Millions of students board school buses daily for transport to campuses. I was one such child as we lived in a small Texas rural farming community. Our home was located fairly close to the school, a bit under a mile, but we lived on a major highway, so our mother would not allow us to walk or ride our bikes to school. Every morning we would wait patiently for the bus at the end of our drive, and every afternoon after the last school bell rang, we would board the bus and make the journey home.
School buses back then were very different from today, so imagine a bus with only open window ventilation and possibly a heater if you were lucky and had a newer bus. Most surfaces were metal or hard rubber except for the seats, and they were minimally cushioned.
Before I was old enough to attend school, I waited for my sister to ride the short distance from school to our home. I could see the bus approaching almost as it left the school. I did not walk out to the bus to greet her, but I sat on the front porch excited that she was almost home. The big yellow bus would begin to slow and the breaks would squeal. Have you ever noticed that most school bus brakes make that high pitched hissing noise? I learned later it is because they are air brakes. The bus door would open with a swoosh, and my sister would emerge from the front of the bus. She obediently stopped to peer around the front of the bus to make sure no one was disobeying the flashing lights, and then she would cautiously cross the road. Once in our drive, she would briskly walk (she never ran) to the house, and we would giggle at one another as I pestered her for the details of the day.
Finally, I was old enough to ride the bus, but I sat at the front of the bus with the younger crowd. The back was reserved for older students, and oh how I wanted to be at the back. In about the fifth and fourth grades respectively, my brother and I began sitting in the back. At that time, our bus driver was also our elementary principal, so you can imagine the discussions that took place at the back of the bus. I noticed some previous riders were brave enough to carve into the metal seat back "bald eagle" or draw a picture of a comical bald eagle to represent their feelings about our balding principal. He had a sense of humor, so he probably just laughed at the art work when he discovered it. Most of our rides were uneventful, but there was one particular day that I will remember forever.
Our bus route would change at semester which meant we had to be first on in the mornings and last off in the afternoons, or we would be last on and first off the next semester. On one of the long rides which typically were only thirty minutes, there was a house situated in the middle of a field and the only way to drop the students off at this particular house was to drive down a farmer made road. These roads were called turn roads because the tractor would reach this spot and turn around to make the next pass in the field. Consequently, the road was nothing but dirt, and when it rained, buses did not take a turn road as the big bus tires would sink and be mired in the red dirt mud. In the spring when farmers prepared the land for planting, the tractor pulled equipment with round disks called a plow over the field to form the rows. For whatever reason this season, the farmer did not turn around at the road but continued across it. He must have raised the plow slightly, but zipper like grooves zigzagged across the road.
Our bus driver was notorious for taking corners on two wheels and driving above average speeds on these dirt roads. We never complained because it became our comic relief. We would bet one another whether he would slow down, and then we would laugh hysterically at one another about the bets we made and who would actually pay. He turned onto the road and immediately it was evident that the grooves were plowed into the road as our teeth began to click from the vibration in the bus. He did not slow down, and as the bus picked up speed, so did the vibration. At first we were delighted as we bounced around on the seats. The bus driver had a mirror, but he rarely looked at the back of the bus unless we were being obnoxious or rowdy. He did not look in the mirror that day. By the time we reached a spot in the road whereby he would slow down to stop and let the students out, the bus was bouncing so much that we were flying in the air. I tried to hang on to the seat bar in front of me, but I could not grasp it. I bounced so high that I hit my head on the school bus roof. Ouch! My brother who was always laughing about something had a look of surprise on his face as he sailed over the seat in front of him. He landed in the next row and turned around to see me patting the bump now forming on my head. "Wow! That was fun!" he whispered excitedly. He did not want our driver to know because of course he wanted to bounce out of his seat again as we made our way across the second half of the field. Someone a few seats in front of us spilled the beans, so the principal came back to check us and to see if we were injured. Although I had a severe headache and a large bump on the top of my head, I did not let him know. He returned to his seat and cautiously, slowly drove across the field. He returned to his normal speed once he turned onto a smoother road.
Our mother never knew what we encountered, but for weeks it was the talk of the school yard. Much has changed since I rode the school bus, and in fact, we stopped riding the bus shortly after that bouncing bus experience because my mother began working in a neighboring town, so she would drop us off at school in the mornings and pick us up in the afternoons. My own children did not ride the bus, and I have heard horror stories about what kids learn on a bus, so I am thankful that my children did not. Thank goodness I did not hear vulgarity nor was I subjected to bullying when riding the bus. I was also grateful when my mother began toting us because I disliked riding the bus when it was freezing cold or blistering hot, but I must admit that I found the bouncing bus experience fun and secretly wanted to relive it sans headache. Oh the joys of childhood that my children and my grandchildren will never experience. That might be a good thing! Lana
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