Anyone who has ever drove a school bus has stories to tell, if they will. I certainly have and will. I only drove for a little over one school year, but what a time I had. I have written before about applying for the job in what I called my interview suit complete with high heels. I was prepared to make a good impression. It was a waste of time. If I was walking and breathing, I was hirable.
The superintendent of schools sent me off with a seasoned bus driver over icy roads. We took a bus loads of special ed students to a nearby school. I led them in singing songs on the trip over. Imagine my horror when I was told to drive the empty school bus back. Somehow I did.
Another time a girl boarded the bus and threw a raw egg. What a mess that made down the center aisle. I shut off the motor and stood up with the bus waste basket in hand. I informed the girl that she was to clean up the mess with whatever paper she would find in the waste basket before we moved on. Notebook paper is not very absorbent. She had a terrible time cleaning up the raw egg, all to the jeers of her fellow students. Doing it made them late for other bus transfers. She didn’t do that again. Her father was the army recruiter in the area. I promised I would not tell him.
Another time I was to take a load of high school students to a nearby ski range. The weather was stormy, the road icy. At about half way there I stopped at a gas station and called the superintendent. He told me they had been trying to reach me to tell me to return to the school. This was before the days of cell phones. How had they been trying to reach me? I didn’t believe that line at all. But I was grateful to be turning back..
Then there was the time I had to back up to load kids at the high school. I backed right into a telephone pole. “Bang!” They screamed that I had hit the pole. I looked up into the rear view mirror and calmly said, “Yes, but I hit it square.”
Since I was the newest driver, I got the worse bus and the worse route. All the things no one else wanted. There was a very steep hill in my path with a kindergartener to be picked up at the foot of it. I could pick up the little one and try to climb the hill with my old bus, no power steering or power brakes. It was asking too much for old number 10 to make the grade. I could, however, alter my route and go down the hill, stop to pick up the small child, then proceed on. One high school boy asked to ride the roundabout route. hoping I would wipe out on the downhill grade. I never did. Close, but never did.
Another time I skidded into a mailbox. I felt that didn’t count, since the mailbox was hidden in a heavy snowbank. The students didn’t agree with me on that one. I always figured that one more dent in those old fenders wouldn’t be noticed.
I quit over an incident involving a kindergarten girl, the last pick-up before reaching the elementary school. She was never ready. We could watch through the front picture window as her parents helped her put on her snowsuit. I didn’t have to wait for any other student. I told her parents that I would not wait again, but when stopped and she wasn’t ready, I would go on. When I arrived at the bus yard, I was told the superintendent wanted to see me. When I entered his office, there was the irate father screaming at me. I told the superintendent what he could do with his bus driving job and walked out never to drive a school bus again.
Every day on ole bus #10 was an adventure for all of us. Throughout all of this, the kids enjoyed their bus ride with me. They took up a collection and gave me a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy when I quit driving. Each student signed the accompanying card.
I have great respect for school bus drivers. It has to be a calling, not a job. After all, I had the students for a longer period then most of their teachers.