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Bus Driver Diaries: Just Follow Me

Just Follow Me

Getting assigned activity trips in addition to regular routes is generally a good thing. First, it’s good for the extra hours, which means more money. Second, more often than not I find the activities fun and the time with the kids a pleasure. Still, there are times when I look at the destination on the trip sheet and cringe. “Capitol Building” is one of those destinations.

The Utah Capitol Building itself is a fine place to visit. The architecture is fascinating and there is so much history located there. It’s just that the Capitol Building is located in downtown Salt Lake City with its heavy traffic, narrow streets, and well-hidden “one-way” signs. I’ve been on many trips to downtown Salt Lake City, and so am getting familiar with it, but I still have that initial cringe and low-key anxiousness as the trip approaches.

On a previous trip to the Capitol Building I took the Sixth South exit, traveled through the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, and made my way up on East Temple. On a whim I turned to Google Maps to see if there was another way. There was. It recommended I travel on to the sixth north exit, travel east on Sixth North to Wall Street, and it’s a short way to the Capitol Building from there. While waiting for the children to load I mentioned this route to the two other two bus drivers who were driving that day. It was clear that neither of them liked downtown Salt Lake City either.

“We’ll just follow you,” one said.

“And if we get lost, it’s your fault,” the other laughed.

When I approached them I was hoping that one of them would corroborate the route I was suggesting. After all, both of them have driven much longer than I have. It wasn’t to be. I learned that neither of them was very clear on how to get to the State House on any route. I found myself the reluctant leader.

Off we went on the eighty-five mile drive north with my bus in the lead. The traffic was very heavy and flowing unevenly. It was difficult to keep the buses in sight of each other.

“Doesn’t anyone work anymore?” one driver called over the radio. After all, it wasn’t rush hour, so why were so many on the road?

As we approached the Sixth South exit I had to recommit to my new plan. I had traveled the Sixth South route before and understood it. But the Sixth North route seemed so much shorter and it bypassed downtown. Feeling determined, I drove on past the Sixth South exit. The other two buses followed me.

I exited on Sixth North as planned and headed east. I started to relax as everything appeared in order as Google Maps suggested. I didn’t start to worry until I noticed that beyond an upcoming intersection Sixth North got considerably narrower. Looking up to the Wall Street where Sixth North teed off it got narrower still. I became uncomfortable when I stopped at the intersection before Wall Street and saw a sign. It warned that trucks over forty-five feet were prohibited from entering. I swallowed hard. I could turn at this intersection, but then I would be off my memorized route with two other buses following me. The Capitol Building is up on top of a hill with bus unfriendly roads surrounding it. I needed to get on a proper approach. Holding up traffic I took my phone out and double checked my route. It showed that once I hit Wall Street the Capitol Building was very close. I recommitted and drove on. After all, the sign said trucks over forty-five feet were not permitted. Our buses are only forty feet in length.

My anxiety spiked when I turned onto Wall Street. Saying it was narrow was an understatement. It was a residential street with trees that formed a canopy over the road. With the cars parked on the street in front of the houses there were just a few clear inches on either side of the bus. If a vehicle happened to be coming the other way we would have been at an impasse—somebody would have to back up and it wasn’t going to be three buses.

It got worse. Going our direction Wall Street was all up hill. However, at one point the rise increased suddenly and dramatically. Oh my gosh, I thought. Will my bus go up that?

I had no choice but to push my pedal to the floor and lean forward to urge the bus on. The bus did not accelerate; instead the engine just groaned under its load of seventy five students. I’m fairly certain that if I stopped the bus would be unable to begin moving forward again. I could feel angry, sarcastic thoughts from the bus drivers behind as they followed me up.

“Wheelie!” a child in the bus shouted. Others took up the call. The teachers and chaperones were all silent in fear.

We made it to the top. I felt such relief. The trial wasn’t over yet, though. As we approached the narrow road that circles the Capitol Building there was a line of buses that brings dismay to any bus driver’s heart. It appeared that half the schools in Utah had chosen this day to come visit. The turn-around, drop off lanes were clogged with buses. That didn’t really matter right away because the entrance to the drive-through was blocked by other buses that pulled in front of it to unload. There were buses behind me waiting to turn left into the drive-through. We would have to wait for the buses that had pulled in front the drive-through to leave, but they were blocked by buses in front of them. What a mess. Even the state troopers were scratching their heads. It was time to take a big breath and decide that waiting in the middle of busy road for who knew how long was just part of the day’s adventure.

In the end we got all the kids safely unloaded and the day went pretty well from there. When I met the other two bus drivers I expected them to let me have it. Kindly, they didn’t. With a smile one said, “Let’s not go back that way, okay?”

I agreed.

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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 — Things Seen and Heard

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A bus driver’s life is full of sights and sounds. Some days I wonder if being blind and deaf would make my job easier. Although morning runs are much quieter than afternoon runs, the best part of the day comes in the afternoon. The silence that falls after that last stop comes with a sense of relief akin to sliding into a hot bath after a day in the snow. I sigh audibly and drive back to the bus compound luxuriously relaxed.

Busses will always be noisy if you have very many kids. School kids are social and for most the bus ride is social time. But there is noise and then there is noise. Noise is the sound of fifty to sixty kids talking and laughing. Noise is the sound two boys four seats back screaming like girls. I’m not trying to be disparaging to girls here, but the boys really are screaming like girls—at least that is their goal.

Noise is the little Hispanic boy calling “TOREES! TORYEES” repeatedly until I am forced to answer. My name is Tory, but for some reason that is the way he hears it. I already know what he is going to say. In the all-seeing rear-view mirror I have been watching him poke his face around the edge of his seat again and again while the girl sitting there tries to backhand it like in Whack-A-Mole. She finally got him.

Noise is the continual farting sounds played with mouth against arms that comes from three seats back. I have been known to be entertained by bathroom humor, but these noises go on and on and on until even an aficionado like me can’t stand it anymore. When I finally make them stop the pee and “wiener” talk starts up.

These boys are brother and cousins. The oldest of them, who is nine, loves to bully the younger two who are seven. Bully may be too strong a word for it since the younger two enjoy it as much as the bigger boy. When I pull into the stop in the morning the little boys are attacking the big boy and he is collaring them and pulling them into bear hugs. They have the biggest smiles on their faces. They continue this wrestling on the bus. Finally I had to separate them which was a difficult decision. Why was it a difficult decision? You see, these boys love to sit by each other and wrestle. They are the happiest kids on the bus when they sit together. By separating them I took 80% of the fun factor out of their bus ride. I did separate them, though, and I’ve gotten over the guilt.

The things I see aren’t nearly so bad as what I hear. The worst thing I see is the face of kids getting on or off the bus with attitude. The attitude lasts only as long as they are passing me. We don’t even know each other, but I am the bus driver and an adult and thus their enemy. At least that is all I can figure out why they won’t say hello or goodbye, instead turning their heads away. These are usually middle school or high school kids. Most aren’t this way, but there are a few who always have that annoyed look on their face when they pass me.

One afternoon there were only four or five kids left on the bus. We were heading to the dairy where almost everyone who gets on the bus is a sibling or a cousin. I looked in the mirror to see a boy standing in the back with a tennis shoe in his hand holding it up to the nose of a girl (his cousin). She sniffed it cautiously before making a face and both broke up in laughter. All I know is what I saw on that one.

Sometimes after the dairy there is one little girl left on the bus. She would take exception at being called little. She is a sixth grader going on senior in high school, but she still looks like a little girl. Usually it is just she and I on the bus for the last eight miles. She only rides the bus home half the time. Because of the high seats I can’t see if she is on the bus or not, so after the Dairy Cream Gang gets off she will usually raise her hand and call out casually “I’m here.” On this particular day she called out “We’re here.” She had a friend coming home to play (er, “hang”) with her. About four miles into the back roads to her home I look in the mirror to see four bare feet resting on top of a seat. That was the only sign of them.

Perhaps thinking it would be better to be deaf and blind is taking it too far. If I were deaf and blind I wouldn’t have heard this:

Him: “Tory.”

Me: “Yeah?”

Him: “It’s my birthday.”

Me: “Happy Birthday!”

Him: “But nobody got me anything.”

Me: “That’s sad.”

Him: “Well, they got me a shirt.”

Me: “That a good gift.”

Him: “But it was a dirty shirt.”

At this point I realized the first grader was performing a comedy routine. And then the other day a little gal gave me a post it note telling me I was the best bus driver ever. It’s still stuck to my side window. So maybe it isn’t bad as all that.

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.