Memories of a School Bus Driver

Below is a video of the scene in our minivan this weekend. Mac, Corrie, Davey, and their cousin EJ were so excited to ride in the same car together. Ellis joked, saying that he felt like a school bus driver.

That comment made me think about some of the shenanigans from my many years of riding the bus to school: In Kindergarten my friends and I used to lay on the floor under the seats and slide to the front and back of bus when we went up and down hills. I remember looking up and yelling, "Hi!" to my friends as I passed under their seats! In middle school we made signs and put them up in the windows for other cars to read.

In high school we heard a story of a boy who "iced" his street one morning in the winter by spraying water on it in the middle of the night. Legend had it that the street froze overnight, making it too icy for the bus to make it up the hill the next day for school. That story had a Ferris Bueller-like effect on us.

One freezing cold, snowy morning, with that same story on our minds, we noticed some huge, icy snow boulders piled up near our bus stop. We also lived at the bottom of a very steep hill. We looked at each other and immediately started lining the icy boulders across the road. We exchanged excited laughs over our genius plan. It was foolproof!

I remember the nervous glances we exchanged as the rumblings of a school bus engine approached. Pretty soon the familiar yellow bus rounded the corner, and we all saw the look on the bus driver's face when she saw the barricade waiting for her. She was very, very,very mad. I think that's when we realized it was possible our plan might not be exactly foolproof.

A look of sheer determination came across the bus driver's face. She lowered her big, black sunglasses and put the bus in reverse. We heard her rev the engine. We heard the tires squeal. She went for it - full force into the line of snow boulders. We were mesmerized.

It took two or three attempts for the bus to make it through the barricade. At first we wondered, "have we really done it?!!!, but we could soon see that the snow was no match for the big bus tires. One by one, we boarded the bus in a defeated fashion, trying to avoid eye contact with the woman who had shattered our fragile dream. I could almost still hear a maniacal chuckle...

Suddenly I was back in the reality of our minivan, listening to absolute, unadulterated chaos in the seats behind me. I turned to look at the kids and saw that they were having so much fun, much like I did on so many of those school bus rides.