Ep. 305: This Country Life - Riding the School Bus

stories to share. Riding the school bus. Riding the school bus was both a pleasure and a pain, a service provided by the school district to allow every kid the opportunity to get an education. Some of the best lessons learned happen right there while the wheels go round and round. I'm going to tell you all about some of them. But first I'm going to tell you a story. My brother Tim was almost seventeen when the school superintendent tapped him on the shoulder in the lunch room and told

him to come to his office. Tim, being a highly decorated veteran of Shenanigan's buffoonery, assumed the worse and followed mister Tarkington to the office. Unsure as to what he'd been caught at, he said he kept his mouth shut and didn't say a word and would just wait until he knew what he'd been accused of before he started his defense or accepted his fate. He didn't want to fess up to something that they didn't know about yet.

That was a rookie mistake, and a rookie he wasn't. Tim, I want you to drive a school bus for me. Can you do that? Tim was a little surprised. He said, well, I can drive it, but I have football practice. Superintendent said, well, it won't be every day. Just when I need a substance. I'll talk to Coach Johnson. That'll be fine. If you want to do it. I'll pay it, just like I pay everyone else that drives one. Yes, sir, I'll do it.

Tim said he had no idea why he picked him out of the cafeteria that was filled with students, but picked him he did, and now he had a job that would put cash in his pocket. Tim Reeves, sixteen year old Warren School District substitute bus driver. Times were

different in nineteen seventy four. Tim's certification consisted of a driving test that started at the bus lot located on the north end of what was then actually filled where the Mighty Lumberjacks squared up against anyone brave enough to show up on Friday nights in the fall of the year. Just across the fence from the north end zone that separated the football field was the bus lot at the corner of Seminary and Bryant Street. It's still there today.

On the appoint Tim met Arkansas State Trooper Jody Roper. He was there for his test that consisted of him driving out of the bus lot and making one particularly difficult turn at the intersection a short distance from the lot. Once completed, he gave up his seat to other would be substitute drivers who were all adults, and they performed the same task. That was it. That was the test. Trooper Roper signed off on Tim's license and made it official.

Times were different in nineteen seventy four. Now. Tim showed up at the bus lot one afternoon for one of his first assignments after learning that he was needed to fill in for a driver who had gone home sick. When he got there, the bus supervisor assigned him to a bus that he'd never driven before on a route he'd never driven before, and told him before he left that remember the gas pedal had a tendency to stick

in the down position. He followed that up with grab a young and that lives the furthest from school, and they'll tell you where to turn, where to go, and you will make all your stops. I'll wait for you here. I see you back about five five pm. May sound like pretty late, but you've got to remember how rural Southeast Arkansas is, and even more so was then. There were a lot of kids to take home, and they

were stretched miles from town all over the county. Tim picked a kid up out of the group who said he knew all the stops at the first school he went to. He agreed to be his guide and would pass off the duty to another kid he pointed out to Tim, who would help him finish the few stops that would remain on his route once he got off the bus across the river. Tim's route from school to school across town was like clockwork, all the kids piling on him, grabbing a seat, his guide giving him updates

as he made his stops. When kids started getting off through the edge of town, down narrow streets and obscure neighborhoods, a guy telling him three will get off at the next stop, and they did. Two will get off here and they did. Keep going. You don't have to stop at this one. They ain't on the bus. He said. It was like having the first GPS. The kid remembered everything.

He said. He was right on time and almost done with the town portion of the route, and there were about twenty kids on the bus with one stop left to make before leaving the city limits. His guide said, three will get off at the next stop, but they won't get off until you turn right on that side street. Then you can back up and turn around and we'll head out of town. Tim said he was knee deep in third gear leaving that last stop, headed for the next one when he took his right foot off the gas,

only to realize it had stayed on the floor. It wasn't like he was painting the road red blazing down the street, but he could see the intersection where he needed to stop and turn for his next stop, and the fear in the eyes of the three kids who were seated across from him, who were supposed to get off at the spot they were approaching with ever increasing velocity.

Now in hindsight, Tim said, all I had to do was mash in the clutch and turn on my flashers, stop, reach down and pull the pedal free and go on. But that's not what I did, he said. In the heat of the moment, he could see there was no oncoming traffic in front or falling behind, So he bent over, grabbed a pedal, and with all the strength he could muster, he pulled it free from its locked position. It took

longer than he'd anticipated. When he sat upright, he saw that while he'd done an excellent job of staying properly aligned in the street, he was a lot closer to that stop sign and turned that he needed to make for his final st up in town. He said, it was actually a thing of beauty. Oh. He whooped that thing so sharply onto the side street, maneuvering that bus like a seasoned veteran stunt driver and stopping at the exact place his guide had told him to aim for.

The only negative was the physics experiment. The remaining kids were all unwitting participants of that rattled them around like beans in a coffee can. School Books and younguins were scattered all around inside the bus. Nobody was crying, and a quick look in the mirror had everyone up and moving around, gathering up books in each other. No one said anything, He said it was rather proud of how he'd handled the situation, even though it had scared him

pretty good. He was lost in thoughts, staring straight down the side street in front of him, patting himself on the back, and very thankful nothing worse had happened. Now he had to back up. It would need his guide to help him watch cars. He still had an hour or so driving left to deliver the country kids, the biggest portion of his route home. He looked up in the mirror and he was the only one left on

the bus. He looked across and down the street, and the dozen or so kids that were left took the opportunity to get off the bus right there. Even his guide had abandoned him. He said, I don't know how they all got home that day. All I know is they didn't ride with me, And according to my brother tem that's just how that happened. Riding the school bus for me was an eleven year pilgrimage to and from

school with my friends and some of my enemies. Why only eleven years and not twelve, because I worked like a man possessed during the summer time haul and hay, and every Saturday that I wasn't hunting, I was at the local sail barn, pushing cows and other livestock through the cell All winter I was trapping and selling fur. And I saved my money to buy a truck that would deliver me back and forth to school and away from that bus sized germ filled petri dish of pandemonium.

Every day was a battle between the forces of good and evil, and depending on what grade you were in, the amount of joy or pain you endured from the time you stepped on until you either walked off triumphantly or jumped off in fear for your life. Since eighteen ninety two, when the first school car was built up in Indiana, parents have been entrusting the welfare of their tax deductions to complete strangers who only had to possess a good enough sense of direction to find their driveway

in the schoolhouse. Twice a day. The school car, which was a wooden wagon with benches at the youngun sat in while staring at the exhaust pipe of a horse, ferried the little hoosiers two and from school one step at a time. I bet that made for an early

morning in a long afternoon. It reminds me of being in a summertime kindergarten like program in Rising, Arkansas and riding the bus home after a long and arduous day of learning my numbers and letters, learning how to share a space with folks I'd only just met, and the grace and how to conduct yourself when your classmates are losing teeth left and right and accidentally pooping the breeches in recess that and tire young and out to the

point of mental physical exhaustion. We lived several miles out of town into a five year old human of bus seats substituted nicely for a bed on a thirty minute commute. We were the last stop on the route at that location where we lived in so there was plenty of time to catch a few z's before we got there. Every day, mister Michael Lemmons, a teacher, and our bus driver had to get up and find the sea that I was snoozing in and wake me up to get

off the bus. That was in nineteen seventy one, advancing ahead a couple of years and in the fall during the regular school year. My brother Tim and the rest of us waited at the end of the driveway for the school bus, just like we did every other day, with one exception. Tim was holding a shotgun and wearing a shell vest he'd hidden in the covert at the end of our drive the night before. That's right, I said,

the shell vest and shotgun. The bus pulled up as if nothing was out of the ordinary, because really it wasn't. Tim and his friend Rusty Ramick, who lived back toward town, had conspired to go duck hunting instead of school, an elaborate scheme that hinged on one thing. Mister Lemmon's buying Tim's story. He'd been rehearsing all morning long. The bus slowed to a stop and the doors opened up to

Tim reciting his lines to perfection. Mister Lemmon's mama said, my grades were so good that I could skip school today and go duck hunting with Rusty. Can you let me off at his house? Mister Lemmons looked at Tim. He never changed his expression, and he said, Tim, as your shotgunloaded, No, sir, all right, sit here behind me, so me Our middle brother, Chuck and heavily armed Tim filed onto the bus, taking our regular seats, and Tim sliding into his spot behind the driver's seat, grinning like

a possum chewing on a wire brush. A few miles later, he stepped off the bus at Rusty's House and into the school skipping Hall of Fame. Two fourteen years year old boys had just hacked the school system into being there accomplice for a day of duck under on the Saline River. No one ever squealed and Mama never found out what happened on the bus. Stayed on the bus. But riding the bus was a privilege, not a right. There was a decorum to be followed in penalties for

when you didn't. My buddy Michael Roseman and his sister Stephanie, the dynamic duo behind the sun spot hunting lights, told me once they were riding the bus when a fight broke out in the back. The bus driver was famous for hollering at the kids to get your head back in the window, but the fight was started by a bully who terrorized everyone on the bus for so long that finally someone had taking a stand. The bullet started losing not only the fight but his reign of fear

over the rest of the students went miraculously. The emergency exit door opened when the bus stopped at a stop sign, and the bully fell or was pushed out onto the street. Seeing everything from the driver's seat in the big mirror that tells all, the bus driver drove away, leaving the bullet standing there, defeated in no other recourse but to walk the rest of the way home. Bullies usually get their due if they run a foul long enough. It is the course of justice and the way of the bus.

I remember another time we'd moved from Rising and started going to school in Warren. It was Tim's junior year and I was eight. We were riding the bus Number five, driven by one of the best men I've ever had the pleasure to meet, mister Moses Williams, known to everyone

as mister Mobs. He went to work in the school districts of Bradley County, Arkansas as a bus driver and mechanic in nineteen forty eight, and for the next fifty seven years, mister Mose piloted a yellow school bus, retiring in two thousand and five after driving what I estimated to be to the moon and back. Several times over and not once having an accident, not once. He wore navy blue Dickies work pants and a matching shirt and tucked neatly inside. His pants were always ironed and always clean.

A faded red shop rag hung from his back pocket, ready when needed. Time of year dictated whether his shirts were long and short sleeve. A black leather belt, polished black leather shoes, and a brown cap with small red and yellow stripes that followed the seams of worthy panels were sewn together. It was what he wore every day. He smelled of aftershave with a hen of diesel lava soap. Sitting next to him made me feel like a king.

I sat beside him both days on the flat spot of the console that housed all the rocker switches for the bus number five that controlled the lights beside the driver's side window. That was not a seat, not by any means was it intended for a child to sit on. But what it was was a place of honor for the boys that acted good and were respectful with the actions and manners. That was a lot of things, young and mischievous and somewhat feral at times, but at no

time was not ever disrespectful, especially to mister Mose. There were others, however, who were We're gonna call him Billy, and Billy was a year younger than Tim, but several grades behind him. Billy was a veteran bus rider of mister Moses' bus, and we were more or less the new kids. And while I had earned somewhat of a lofty position getting the set next to mister Mose and turn on and off the bus lights, Tim and Chuck sat close to the back, which seemed to be universally

where the older and the cool kids sat. Junior high and elementary students filled the gaps in between the high schoolers in the front of the bus, where I concentrated on when I was going to get to light up the blinking lights at the next stop. I wasn't concerned with what happened behind me. Mister Moles was. I can see him now, a small framed, lean man. You could see the muscles and the veins in his arms as he man handled the school bus down the road with

no more piasteering than a stick horse. Driving down the road and watching on coming traffic while glancing in the mirror that revealed what buffoonery Billy was up to, which was usually picking on someone smaller than him. Mister Mose was famous for saying, y'all tightened up, back there, tighten up now. It was as animated as he got it, but he didn't have to raise his voice much. It worked on the rest of us, like your grandpa getting on to you. Nobody wanted mister mos upset with him,

except Billy. He didn't care. You could see the frustration of mister Moses's face any time he had to get on to anyone. Why can't you just ride the bus and be good to your neighbor. Like mister Mose, he was the standard for which manners could have been taught. We all followed his lead, except Billy. He didn't care. The day of the incident started out as any other.

We'd all been on the bus for several stops on the way to school that morning, when on one of the last stops before kids started getting dropped off at the appropriate school, Billy got on with the rest of the kids at his spot. The bullying began immediately before

Billy had gotten into his seat. He was picking on a smaller kid who was a regular target of Billy's and no doubt dreading the next few minutes of terror before he could escape the confines of the bus Number five, and Billy's hour had apparently anticipated what was coming on, because he'd already setting out one y'all tightened up back there before Billy had sat down, with no more lights to turn off, since the next door was for me

to get off the bus. I looked back, and I watched Billy as he antagonized a kid who was in my grave, thumping him on the head and taking his books away from him. Billy laughing, his unkept, greasy hair swaying back and forth as he laughed his evil, tormenting laugh like a mad scientist on my classmate, coward of deceit in the fetal position. And I saw my brother Tim stand up as soon mister Moles saw it too. Tim had a hard backed textbook in his right hand,

and in two steps he was standing beside Billy. The rest played out like a dream. Tim cockt that book back like it was a cold peacemaker. Billy turned to look at him, still laughing at the little kid, but he was terrorizing, who now slumped down in the floor in the litter and goo. That seems to be the standard for every bus I've ever ridden on. With lightning precision and speed, Tim slapped Billy into the next zip

code with that book. The explosion of the blow plastered that greasy hair to the left side of his head, and the right side stuck straight out like he combed it with a fire cracker. There was an immediate silence on the bus, the echo of that blow resounding through the crowd. Tim reached and grabbed Billy by the shirt collar, and he pulled him close, speaking to him where only

Billy could hear what he was saying. All the while Billy rubbed the left side of his face that was now red as a barn door and imprinted with the thread pattern of that school book. Billy listened in tently him shoved him down in his seat when he finished talking, and walked back and sat down where he'd been. Mister Moles let out one more complimentary y'all tightened up back

there and never said another word, neither did Billy. As far as the Reeves Boys and Billy go, it would be twenty years later before he got another tune up. I decided Billy needed to go to jail one night for a warmth that had been issued for him, and I happened upon him during a traffic stop. Billy decided he would not go well. We settled at the old bus number five way, he got tightened up and he went. None of my kids have ever regularly ridden a bus

to school. Field trips and sporting events have been their only exposure, and I feel like it been somewhat cheated. The school bus is a great place for kids to learn life lessons, just like mister Moles taught us. Good actions are rewarded and the lesson Tim taught Billy bad actions have repercussion. And then there's all the other lessons you learn on there, like how you might wind up sitting with someone that you don't know, or for one reason or another you may not like because it's the

only open seat left. You're forced to coexist for a period of time someplace you'd rather not be. But in the end, your suffering or momentary discomfort didn't keep you from where you were going, which was your purpose for being there to begin with. As adults, we have to do that in our everyday lives, except we substitute the school bus our life goals and the struggles we end you're to reach them now. That's a great lesson and

one that you're never too young to learn. Thank y'all so much for listening to this country Life, Bear, Greece and the Render. There's a lot of great content available from Me to Eater. Jason and Dirk do some good stuff on they're calling over at the Cutting the Distance, and Tony Peterson has some good stuff coming out on his Foundation show y'all check them out when you get a chance. Until next week, This is Brent Reeves site and off y'all be careful