Tag Archives: buses

Like a Miracle

Everyone knows that being a school bus driver means taking your load of kids to school and then taking them home again, day after day after day. You arrive at the first stop at the same time each morning, turn at the same corners, and tell the same kids to sit down and be quiet. The routine is comforting—and maddening—at the same time. This is what you sign up for when you choose to be a bus driver. What they don’t tell you during training is that there are these things called activity trips. You are vaguely aware of them, but you are blissfully unaware of the high-level skills it takes to complete an activity trip successfully.

While bus drivers call them activity trips, they are actually the exciting “field trips” you remember from your elementary school days. You might be driving the second grade to a pumpkin patch on a golden autumn day. It might be taking the fourth grade across town to hear the Utah Symphony Orchestra on one of their outreach programs. One of my favorite trips is taking the fifth grade to the aquarium. Most of these activity trips reoccur each year. When you’ve driven bus long enough, these runs become part of your routine and cause little to no stress.

When it comes to high school, these activity runs are no longer “field trips.” They are important events in the students’ educational preparation. Scholarships may be on the line so getting the kids there on time is important.

Many of these activity trips are straightforward enough on paper. One is taking the football team to a certain high school for a game and then bringing them back home. Simple enough. Others are more complex. FFA (Future Farmers of America) comes to mind. One of their events is a state competition that lasts three days. The bus driver is involved every hour of all three days. Each day the fifty kids you are driving split up among five different venues. You are the one that has to take them to each location. The first difficulty is learning where is each venue? You are supposed to pick up group 1 at a certain time and transfer them across town to where group 4 is. Group 4 is going to where group 2 is. Group 2 has an hour off and wants to go to Walmart. This all starts at 6am and, with their nightly entertainment activities, doesn’t end until 11pm. It keeps a bus driver on his toes.

The skill and preparation required to pull off these high school trips is considerable and never appreciated except by other bus drivers. In my district this is how it goes. The transportation supervisor gives you a trip sheet. The sheet lists the group (let’s say Speech and Debate), leave time (5:30 am), and destination (West Valley City). Clear enough, right? But where in West Valley City are we going? You assume you are going to a high school (speech and debate is always at a high school). On google maps you type in West Valley High School. It doesn’t exist. You scan around the city in “Layers” mode looking for a football field that indicates the presence of a high school. There are two. Finally, you contact your supervisor who contacts the coach and you learn it is Hunter High School. You go back to google maps and study the route to get there. We don’t have GPS on our buses and aren’t allowed to use our phones while driving. You have to memorize freeways, exit numbers, and street names, and landmarks for left and right turns.

The kids sleep while you navigate the dark freeways which, by the way, are far busier than they should be for early Saturday morning. You feel proud of yourself when, after an hour-and-a-half, you hit the right exit. Now you are navigating through side streets. There are only a couple of turns left and you will see the high school. Suddenly you come upon a road closed sign. Oh no! Not to worry; you memorized an alternate route just in case. You are right on track when a confusing traffic pattern makes you miss your turn. With your stress level rising you call to the coach and ask for navigation instructions (she can use her phone). She directs you to another street and you figure it out from there. You finally pull up in front of the high school. The kids—there are twenty-five of them—are ready to rumble on the debate floor and you got them there on time.

The thrill of finding a destination you have never been to before is short lived. The next challenge is finding a place to park your bus while you wait for the activity to end. For instance, you are driving kids to the state capitol building in downtown Salt Lake City. Don’t get smart and take the back road to avoid downtown traffic or you will find yourself on a one-way road so steep that your bus groans as it slowly carries your load of 65 kids to the top. At the capitol there is a nice turn around for buses where you can drop your kids. The State patrol is there directing traffic. Now what? When they built the capitol, they didn’t think ahead to the busloads of kids who would be coming to visit. There is no bus parking. You are in downtown Salt Lake City. One does not simply park a bus on the street in downtown. Luckily, you know a spot in an industrial area near the train tracks about fifteen minutes away. You are relieved when you find that the spot is still open for buses. You park and wait for the pickup call. Uh oh, you did trade phone numbers with the lead teacher, right?

The most exciting and challenging part of the activity trips is piloting a 40-foot bus with sixty students on board in rush hour, freeway traffic. It’s much like a car . . . except that your vehicle is 40 feet long . . . and you have 65 kids as passengers. Cars and trucks move in and out in front of you. Speeds change suddenly. You focus intensely on keeping your distance while watching exit numbers. To simplify things, you move over into the HOV lane. This works very nicely, but there are five lanes to your right and they are all packed with small cars, sporty SUVs, and semis carrying huge roles of steel. Eight miles out from your exit you start looking for the broken white line that indicates you can exit the HOV lane. When it arrives, you turn on your right blinker and look in your mirror to see if someone is going to let you in. You do this while guarding against a dangerous red wave of taillights in front of you telling you that you are going to rear end someone if you don’t slow down quickly. Two vehicles have no intention of letting a bus in front of them. Finally, a Cadillac Escalade lets you in. You make double sure he is actually behind the rear end of your bus before moving over. You go through this process four more times. With a mile to spare before your exit you finally reach the far right lane. Whew.

A simple request from a coach to stop so the kids can get some dinner will ramp up the stress level. They will often suggest a place they know but you don’t. Where is this place? Can you park a bus there? Usually not. The coaches never think of that. One doesn’t simply pull a bus into a McDonald’s parking lot. You’ll never get it out. Even if they are in a hurry, you tell the coach to wait while you look up the suggested place on google maps. You see that you will have to drop the kids at a curb and then drive several blocks where there is a parking lot where you might be allowed to park the bus for an hour. Halfway there the coach changes his mind. He wants a Texas Roadhouse that’s just a few miles away. You are in the HOV lane again and the five lanes to your right are packed with slow’n go accident traffic. You tell the coach you will take them there if you can make the exit. It’s going to take miles to get across those five lanes. Once again you go through the high-stress process of blinking, waiting, watching, moving x 5. You make it. The coach rewards you by inviting you eat with the team at their expense.

At this writing I have been driving for ten years. I’ve driven probably more than 200 activity trips. Many of them were routine. I like routine activity trips. I know the route. I know where to park. I know where they may want to go to eat. So many other activity trips are new to me and no matter how well I prepare, they are adventures. Whether the activity trip is routine, or something new, what never changes is the relief I feel after I’ve safely dropped the kids at the school at the end of the trip. It feels like a miracle every time.

These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:

If My School Bus Route Were a Woman

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If my bus routes were women my date last year was a woman who liked reading books in the park and taking long walks on the beach. She might surprise you with a water balloon sneak attack on a hot day, but not often enough to make you nervous.

My afternoon bus route last year consisted mainly of picking up a large load of kids and dropping them off relatively in town. By the time I left town I would only have ten to fifteen kids, depending on the day. My route then meandered on long country roads through alfalfa fields and past grazing cows who may or may not have looked up when I honked at them. Many of the kids would move up near me to chat. It was a pleasant route to end the day.

My date this year is a woman who is pretty enough, but high maintenance. She wants to spend a lot of time with me, which is pleasant, flattering even. She can dance like no other and has great taste in clothes. It’s just that I better pay attention to the hidden meanings in her conversation. Oh, and don’t not notice that she had her hair done. Time with her is exciting, but fatiguing.

Unlike last year’s route, where I picked up big loads and got rid of them quickly, except for the few with whom I meandered through the countryside, this year I pick up one large load and we are together for sixteen long miles. The difference is like taking your wife and child out to dinner at a quiet restaurant four blocks away versus loading your wife and eight kids into a van and driving across the country on a family vacation. It’s an entirely different commitment level.

It takes a while to load fifty to sixty middle school students. They have seating assignments, but I gave up on trying to enforce them within a couple of weeks. Once the chaos of seating is over I get the bus rolling. I cruise at about 5 mph through the circus of the school grounds. There are other buses coming and going, kids crossing the bus lanes in and out of the crosswalks, and new sixteen year old drivers trying to force their parent’s cars into the driveway between the buses.

It’s not until I exit school property and turn onto the city street that I begin to feel the pressure of all those kids behind me. I can feel their energy pressing at the walls of the bus, pushing me toward the windshield. It’s just potential energy, but it could ignite at any moment.

I have a short stint on the Interstate before I exit. At the exit I turn onto a highway that will take me up over the ridge to the small town where these kids live. This is the point of no return. If I were in The Matrix this is the scene where I have to choose between the red pill and the blue pill. Once I make the turn there is no turning back.

I’m speaking quite literally. Highway 28 is well-enough maintained, but it’s just two lanes with no shoulder and no turnouts. Just a few feet to my left semi-trucks come roaring by at 70 mph. Just a few feet to my right is the edge of the road with an incline that will roll the bus should drift that way. If the bus breaks down I’m stopped in my lane with 65 kids, worrying about being rear-ended.

On the highway the kids have an advantage over me. I have nowhere to stop to correct behavior problems that may arise. In such a narrow lane I can hardly glance in my mirror to see what’s going on in the back of the bus. If the kids ever understood the bad situation I am in on the highway I could be in real trouble. Bus drivers have State secrets.

When I commit to the highway I focus on the road. The kids behind me are talking, laughing, teasing, yelling. I’ll check my mirror briefly at times. Usually I see a kind of motion among the seats, like choppy seas, although most students stay out of the aisle like I demand. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of hat being stolen from behind and a kid turning to pursue it. Other times I detect a basketball arcing across the aisle. I can get on the intercom and address these issues verbally. So far that’s been enough.

When I top the ridge I can see our little town sitting like a green splotch amid the miles of yellow grasses. It’s just five miles away. Did I say “just”? There’s the saying, “so close, yet so far away.” There is wanting to buy a hamburger, but being a dollar short. There is needing to use the toilet, but somebody beat you into the stall, and you can tell they are sitting there browsing on their phone.

As I feel the energy in the bus growing (I see somebody hop seats) the miles become longer. The bus is moving in slow motion. I hold out my hand and reach, but town ignores me and looks the other way (“Tory, Bart is swearing”). Oh, just let me make it to town one more time.

Finally I reach the sign telling me of the lower speed limit ahead. I slow down to 35 mph as I reach the park. I make a right turn, two blocks, and then a left. Half a block later I stop and open the door. As the first large group of kids get off the pressure is released. The bomb is defused. The world isn’t going to end after all. I will hear the birds sing tomorrow.

I actually like driving bus. Believe it or not, I enjoy getting to know the kids. Many of them are pleasant, and some are downright polite. But to get to the enjoyment part you have to be able to deal with the pressure. The pressure is real . . . especially during that last five miles.

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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:

A Fifth Grade Babe Magnet

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I drive every fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight grader in my little town thirteen miles to school each day. When they all ride, they fill up the bus. These kids are neighbors in town, and very close neighbors on the bus. The fifth graders sit up front. The sixth graders come next. Then there are the seventh graders with the eighth graders in back. How could it be any different?

In the very front passenger side seat, across the aisle from me, sit two fifth grade boys. An angry mother brought them to my attention on the first day of school. That’s why they have the seat of honor.

One of these two boys intrigues me. He’s your basic rural, small town boy. He rides his motorcycle one block to the bus stop. He wears the mandatory farmer’s cap high on his head. He’s blond and has a bright smile that doesn’t quite hide the mischievousness in his blue eyes. He’s healthy, but slightly on the small side. He’s definitely gregarious. He talks loud enough for most on the bus to hear him. That’s no accident. He likes attention.

Outside of the incident that brought him to the “seat of honor,” what caught my attention is that one of the eighth grade girls always bops him on the head with her hand when she passes his seat during loading or unloading. He grins broadly and protects his head as she takes a couple of shots on the way by. It appears to be a game he enjoys. One day the girl walked by without noticing him.

“What? No walloping?” I asked. “You must be having an off day.”

He nodded and looked disappointed. The next day things were back to normal and he got a thumping.

There is another eighth grade girl who just moved into town. She doesn’t know many people yet. She asked if she could sit up front for a couple of days for a reason that wasn’t clear to me. We talked and I got to know her a bit. Before we reached her stop on the second day I heard scuffling and laughter just behind me. I glanced in my mirror to see her wrestling with the fifth grade boy over his hat. These two live on opposite sides of town and don’t know each other. She is three years older than him. Still, he got her attention. It became clear to me that this fifth grade boy is a babe magnet.

Within the next few weeks my suspicious were verified. I pick up the fifth graders at the elementary school before traveling to the junior high school for the rest of the kids. I assigned the boys seats up front and noticed that the girls would sit close to them. There would be a general ruckus on the bus as the boys showed off with loud, boy nonsense talk followed by fake fart contests. For some reason the girls ate this up. They seemed fascinated by the boys. My fair haired fifth grader was the center of attention.

To help contain the ruckus I allowed the boys to sit in the back until we got to the junior high. The next thing I knew, the girls were back there with them. The ruckus continued. I moved the girls to the back and made the boys sit up front. The girls were happy they got to sit in the back until they realized the boys were way up front. I can still see the disappointment on their faces. The distance between them and their star was too great.

My regular bus with the assigned seats broke down. I was assigned a loaner bus. This messed up my seating arrangement for the kids. The other day I looked in my mirror to see my fifth grader sitting between two girls. It’s pretty crowded with three in a seat. Across the aisle was a seat with only one boy in it. My fifth grader was smiling at me.

The next day I saw my fifth grader slip from his seat with his assigned seatmate and try to scoot in with two girls. To their credit they didn’t scoot over for him. To my credit I made sure he went back to his seat and stayed there.

Whatever this fifth grade boy has there are many high school boys who wish they had it. Whatever this fifth grade boy has I wish he didn’t. He’s on my bus for the next three and half years. It’s going to take a special seating assignment each year to keep girlkind safe from him on the way to and from school each day. I’m glad that off the bus he’s not my problem. Of course, he will be somebody’s problem. I’m wondering if I should alert the principal. Oh, well, he probably already knows.

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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:

Bus Driver Diaries: Patience, Jackass. Patience.

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Driving a school bus is a trick. It requires navigating a rigid, forty foot behemoth on congested freeways, icy country roads, or, worse yet, on school grounds where new teen drivers are swarming out of the parking lot and pedestrians are crossing the bus lane in droves. It’s not for the faint of heart. The other half of bus driving happens inside the bus. While doing all the aforementioned navigating we are supposed keep order among sixty youth exploding with energy. How is this to be done? A line from an old Boy Scout skit has helped me: Patience, Jackass. Patience.

After eight years I was just assigned a new route. Changing routes after so many years is hard. It doesn’t help when the previous driver of your new route tells you how difficult your new route is. It’s a middle school route, after all. Half the seats have three riders; the rest have two. Sixty-four pubescent middle schoolers. Who would accept a route like that?

The previous driver told me that I would need to maintain control. “Once you lose control, it’s hard to get it back,” she said. I’ve driven long enough to already know that.

The first day went well enough. At least I thought it did. That evening, I got a call from an angry mother. In eight years, that is the first angry mother call I have gotten. She told me her kids had sat next to two boys who were “F”ing and “B” ing all the way home. She didn’t think her kids and others should have to listen to that kind of language on the bus. I agreed. She named the two boys. I went through worse case scenarios all night long of how I was going to handle it. I’d talk to the two boys. They would rebel. I’d take it to the principal. He’d slap hands and let it go. I’d have to quit being a bus driver.

First, I called the previous bus driver to find out who these two kids were. When they got on the next morning I had them sit up front with me. I had pictured in my mind big eighth graders with the mark of Satan on their foreheads. Turns out they were little fifth graders with pleasant faces. I told them why they were sitting next to me. They both come from a cowboy heritage so I gave them a cowboy analogy. “Have you ever seen a man in a speedo wearing cowboy boots?” I asked. They grimaced at the image and said they hadn’t. “That’s what foul language is like to those who don’t want to hear it. It’s really bad taste.” Surprisingly they were humble and respectful enough to me.

Since I have the fifth grade up front I assigned these boys seats next to me. We’re getting along just fine. The language has stopped. I let them sing cowboy songs to music on their phone. They turn it off voluntarily as I approach each stop. They are happy. I am happy. The anxiety of a big fight and quitting being a bus driver wasn’t necessary.

On the second day an eighth grade girl in the back was continually leaning out in the aisle to speak to someone behind her. I got after her on the intercom. As she got off the bus I reminded her again to stay out of the aisle. She gave me a dirty look. Then she walked in front of the bus without waiting for me to point her across. I said a few words out the window to her. She gave me a dirtier look. It was clear to me—she was going to be trouble.

I thought all night about how to handle the situation. I wanted to be in control from the beginning. I thought I might ask her to sit up front the next morning so we could talk. I had a feeling this would not set well with her. It would be humiliating; the fifth graders sit up front.

When she got on the next morning I was distracted. By the time I saw her it was too late to discreetly ask her to sit up front. Instead I called out “Good morning,” as she passed. The look of distrust and anger left her face, replaced by surprise. She surprised me when said, “’Morning” back to me. That seemed like progress, so I let it go at that.

That afternoon, I checked my mirror. She leaned into the aisle a couple of times, but not for long. I let it go. When she got off the bus I said, “Have a good one.” She smiled and nodded. Since then, by eighth grade standards, she’s been downright friendly, and well enough behaved. The other day she informed me that I can call her by the shortened version of her name. I accepted.

I’m learning that you can’t be afraid and be a very good bus driver. Fear drives bad behavior in students and bus drivers. There are very real challenges that have to be dealt with in the life of a bus driver, but “Patience, Jackass. Patience,” has served me well in finding solutions to these challenges.

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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:

Bus Driver Diaries: It’s Going to Be Okay

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The West Fields route is unique. I have a couple of stops on the west side of the city, and then head out among the farmers’ fields on narrow country roads. The stops are miles apart. Unlike other routes where multiple buses crisscross paths, on out in the West Fields there is only one bus. I like the solitude.

Then there are the kids. I’ve driven the West Fields route for eight years. I’ve watched kids grow from kindergarten to eighth grade. I’ve watched other kids move through elementary school and graduate from high school. The kids on your bus become family. You don’t’ always get along. You don’t always like them. But you are stuck together and you end up caring about each other.

When I got word this summer that I would be changing routes my heart stopped beating for a moment. It was like getting “the call” informing you that someone close to you has died. The thought of being separated from my kids sent a pain through my chest. They were asking me to let go of the West Fields. What would the West Fields be without me? What would I be without the West Fields?

When fourteen year old son heard what route they were asking me to take, he sat straight up in his seat and yelled, “Don’t do it, Dad!” That’s the bus route he rode home on through middle school. He often would skip that bus and wait for my West Fields bus even though it would take him an hour longer to get home. The middle school bus—my new route—has a reputation.

Taking the Middle School route made too much sense. It starts in a small town thirteen miles away from the school. I live in that small town. The first stop is just a half block away from my home. I start at my home in the morning and end at my home at night. The other driver in town moved on and that left me. I made the change.

I’ve driven the route four days now. It’ll be weeks, maybe months, before I build any relationships. Right now it is awkward, like a blind date. I pull up to a stop and open the door. I see a line of young strangers staring up at me. They see a stranger behind the wheel of their bus. Conversation is stilted and difficult. I try to memorize a few names and get them wrong. I turn the wrong direction and have to go around the block. The kids think it’s funny while at the same time being a little impatient—the difficulties of putting up with a new bus driver.

I do miss my West Field kids. I had a line of them waving at me at school as I drove past. It was touching. Strangely enough, even though it’s only been four days, I’m starting to see individuals among those lines of strangers getting on my new route. There’s a sporadic smile, “good morning,” or “thanks for the ride” that catch me off guard. I sense the possibility of being able to love these kids like my West Fields kids. Is that all right? I’m not going to be able to help it.

Just the other morning little seven year old Faith got off the bus at school. Instead of running straight for the school like most kids, she stopped, turned, smiled at me, and waved. Everything is going to be okay.

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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:

A Perfect Activity Run

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I had a perfect activity bus run today. I dropped off the speech and debate team at the two venues and then I drove to the local public library. In this case it was the South Jordan Public Library. Although I always try, I can’t always make it to a library on activity trips. Some of the trips require me to shuttle kids back and forth during the activity so I have to hang around. Other activities occur when the library is closed. Other times the library is in a downtown location where there is no place to park a forty foot bus. Today, everything worked out perfect.

Today I had nine hours between drop off and pickup times. You heard that right—nine uninterrupted hours of library time. The library was just a few blocks away from the venue, which is great, but parking looked like it might be a problem. The library is in a highly populated area where space is tight. Where you don’t think twice going in a car in a bus you are running over curbs and grazing light posts. To my delight I found a vacant lot off a back street right next to the library. Downtown library parking doesn’t get much better than this.

The library didn’t look like much when I approached it. I need to explain. Many of the small town libraries I find are quaint in their own ways. They are in old, multistoried houses, or in old buildings of quirky architecture built back in the twenties. They are the kind of library that, when looking from the outside, you can’t wait to go in. The South Jordan library was gray and plain. I didn’t expect quirky, but I did expect something a little grander for such a populated area. I suppose the fact that it was a cloudy, January day didn’t put it in its best light.

When I walked in I saw that I had judged too quickly. It was far bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It wasn’t just its size that surprised me, but I felt like I had walked through the door into the secret garden after the kids had it in full bloom. There were colors and textures and well-planned lighting. The help desk is right in the center with busy librarians. Beyond them is a well-stocked paper rack. Beyond that are computer friendly study tables with easily accessible power connectors. That combined with the WiFi, which is easy to connect to and very fast, made it a writer’s dream. Beyond the study tables are a forest of comfortable chairs around a gas fire with wooden shelves stocked with new fiction.

Off on either side are well-lighted sections full of shelves that are full of books, cds, and dvds. There is a children’s play area that tempted me. There were plenty of computer stations for adults for both research and alternative usasage such as gaming. Something I haven’t seen in other libraries isthe section of children’s’ computers that were seeing great use. I was led there by the sounds of music the kids were making as a by-product of the games they were playing.

Overhead there was a wandering river of letters and numbers. I thought it was just a random jumble, until I looked closer. It turned out to be a river of names, dates, places, and zip codes. I still need to spend more time finding all it has to offer.

I spent several productive hours at a study table writing my novel. The library is noisy, but in that pleasant way that speaks of life and good use. I found it not distracting, but comforting and pleasant.

After lunch I wandered around the shelves peeking at what they have to offer. I eventually stumbled into a section containing collections of my favorite comics such as Foxtrot, The Far Side, and Zits. There, lit by a pair of corner windows, I found another of those study tables looking lonely. I made friends with it and settled in for the afternoon. All too soon the speech and debate coach texted me. It was time to go. I’ll probably never get back up to this library again on such a perfect day, but what a memory.

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Bus Driver’s Diaries: Stories from the Driver’s Seat is now available on Amazon.com

Bus Driver’s Diaries: Stories From the Drivers Seat

Bus Driver Diaries: All the Colors of a Bus

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School buses are bright yellow, but inside they are far more colorful.

It’s 6:40 a.m. I pull into the bus compound and begin the walk across the yard to my bus. Korleen is already in there with her bus started. She’s checking her coolant as I pass by. She looks up at me and I ask, “Haven’t we done this before?”

“Seems like it,” she says.

She’s been doing this for eighteen years. This is only my second. I’m enjoying it, but I can’t imagine eighteen years.

At the end of a run I brake to a stop. There is a rattling sound behind me. I look down to see a herd of Peanut M&Ms stampeding to the front: green, yellow, brown, and red. A blue one brings up the rear.

A third grader makes me nervous by getting out of her seat and bringing me up paper snowflakes. Flory does this twice. She’s so sweet (usually) that it’s hard to ask her to stay in her seat. After the run, when I make my required trip to the back of the bus to press the button (or the horn will start honking when I open the door) I see a pile of snowflake-makings six-inches deep on the floor where Flory was sitting. That’s the price of having an arts-and-crafter on board.

Little Leonardo is sleeping in the front passenger seat. He’s a wisp of a kindergartener who speaks English with a strong Spanish accent. He’s leaning into the corner made by the seat and bus wall. When I brake his upper body slides forward until his head hits the soft, padded wall in front of the steps. He is still fast asleep. When I accelerate after the light turns green his upper body slides back into the corner. He doesn’t feel a thing. When his brother wakes him at the dairy he doesn’t know where he is and tries to walk to the back of the bus. When we get him straightened out I make sure he grips both handrails before he descends the steps.

I notice a car if following me on one of the narrow back roads where there is little traffic. Its lights swing around all the corners I turn. The Andersons’ porch light is off meaning the kids won’t be riding today, so I don’t stop. It’s another two miles to my next stop. The usual kids get on there, but I noticed they are straining their necks looking behind the bus as they get on. “Someone else is coming,” Maryn tells me. This is unusual. It turns out to be Arthur. He usually gets on a couple of stops back, but missed the bus this morning. His mother was chasing the bus to get him on. Later that afternoon Arthur sits up front and tells me, “You made my mom swear this morning.” He blushed when he told me this. His mother is a religious woman and swearing is not normal.

“Oh?” I say. Angry parents are a bus driver’s nemesis, so I am very interested.

“When you didn’t stop at the Anderson’s,” he explained.

I understood. She was upset to have to keep chasing me. I told him I would have stopped if I had known who it was, but I had no way of knowing in the dark.

The kids get on at Churchyard Station. Several kids are going on about something stinking and Kara farting. When little Kara, in kindergarten, gets on she stands very close to me and whispers confidentially in my ear, “The kids all say I farted, but really I just stepped in dog poop.”

Far out on the North side I stop at the corner. The sixth grade girl comes out in her striped, rainbow socks with toes. In one hand she carries her tall boots which lace most of the way up to her knees. In the other she carries her books and a pop tart. She walks gingerly across the gravel and climbs the steps. I see her leaning into the aisle lacing her boots up most of rest of the way to school.

A second grader is sitting in the front passenger seat because she feels like talking to me today. She wants to play Truth-or Dare. Truth-or-Dare has bad connotations and I decline. In her innocent way she persists until I agree to give it a try. I choose “truth” on my turns because “dare” just won’t work while driving a bus. She asks me (with a giggle) if I have a girlfriend. “Yes!” I say proudly and tell her my wife’s name. On another turn she asks me (with another giggle) if I have kissed my girlfriend. “You bet,” I tell her. She knows I am talking about my wife. She chooses truth on her turn. I ask her “When was the last time you told your dad you loved him.” She thinks for a moment. She mumbles her answer and seems a little confused. I listen hard and understand that it has been a while. “Oh,” I say, “I’m sure he deserves to hear that more often from you.” She looks at me and smiles a mask-smile and says, “He’s in jail.” I hadn’t expected that. Those three words changed me a little bit. My life is simple and innocent compared to some.

Color is a wonderful thing—bright colors as well as the darker ones. Joseph had his coat of many colors. Michelangelo had his painter’s palette. I have my school bus.

Bus Driver Diaries – It’s Starting All Over Again

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I neglected to write a “Last School Day of Bus Driving” post. I think that is because I felt so much relief the next morning I didn’t want to think about buses for a long time. It was a wonderful summer. I didn’t miss the fear of sleeping through my alarm. I didn’t miss the busload drama that takes place every day. I did miss the faces, though. I didn’t know I missed the faces until I saw them again last Tuesday on the first day of school.

It was good to see all the kids again, but a few of the faces stood out. For these kids the happiness behind the recognition in their eyes when they looked at me was gratifying. Of course it wasn’t long before I was telling these kids to turn around and sit down and to stop the therapeutic screaming. It’s like that on a bus. We love each other while at the same time driving each other nuts. Come to think of it, it’s like we’re family.

My bus is extremely full this year. My roster lists ninety-three kids. A bus with three in every seat will carry eight-four. My bus gets around this because I don’t have all ninety-three kids on my bus at the same time. In the mornings I drop off the high school and middle school before I pick up the Church Yard Gang of some eighteen kids. In the afternoon I drop off the Church Yard Gang before I pick up the high school and middle school kids. The Church Yard Gang is comprised of elementary school kids who join the other twenty-seven elementary kids I pick up at other stops.

My bus carries kindergarteners through eleventh graders. There is definitely a pecking order on the bus. It isn’t too bad, but there is a strong desire to sit in the back of the bus. My high schoolers are a little on the quiet side. Middle schoolers who have gotten on the bus first have been taking rear seats pushing the high schoolers forward. Elementary school kids—mainly fifth and sixth graders—have been pushing some of the middle schoolers forward. My high schoolers were rather quiet about this injustice although I’m sure it would have boiled over eventually. It was the middle school that boiled over first.

In my rearview mirror one afternoon I noticed that some kids were having a hard time finding a seat. I walked back to see what was up.

“Tory,” a seventh grader called. “Look at this! Look at this! This is ridiculous!” I don’t want to overuse exclamation points, but it does get across his tone of voice. I looked and you know what I saw? I saw the unhappy boy sitting in a seat with two other kids. Imagine that. To give him a break he was so upset because a couple of seats up were elementary students with only two to a seat. Without saying the words he was suggesting it was an outrage to have younger students with better seating arrangements. I thanked him for his input and told him I would see what I could do about it tomorrow.

I took counts of kids by grades and then divvied the seats up as best I could. I put colored tap on the walls that indicated where elementary school ended and middle school began. I did the same for high school. The high schoolers are very happy about this. No one else is, though. They all think they should be able to sit farther in the back than they are currently allowed. The bus is so full seating control is necessary. The tape isn’t a perfect solution. Different numbers of kids ride on different days and sometimes we get spillover. When we do, I hear about it.

What’s fun is that almost all of the kids riding this year rode last year, but they are a grade older. Last year’s kindergarteners have proudly moved one seat back to first grade. I have a couple of girls who were in sixth grade last year. They felt ultra-mature and always tried to sneak the high school seats. They’ve already tried that this year, too. One of them got off at her stop the other day and said to me in passing, “I’m sure glad I get to get off here and get away from these children.” She said it loud enough for the remaining elementary children to hear. It’s amazing what graduating from elementary school to seventh grade will do for a person. On second thought, she’s not that different from last year.

Friday I was dropping the Church Yard Gang. Cars were stopped behind me as well as in front of me waiting for me to pull in the flashing Stop sign. Two different kids, wonderful kids, stopped at my seat to do an elaborate hand slapping goodbye routine that I didn’t know. They were determined to teach me. The last part of it was “down low” then “up high” then “in space” (really high) then “in your face.” They pretended to push a pie in my face. I tried to hurry them. I wasn’t so sure how patient the people in the cars were going to be. They could clearly see what was going on.

When the hand slapping was over I noticed a mother standing outside my door expectantly. She was waiting for someone. I checked my rear-view mirror and saw no one coming. She called the name that I recognized belonged to a kindergartener. Fear iced through my chest. OMGosh, I’ve lost a kindergartener. That is one of bus drivers’ greatest fears. Then something stirred right behind my seat and the kindergartner got out. I glanced at the cars with a “We’re almost done” look. But we weren’t. The proud mother stopped her child on the bottom step in order to get a “first day on the bus” picture. I think she took three or four. Finally they were walking off hand in hand and I let the traffic go.

It has only been one week and I am already tired. At the same time I think of the kids’ faces and feel warm inside. My stress level is up somewhat, but so is my life level. I believe some of the stress is just me readjusting. I know ladies who have been doing this twenty five years and they are doing fine. Let’s see what this year brings.

Bus Driver Diaries — Faces Like Music

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Unlike teachers who spend hours, days, and weeks with the local youth population, school bus drivers only see the kids for a few seconds each day. Although the drive to and from school takes longer than that, we only actually see the kids when they are getting on or off the bus. My contact with each child each day may be short, but in those few seconds I get snapshots of the children’s lives that, while not telling me much, do tell me something.

I took the junior high school run the other afternoon. When I opened the doors, a line of preteens and early-teens streamed in. Awkwardness and angst sloughed off of them like dust from Pigpen in Charley Brown. I had an unexpected flashback to my own junior high days, with all its memories of loneliness and confusion. The face of one boy stood out as he got on the bus—pimples, rough, raw. I saw this face again near the end of the route when I walked to the back of the bus to investigate a spitting incident. A girl reported that this boy had spit out the window. The airflow through the open windows caused the spit to fly back into the next window and onto the girl’s face. I didn’t look forward to confronting him. His face had a large amount of “I couldn’t care less” written all over it. His “I couldn’t care less” expression faded into nervousness as I approached. This gave me hope. We chatted for a moment. I helped him understand what happens when you spit out a window on a bus. He understood there would be greater consequences if he did it again. As I walked away it struck me that he really hadn’t intended to be rude to the girl he accidentally spit on. He just didn’t have a lot of common sense.

Early one Saturday morning the girls’ volleyball team got on the bus. I said “Good morning” to one girl as she passed. She didn’t respond—didn’t even glance my way. I noticed she walked halfway back and took a seat some distance from the other girls. It may have been she wasn’t a morning person. Maybe there was trouble at home or with the other girls. I couldn’t tell. One of the other girls came up to the front of the bus to offer me a muffin. Somehow, within the horizon of her early morning ride, she saw the bus driver. I was touched.

I was dropping a load of elementary kids off at school. One third-grader was dressed in a colorful dress and leggings. As she stepped onto the sidewalk I called out, “That’s a pretty dress.” There were lots of kids filing out right behind her so I didn’t think she would hear. She did. She looked over her shoulder and flashed a happy smile of pure sunshine that warmed me for a week. The last girl off the bus that day wore a blue blanket with a shark-head hood. It looked like her head was in the shark’s mouth. It was cute. As she walked down the aisle I said, “Sharks are not allowed on the bus.” She wasn’t sure if I was seriously scolding her or not. Then I said, “I like your blanket.” She stopped beside me, smiled, and gave a big, happy, sigh.

One day when I was a substitute driver I picked up eight kindergarteners. We drop kindergarteners off at their homes. I had never driven this route and didn’t know where they lived. I asked them for help and they excitedly complied. There were no “drive to the highway and turn left” kind of instructions. Instead I had eight kids calling out, “Drive this way. Then turn that way!” I had to look in the mirror and try to decipher their finger pointing. One little boy adamantly indicated I should go down “this street.” I did. Two other kids overrode his instructions telling me it was the street with the “rocks” on it. It took a moment, but then I realized they meant the gravel road by the edge of the subdivision. I knew where that was. As we approached a pasture with cows they told me to honk. “Our regular bus driver does,” they said. My bus has an air horn. It sounds like a train when you pull the cord. I look for opportunities to use it. I gave it a yank. Eight voices yelled out in unison, “Hello, cows!” And they waved. Heading up the highway I saw three bored-looking horses in a dusty corral. I yanked the cord again and pretended I was a train. The five remaining kids yelled out, again in perfect unison, “Hello, horses.” Once more they waved. I eventually got each child home and watched him or her run happily to the parent waiting in the doorway.

Some cars, not very many, still have radios that are tuned by a dial. If the dial is turned fast, voices and music quickly resolve and then disappear in fragments. A practiced ear can get a sense of what the fragment of sound was about. Being a bus driver is much like turning the radio dial. Instead of sounds, faces flash past giving a momentary glimpse into a child’s day or life. It isn’t much of a glimpse; it is just enough to make me care.

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