School Bus

'Tis the season of the bus.

I hear them every morning. The first one stops in front of my house at 5:45 to pick up Jordyn. Hearing the lumbering yellow machine screech to a stop--apparently squeaky brakes are standard equipment--its engine idling loudly, seeing the red warning lights come on and watching Jordyn disappear into its dark interior takes me back...

When I was older, I looked forward to the social opportunities being a bus kid afforded me. The chance to really experience the changing of the Michigan seasons as we awaited its arrival, sometimes excruciatingly. The thrill of being entertained by the kids who thrived on entertaining--like my son, who was suspended from riding for a week when he was in first grade because the kids laughed when he jumped up out of his seat with every bump. He enjoyed their laughter so much, he couldn't stop, even when the driver told him to knock it off. Yes, I would have been one of the ones laughing.

But in the beginning, my stomach churned with anxiety as I said goodbye to my family and climbed aboard that big yellow monster. I'm sure I saw myself as a sort of "bus pioneer," forging a trail for my younger siblings, who, in a couple of years, would be able to ride fearlessly because of my presence.

Back then, all grades rode together, first through twelfth, and I was enormously intimidated by the "big kids," who seemed so large and in charge. I don't know what I thought they would do to me, a nearly invisible first-grader, but my fear was real. Mom appointed one of the older boys in the neighborhood to be my guardian bus angel. Thankfully, he was there the day I needed him.

That afternoon I was riding quietly in my seat, being the quintessential rule-follower, when a boy behind me decided to place his chewed up wad of bubble gum right on top of my pony tail. Feeling something, I put my hand up, and came away with a sticky pink mess stringing from my fingers. Billy had seen it happen, and he sprang into action on my behalf. Other kids were laughing, but Super Bill (as I like to imagine him now, his shiny blue cape flapping in the breeze from the open windows) yanked the clod out of his seat and hit him right in the face. Amazingly, the bus driver acted like he hadn't seen a thing in that big rearview mirror he was always looking into.

When I got home, our elderly babysitter took it upon herself to cut the chunk out of my hair with Mom's sewing scissors, leaving me with a patch of short prickly stubble right in the middle of my head. Mom probably had to buy new scissors. I don't remember if the thug ever rode the bus again. My hair grew back, of course, and I grew up and out of my fears. I take comfort in knowing that while many things have changed since my youth, school buses are are still much the same.