One of the more excellent things about living out away from the city as we did was the fact that we had to ride a school bus the seven miles from our house to school each day. Seven miles may not seem like a lot, but on a school bus, a mile is sort of the same as a year is to a dog. Every school bus mile is like seven regular miles and takes about seven times the amount of time to travel. On average our trips might take more than an hour each way to get us to and from school.
Actually, getting to school did not take a full hour because we were practically the last on the list of students Mr. Curry our bus driver picked up in the mornings. When my sister and I would get on the bus it would always be full. It was full mostly of junior high and high school kids and just a very few elementary school kids like me. Mr. Curry always put the smaller kids in the front most seats to keep the normal bus predation minimal. This area was also reserved for the more timid kids who could not deal with the law of the jungle mentality that went on in the back bus areas. Mr. Curry must have held strong Darwinian views because unless someone was doing something that caused actual bloodshed or would interfere with his driving he let us sort it out ourselves.
I never questioned the bus chaos because I had nothing to compare it to until one day Mr. Curry was running very late and another bus from another city school came to pick up the elementary students. This bus driver was a woman and she was very nice. She gave us a ride to where we could meet our regular bus. My sister and I were in shock when we got on her bus though. Each student was sitting quietly, two to a seat. They were not talking and in fact they even seemed to all have very good posture. My cousins who regularly took this bus to school told us that it was like that all the time and they had to behave while on the bus.
There was no such thing as behaving on Mr. Curry's bus. It was actually a lot of fun and I think that was what Mr. Curry was after. He was the father of several boys who now were grown up and in college. I think he felt if there was no spilled blood that things were fine. He was a rather nice guy as it turns out and I think he enjoyed some of our antics as much as we did.
The bus ride had many layers. The first layer was built out of noise. If you put twenty students together and don't make them obey any societal rules they are going to be noisy. The second layer came from the actual ride. Buses are not known for their shock absorbers so we were constantly bouncing in our seats. This seemed to stimulate a whole lot of scurrying about from the students and hardly anyone in the back of the bus kept to their seats. The third layer was the bus politics. There were school rules, there were home rules and there were bus rules of behavior. On the bus you didn't acknowledge any previous ties of friendship or family. You were assigned a role based on what the alpha bus riders' deemed you should have and you played it out. If you were judged meek, you were to stay to the front of the bus and never trespass into the back. If you were judged fit enough to be part of the pack you could be in the back of the bus, but the furthest seats were reserved for the most alpha pack members. Competition and in-fighting was harsh. There was a constant restructuring of the riders in the middle seats as bus social status was gained and lost. The last seats on the bus were consistently occupied by the same super alphas. These were the oldest of the riders and all of them were male and not at all above delivering physical consequences to any who challenged them.
We seldom saw everything that transpired on the trip to school because being one of the last to be pick up in the morning we usually came in after situations had already begun and sometimes tears had already been shed. This added an air of confusion to our ride to school as we tried to piece together through gossip what had transpired. My sister, being a middle row sitter got better gossip than I and since she refused to acknowledge my existence on the bus, I, being a front of the bus sitter, rarely ever knew what was going on.
There were other roles to be had on the bus as well. Mr. Curry would allow one of the front of the bus riders to work the door opening mechanism at each stop. This was a special privilege that was very coveted by us front seat riders. However, Mr. Curry reserved it for his favorites, usually the smart meek boys who had been trounced by the back of the bus boys and he was trying to salve their pride and remove the shame of being front of the bus riders.
I received a special privilege as well during rain storms. It seemed that the bus was always in a state of dis-repair and apparently Mr. Curry was responsible for fixing some of the things wrong with it. The windshield wipers were a constant problem. He had rigged the wipers to work using a push button control, but the only problem is that he had to push the button each time he wanted them to wipe. This made driving the bus in stormy weather very dangerous. His solution was to have me sit up in this small area next to the steering wheel and push the button as he needed the windshield clear. I got the special favor because I possessed the extraordinary ability of being very skinny which allowed me to squeeze into this tight space.
By far the best part of riding the bus was the trip back home. The atmosphere was more relaxed because everyone was happier now they were going home. There was still mayhem, but of a less aggressive sort. It also helped greatly that the bus which started out full of riders from the school gradually became more empty. As the more alpha members left, the bus hierarchy rules relaxed. Since we were some of the last to get home this allowed us to move towards the back of the bus as the trip progressed. Soon there would be casual conversations and gentle play as the beta bus group members relaxed and socialized. One of the best parts of the bus ride came just as the bus reached our destination.
By the time the bus reached our house there were very few riders. Since we were the last riders to exit on our road, Mr. Curry used the road leading to our acres as a turn around point. Our road was built out of shell which was a firm enough surface for a car, but under the assault of the heavy bus it had developed quite a dip on one side. When the bus hit the dip it would cause a bounce to the rear tires. This made an incredibly exciting ride for anyone sitting in the back seat. As the bus hit the dip the back seat rider would be thrown up into the air out of the seat. Usually this was only a lift of a couple of inches, but as the school season wore on and the dip increased, the back riders were catching more and more air. One kid claimed he hit the top of the bus once and considering the size of the dip and the speed that Mr. Curry took the turn it was quite possible.
I miss the bus rides. In some ways I also miss the bus politics. It was nice knowing where you stood, or sat, in comparison to the rest. I liked that sometimes you could get special favors just for being the right size. What I miss the most is that big bounce that meant I was home.
No comments:
Post a Comment