and my clothes are non-descript.  My daughter doesn’t seem to mind even though she is beautiful and fashionable. Once our eyes met when I glanced in the rear-view mirror and she smiled at me.

I loaded the students for lunch and dropped them off at a shopping center where there were lots of places to eat. I didn’t have any cash to give my daughter for lunch. She was going to have to stay with me if she wanted to eat. I saw a Pizza Hut and told my daughter we would eat there. I love Pizza Hut’s Pepperoni Lover’s pizza. When the last person got off the bus, I shut the door and turned to find six kids with my daughter.

“Looks like we have a group, Daddy,” she said, happily.

I hadn’t expected this. Instead of the nice, quiet lunch with my daughter I would be the adult tag-along to her and her friends. Actually, I like being with groups of teens.  I feel comfortable with them. The problem is they don’t feel comfortable with me. I’ll wonder why, when I try to engage them in conversation, I feel reticence on their part. Then I remember, “Oh, yeah. I’m an adult. They’re uncomfortable with their friends’ fathers.” I’m prepared to stay quiet during lunch and let them do their thing. I didn’t stay quiet. When our server spilled a tray of six drinks at our table conversation opened up. I was able to get to know my daughter’s friends a little better during lunch. I probably talked too much. My daughter, who sat next to me, didn’t appear concerned.

On the way back to the bus my daughter laughed as she told me, “Some of the kids knew you were my dad. Others figured it out. The rest are wondering why I’m hanging with the bus driver.”

It was eight-o-clock when they finished their evening rehearsal. It was very dark outside. I had the bus going and the lights on when the kids started boarding.  Somewhere in the middle of the line of kids my daughter climbed on. She stopped the line long enough to kiss me on the cheek. What a sweet thing that kiss was. Her kiss made a rather plain, middle-aged man with a flattop feel like a million dollars. It was like she was asking the other students, “Don’t you wish your Dad were here?”

I had sat in on the choir’s evening rehearsal. The guest conductor was very talented. He pulled the kids together and drew beautiful music from their throats and hearts. I felt lucky to witness this coming together of voices and souls. It was on the long drive home that the music of the day became even more beautiful. My daughter felt like talking to me. She moved up to the seat right behind mine. For eighty miles I heard the music of her voice in my right ear as we chatted about the things on her mind.  All of the kids had had a wonderful experience throughout the day. For me, I think it was the best school trip ever.

In the mornings the kids get on the bus sleepily. Very few of them will answer my “Good morning.” They sit silently at the back in the pre-winter dark like tombstones in a graveyard. In the afternoon these same kids bounce onto the bus full of vinegar and energy. Some of the more thoughtful kids will meet my eyes and say “hello,” but most look past me to the seat and the company they want. The noise level rises so that I can’t hear the chatter on the bus-to-bus radio. The shortened but constant movement I see in my rear-view mirror reminds me of what I see when I look down on an ant pile.

At the ninth mile outside Nephi, one mile short of Levan, I begin looking forward to the first stop where I can release some of the pressure that has built up inside the bus. It isn’t until after the second stop that I feel relief. The driving elements of the chaos are gone now. While I still see many faces looking back at me in the mirror the remaining kids have returned to their human state. I can see their afternoon plans passing behind their eyes as they await their stops.

Finally the last child climbs down the steps and turns up the street, backpack swinging on one shoulder. I raise the steering wheel, release my seat-belt, and begin to walk the bus to make sure a sleeping child hasn’t missed his stop. I only walk halfway when I stop. There is a girl sitting in the third to last seat next to the window. She was reading until she lifted her eyes and met mine. Such a stillness had come over the bus when the “last” child got off that I hadn’t expected anyone else to remain.  A little embarrassed I return to my seat.

This last girl on the bus lives at the dairy—another three miles out of town. Sometimes she is on the afternoon bus. Sometimes she isn’t. The bus can legally hold 84 students. For these last miles she has it all to herself.  She always does. I glance at her in the mirror as we roll up the highway. Her complexion and hair are fair mixing well with the sunlight that comes through her window. It is almost like camouflage. I can see how I missed her on the last stop. She stares out the window at the pastures and sage brush as we go. My daughter and this last girl on the bus have been friends for a long time. They both dance and dream. This girl talked her mom into getting her a functional mermaid costume. For an entire summer she wore her tail in their little fill-up-with-a-hose pool. Central Utah suddenly had mermaids. The world needs more dreamers like that.

Each time I drive her in her private, yellow coach she is quiet. I always wonder what dreams fill her mind.

I pull into the dairy entrance, stop, and open the door. The cows are curious and stare. They stink.

“Have a good afternoon,” I say.

She flashes a quick smile. “Bye,” she returns.

I watch her as she begins her quarter-mile walk across the gravel to her home at the other end of the compound. She walks with the grace of a dancer. She carries her head with the lightness of a dreamer. She is on the cusp of adulthood. I sense her hopes for the future. I foresee the disappointments she will face. As I watch her my hopes and dreams for my own daughters and everyone else’s walk with her—this last girl on the bus.

It’s amazing the things you do in life that you never imagined.  I’m now a substitute school bus driver. Being a substitute school bus driver is not a thing most of us aspire to. No, it’s an occupation that you fall into when it comes along at the right time. I’m finding it more than just an occupation—it’s an opportunity, an adventure. The opportunity lies in suddenly finding myself a part of so many other people’s lives—from the other bus drivers to all the kids. The adventure lies in . . . well, picture 84 kids on a bus; some are bullies, some are sweet, some are sick (throw-up variety), some are exuberant, some are sad, the list goes on. You get the picture.

Being a substitute bus driver makes me a rookie. The ladies (in my case all the regular drivers are ladies) have been driving between 10 and 25 years. They are veterans.  Blizzards, heat waves, mechanical breakdowns far from home, sick students—they’ve seen it all. I worry about the day that something unforeseen is going to happen on my bus. Will I be able to handle it appropriately?

The other day I was picking up at the high school. There was a line of busses in front of me in the usual order.  As the doors closed and the busses began to move out one of the veteran drivers radioed me.

“Tory, can you follow me to Levan today? I’ve got a feeling this bus isn’t going to make it.”

I wondered what that was about, but I told her I would. Levan is a very small town ten miles south of the high school. Even with its small population there are three busses of kids that travel into Nephi every day to the primary and secondary schools. Just outside of Nephi the highway climbs a ridge. I was a quarter-mile behind the veteran’s bus and was catching up. Catching up was unusual. I noticed her bus was leaving an unusual amount of diesel fumes behind. As I got closer I smelled, not diesel, but burning brakes. I could see smoke pouring out of her right, rear tire wells. This looked serious to me. I radioed her and explained what I saw. I wondered what she was going to do. The highway to Levan is well-maintained, but it has no shoulder whatsoever. Instead there is a steep embankment that could roll a bus.

“Okay,” she said, calmly. “I’ll pull off at the IFA road. You follow me.”

She knew the road well. There was a turnout for trucks that needed to turn off the highway to go to the IFA plant. That way she would be able to get her bus off the busy highway. She pulled off and I followed, not knowing what she was going to do.  As I waited for further instructions the third Levan bus pulled in behind me. The driver was another veteran.

“Tory, send all your Westside kids to me,” she said over the radio.

My kids were going crazy with the excitement of an unexpected stop and the high that comes from breathing the fumes of burning brakes. I didn’t understand what she meant. Some of my kids had understood and the next thing I know about a third of my kids were filing off my bus and getting on the bus behind me. No sooner were they off my bus, than all the kids from the bus in front of me were filing on to my bus in an orderly fashion taking the places left vacant by the kids who had just left.  The bus behind me then left for Levan and I followed. Behind me I saw a state trooper arrive. The first veteran driver had called on her cell phone in case there was a need for traffic control. I also heard that a tow truck was on the way to pick up the driver and the bus.

In town I now had to drop off kids from two different routes, neither of which I knew. A high school student, sensing my dilemma, came up and guided me to each stop. After the last student got off I sat amazed at how smoothly the whole situation had been resolved. The first driver sensed there was going to be trouble and prepared for it by having me follow her. The third driver, when she heard our chatter on the radio, knew that there was going to be a transfer of students and that my bus would be overcrowded. She stopped without being directed to and took the students that were closest to her route. What could have been a very disruptive situation was kept a minor incident by the professionalism of these ladies. As a rookie, I can only dream of playing like the veterans one day.