I rode the school bus on occasion during elementary school. Always for the ride home. Never to school. Since I lived only a few miles from school, my bus ride was never all that long. Mrs. Davis was my bus driver. Bus #6. I had a few friend who rode that bus. I was the type to sit in the first few front seats. Never had enough guts to sit in the back. Didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. The back few seats of the bus was where all the trouble happened. The bus driver was always yelling at those in the back few seats.
So next came junior high. I rode the bus 80% of the time then. To and from school. That was a real pain since it seemed to take forever to get to school with all the stops. We got picked up at 7AM and arrived to school at around 8AM.
Our bus was truly an experiment in race relations. We started off in the suburbs where we’d pick up the white kids. Then on to Needmore Road to pick up the black kids. Race relations where never all that good on the bus. But no one was carrying a rebel flag or anything. I think we got along as best as anyone. Being the first group that was picked up, the suburban white kids sat in the back, unless you were like me who just wanted to stay away from all the trouble. I sat in the front. That left the middle for the black kids.
The ride home was a free for all. Whoever got on the bus first got first dibs on where to sit. I sat in the front. I carried my trombone with me and got made fun of for being a band geek and being forced to carry around a over sized flute for those uninformed.
Our bus driver was Mary Ann. She reminded me of Whoopie Goldberg. She liked to tell us she was 52 years old, but she looked 20something. She told us to call her “Freddy” as in Freddy Krueger so that she’d come after us with her fingernails. I guess it helped that she knew some of the kid’s parents personally and she could potentially use it as a bargaining tool to get good behavior.
I can remember on the last day of school we had a paper wad fight just as we got out of sight of the school. Everyone had their old papers from school. And they were more than happy to make them into paper wads when our bus driver gave her approval. Great fun. By the end we were knee-deep in paper wads.
Then there were the bus rides in high school. During my sophomore year I caught rides with friends to and from school. I had band after wards so I had to find my own way home on those days. Usually it was my mom who picked me up then. Things changed the summer before my junior year when I got my drivers license. So my bus riding days for the most part were over. Except for those band trips.
We rode the big yellow buses on our band trips. There were always 3 of them. We signed up beforehand on the desirable bus. As I remember it, bus #3 was where you wanted to be. Bus #2 were for drummers, while bus #1 was for those people who signed up at the last minute. It was always chaos on those buses. Between the hassle of trying to change into your band uniform and getting ready for the band contest, it was a wonder we had time to think. And I can remember those buses could get very cold in the wintertime.
It has been a while since I actually rode a bus. About the only time I ride buses is on those Ocoee rafting trips where they load you onto the buses to take you to the river. Roll down the windows going down. Roll them up coming back. Things can get cold when you’re in river soaked clothes.
Those are my bus experiences. Nothing outstanding or anything. Just the bus ride experiences.