drives up the right side berm of the road
to illegally pass traffic
through a stop light into oncoming traffic
in his bus full of kids...
I've called the bus company and complained, but there he is looking like he was able to find his crack pipe this morning but not his comb, razor or bath.
The changing face of the school bus driver is disturbing, more and more look like newly paroled vitamin B deficient headphone wearing creepy crawlers.
My childhood was filled with the typical bus driver of the baby boomer children era...the farmer.
That's right, the local farmer...he worked over the fall and winter for extra money by driving school buses, the early morning hours fit his work schedule just right, plus he had the summer off to tend to his fields.
He was handy at fixing buses if they broke down, he knew how to fix and drive trucks, tractors, combines and cars, right? He knew how to maneuver those behemoths through traffic with a sense of the value of his cargo.
Our bus driver was Mr.Lehman...he had a farm and the school kids would visit it once a year and learn about farmlife...his wife would serve us lunch with all things from the farm...fresh churned butter, milk from the cows, eggs from the chickens, then we'd run about the farm and some boy always had to find a snake and terrorize the girls.
Mr. Lehman was my bus driver all my days at grade school, he drove Bus 107...and when the new fangled flat nose buses came out, (cutting edge in 1967) there was only one for our school available..a bright yellow and black shiny one went to Mr. Lehman.
We rode it with flat nosed pride..it was the coolest bus in the whole school district and it was ours!
Some Fridays, he would make an "unauthorized" stop at the nearby Dairy Queen on the way home.
We were the last 6 or so kids on the bus, and the Dairy Queen , as in all kid's dreams, was at the top of our hill.
Our parents would send us with extra ice cream money on Fridays...it felt like gold in our pockets. We would sit on the benches in the sun and eat our Dilly bars, then climb back on the bus and head home all sugared up for the weekend.
He knew us all by name and his signature send off was "Toodle-oo".
I felt safe and completely at ease on Mr. Lehman's 107.
He knew us, our patterns, our moods, if someone was not on the bus he was aware of it, he counted heads like a hen counts chicks.
On one particular tough day for me, I was feeling the weight of my small world and being uncharacteristically silent on the ride home... and it didn't go unnoticed.
When my stop came up, Mr Lehman looked directly at me and asked if I was alright.
Before I could answer, my daily torturer, older mean girl, Debbie K, perched in the back yelled, "Her parents are gettin' a divorce, everybody knows her Dad moved out!" and she laughed a big Ha Ha...
My eyes filled up with tears and Mr. Lehman's face fell in such a sad look that I remember it vividly 46 years later as I write this.
Remember now, divorce in 1967 in a small town,was not all that common...I was the only kid in my grade school whose parents were divorcing...and it was fodder for bullies.
I stood straight up, shoulders back, and declared in a voice edged with fake cheeriness that everything was fine, just fine, and shot a defiant glare back at Debbie K,
and so did Mr. Lehman.
His stare was so loaded with disapproval, it silenced her ... she looked at the floor, glancing up slightly to see the whole bus staring back at her in silent chorus, the low rumble of the engine provided a soundtrack.
Mr. Lehman turned back and winked at me and said "You are stronger than you know, look how tall you got right there...you ARE gonna be fine, just fine, now Toodle-oo Sweetheart!"
and with that, he cranked opened the door and I was off like a shot.
My walk up the driveway was a victorious and tall one, Mr. Lehman had been my champion and I stood up to Debbie K., and for the first time, in a long while, I felt like I was going to be just fine...I'll survive my parents divorce and any bully who feels the need to broadcast it.
It was assuring to know that there were good people around, like Mr. Lehman, looking out for the tender heart of a 10 year kid feeling the hurt of her family's demise. Anyone who would mock that was gonna get the stare down on the 107.
It's a shame that the farmers are disappearing from our local landscapes and our school buses.
It's also a shame that many of our kids will never know a bus driver like Mr. Lehman...I'm sure there are some great drivers out there, but lately, what I see is not encouraging.
So I thank God for my childhood bus experience and how lucky I was ...
I got to ride the new flat nose bus, eat Dilly Bars on Fridays, and have my first real showdown with a bully....and I walked a little taller every day all because of a kindness on the 107.
...
...
No comments:
Post a Comment