“Marjorie, look!  There’s a sign that says that the Middleton School District wants to hire you to be a school bus driver.”

“That would be a dream come true.”

“What kind of a dream?”

“My worst nightmare.”

“You can say that again.  I used to hate the bus.”

“I remember you telling me that back in high school.”

“I was so grateful when I got old enough to drive a car so that I wouldn’t have to ride the bus.”

“Think how awful it would be to be the driver having to put up with loud, unruly kids.  Wouldn’t you be happy to reach the bus stop where they’d get off?”

“Cass Vanderwiele was an older guy who used to drive my bus.  He often purposely did the route backwards to get the Oliver boys off earlier, and leave me till last.  When he got to my stop he’d turn off the motor and sit and visit for 15 minutes.  We were friends.

“I wasn’t one of the unruly boys.  My bus drivers appreciated me.  At the end of the year in grade school Arlo Horn presented me with a green, ceramic rhinoceros for being ‘best bus student.’  That’s the only time of which I’m aware that such an award was given out.  I treasured it.  I wish I still had it.  Somewhere along the line I lost it.  I think I gave it to one of our kids.  (Matt has it).

“But then there was my first bus driver.  I was a shy, little, six-year-old.  More than anything I didn’t want any attention.  I didn’t want anyone to notice me.  It was the rule back then that the bus driver should stop at the railroad tracks, and before driving across, send a runner ahead of him to signal that the coast was clear.  It was an honor to be asked to do the running, but I dreaded the time to come when I’d be asked to do it.  Everyone would be looking at me.  They might laugh at the way I ran or at the way I waved for the driver to go ahead and drive across the tracks.

“When the day finally arrived that I was asked to do the running, I refused.  That made the driver mad.  The next day he made me sit on the apple box that he kept up front beside his seat where he made the bad boys sit.  I was devastated.  I wasn’t a bad boy, but there I was sitting on the apple box with everyone in the world staring at me and knowing that I was a bad boy.

“Looking back on it, I’ll bet that I made that bus driver feel bad.  Can’t you picture that little boy sitting there squinting silently into the sun trying hard not to cry?  That driver learned his lesson.  I was never again asked to do the railroad crossing run.  I’d have refused again.  I don’t remember who the driver was, but I never had any use or respect for him after that.

“There’s another driver whose name I don’t remember, but who I can vividly picture to this day.  The kids on the bus were awful.  He’d put up with the noise and the rudeness as long as he could, but would be building up steam the whole time.  Suddenly he’d literally explode.  It was scary.  He’d slam on the brakes, screech to a stop, and come down the aisle yelling.

“’Who’s beating the iron!?,’ he shouted.  Of course no one was about to confess to the crime, so he accused my brother, Tim.  Tim wasn’t guilty, but he got kicked off the bus for three days.  I had no use for that bus driver, either.  I lived in fear of those explosive braking incidents, but I really can’t blame him.  I remember building up steam in the same way driving home from church with our station wagon filled with my own children.  I did my own share of braking and shouting.”