Recently, I was at my mailbox when I heard the familiar low rumble of a school bus. I stood watching it drive past. A young female driver sat behind the wheel, map in hand, learning her route before school begins. I waved and she waved back, giving a bright smile.
I’ve always had a soft spot for bus drivers. Maybe it’s their having to navigate these huge, cumbersome machines on our twisty Connecticut roads. Maybe because of the winter that lies ahead with its sudden storms that blanket streets in snow and ice.
Maybe because I can’t imagine doing a job with screaming third graders behind me or middle school students mooning each other, or God knows what in the back seats of the high school buses. I can’t imagine the responsibility.
Everyone has a bus story. Mine occurred when I was a freshman in high school. Our bus engine failed while climbing a steep hill.
We were at the top when the brakes stopped working. Even the cool kids in the last row grew silent as the bus started sliding backwards with the driver frantically pumping brakes, which didn’t work.
We were picking up speed, heading toward a busy intersection when the driver jack-knifed the rear into bushes on the side of the road. We rocked from side to side, but the bus stayed upright.
Before that day, I hadn’t taken much notice of who drove us around. But that morning I really looked at her. She was a heavy-set woman, middle-aged, with frosted blond hair. She could’ve been anyone’s mother or even grandmother.
Her face was red and blotchy from fright. She struggled to open the door since it was caught in branches and finally said in a quaking voice, “Everyone please get off.”
We filed away, quiet and shaken, dispersed to find other ways to get to school.
Today at the mailbox, I watched that yellow bus rumble by and thought of that woman so long ago whose fast thinking probably saved us from a bad accident.
I think of all the drivers who brought me, and later my children, home safe in pouring rain and ice and snow. Most were pleasant people who did their job well, without much fanfare except for home-baked holiday cookies or gift certificates.
Today if I’m on the road and a bus passes, I always wave, my way of saying thank you.
And most of the time, they give a friendly wave back.
How do you feel about school bus drivers? Comments are always welcome and if you like, please share.
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Meryl Baer
I walked to school and envied the kids who got to ride home on the bus. You were so lucky to avoid an accident, and that driver deserved a medal!
Laurie Stone
Meryl, Yes, must admit, the bus was mostly good. Until that day.
Beth Havey
I never had to ride a school bus, but with all the times I have BEEN that bus, I came to realize the responsibility of caring for my child, yes, but then the children of others. Thank God, nothing every went wrong. It is being an adult and realizing how precious life is that matters. Thanks.
Laurie Stone
Beth, You’re right. Looking back on our childhood or our kids’ childhoods, it’s amazing we all survived.
Mona Andrei
Geez louise! What a story! My school bus memory is nothing like that. My brother and I, in elementary school at the time, were on a bus with high school students because we lived out of the way. Thinking back, the high school students looked so old to me.
Laurie Stone
Mona, They probably looked like adults. As long as they were nice to you, that’s all that mattered.
Alana
I think a similar thing happened to my husband back when he was in high school. Bus drivers are heroes to me, too, for so many reasons. As for me I never rode a school bus while in school. I was able to walk to elementary and junior high and took mass transit (New York City) to high school. Alana ramblinwitham
Laurie Stone
Alana, Wow. I can’t imagine taking the subway or city bus to school. That would be a new world for me.
Rebecca Olkowski
Neither I nor my kids took the bus to school except for field trips because we lived close enough to walk. But, I take a city bus every once in a while. Depending on the area of town it can be wild. I feel for the drivers who put their lives in their hands every day.
Laurie Stone
Rebecca, Yes, it looks like such a hard job, no matter where you do it.
Diane
I was watching some of my grands get on the bus a few days ago and quietly saying a prayer for their safety at the hands of their driver. I am tearfully grateful for those people who cheerfully take on the care and education of my littles. May they find a special place in Heaven. But not too soon!
Laurie Stone
Diane, Yes, I’m sure your roads are like ours. Treacherous in the winter. I always say a prayer.
Rita
I have a lot of memories riding the school bus. We had to get out and walk across a one-lane wooden bridge because the kids and the bus was too heavy. It’s a miracle none of the kids ever fell off the bridge into the river, especially during winter snow and ice.
Laurie Stone
Rita, Yes, all the times we look back on life and think, there but for the grace of God.
Jennifer
One of my friends works as a bus driver in New Hampshire. She deals with those hills and mountains with chains on her tires in winter but that doesn’t scare her at all. One of her scariest times was when she let off a child and she noticed a driver that wasn’t slowing down coming behind her. She managed to signal the child before he crossed the road in front of her bus and watched as the pick-up truck sped into the other lane and raced past the bus, clipping her stop sign. If she hadn’t stopped that child from crossing the street, he would have been killed. A bus driver has to be alert at all times to things inside the bus and to things outside the bus.
Laurie Stone
Jennifer, God bless that woman. I can’t imagine someone that horrible, putting a child’s life in danger.
Carol Cassara
I think they do a great service…friendly faces when I was a kid. And yes, very unnerving!
Laurie Stone
Carol, They were mostly friendly faces. Plus, you have to have nerves of steel, especially on our winter roads.
Linda Kinsman
I still save at the bus drivers I see on our rural roads as a way to thank them as well. They got my kids to and from school safely for many years. They deserve high pay and respect.
Laurie Stone
Linda, They really are such unsung heroes.
Diane
This just makes me cry. All those who quietly serve, day-after-day. Bus drivers being just one of the vast army of service personnel that does everything from cooking to cleaning to carting.
I am even more grateful for them as this dreadful pandemic grinds on. And on. And on…
Laurie Stone
Diane, So true. There’s an army indeed of those who quietly help us get through our days.
adela
I got on the wrong bus in first grade. It was an exciting experience. Luckily, the bus driver kept her cool and helped in the effort to get me home.
I, too, feel for the drivers who now must battle COVID-19 as they get their charges to school. Most of the contact tracing here is showing transmission on the buses, which are too crowded for proper social distancing.
Laurie Stone
Adela, You must have been a scared little girl on that bus, but you seem like such an upbeat person, even then you made the best of it! Yes, I can’t imagine being a school bus driver and Covid just adds another horrible layer.
Lauren
I was so thrilled to see my kids’ favorite bus driver (all the parents love her too) back driving, I trust her to keep the kids safe so I feel much better this year. It’s so different but I am relieved.
Laurie Stone
Lauren, I always found something comforting in the steadiness of the bus drivers. They play such an important role.
Diane
This brought tears today, Laurie. Their job has always been so necessary and definitely unsung. But now, I think of those drivers bravely strapping on a mask and greeting kids (AKA: Petrie dishes) and then being trapped together with them throughout the ride to school in what could easily be a Covid stew. It just makes me shake. I thank God for those wonderful people. And for those waiting in much the same situation AT the school. I guess I’m just teary today…
I miss real life.
Laurie Stone
Diane, I think we’re all teary lately. Just read that several teachers in the US have died since school began because of Covid. Its a nightmare and don’t see an early exit ramp. You stay strong. We’ll help each other.
Antionette Blake
It has been so long for me as well as my kids, but I do remember the first bus driver in our new neighborhood who would visit the homes of each student so that the kids would know her before the first day of school.
Thought that was a kind gesture, she passed away many years ago, but everytime I see a yellow school bus, I think of Mrs. Mannering – circa 1996
Laurie Stone
Antoinette, That was so sweet of that woman! Bus drivers really are, many times, the unsung heroes of our children’s school experience.
Diane
I spent all of my school years riding to and fro in one big yellow behemoth after another. Great memories all. Falling asleep only to wake up at the bus driver’s house. Doing homework amid the bumps and rattles so that my teachers all thought I had lousy writing. Getting on in the dark. Getting off in the dark. Our engine failed once or at least lost power and all of us had to get out and push the bus up Angel’s hill. (Aptly named and absolutely true!) So many different drivers. My favourite was Dick Sabey. Wonderful, wonderful man!
So. Many. Memories.
They do not get the appreciation and applause they deserve!
Laurie Stone
Diane, Sounds like we had similar bus experiences. You guys were indeed lucky on Angel’s Hill!
Lee Gaitan
I think it is one of the most important, yet most thankless jobs in the world. Why do we not value more highly the people we entrust our precious children to? I agree, wave and say a prayer for bus drivers!
Laurie Stone
Lee, Especially on Connecticut’s windy roads that get very slippery in the winter. Can’t imagine.
Skipah
The days of the back of the bus! Illegal trading of toys, throwing books at each other, oh how the memories are flowing!
Laurie Stone
Gary, I can only imagine what you were like at the back of the bus. I see what you’re like at the back of the blogging group… very entertaining, to say the least.
Laurie Stone
Thank you, Ann.
Ann Donnelly
That was a good story. Very evocative.