The Bus Stops Here

Since I’m sick today and can’t keep my mind on the novel I’m trying to finish, I might as well share my scattered thoughts with all of you.

I was reading the news on yahoo and came across a few stories that seem to be related in a strange way.

In Virginia a six-year-old boy missed the school bus and was so desperate to get there and do some finger painting or finish his diversity training sessions, that he took the keys to his mother’s car while she was sleeping and drove himself six miles down the road before crashing the vehicle into a utility pole. But instead of giving up, he began to walk the remaining mile to school, until the police took him into custody. They probably should have thrown the book at him, but instead they are pressing charges against his innocent parents for “child endangerment.” How could they have endangered the little brat? They weren’t even out of bed when he left for school? Aren’t all six-year-olds big enough to dress themselves, feed themselves, and get themselves on the bus without someone prodding them every step of the way?

Across the miles in Rhode Island another grand theft auto was being perpetrated. Two teen boys desperate not to be late for school, stole a car, parked it in the school lot, and ran to class before the bell rang. Police caught up with the hardened criminals after an eye-witness pointed the way down the hall to Mr. Brewster’s Science lab where he was teaching the kids to make pipe bombs. (I just made up that last part, but it seemed to fit)

Lastly, in Montana, we have your average school bus driver, kind, honest, maybe a legal citizen, perhaps has never been convicted of a crime, hopefully isn’t mentally unstable. But who’s gonna check? That takes time, which the education system does not have. Anyway, I guess they didn’t check to see whether she had a drinking problem either. She decided to pull the bus up to the nearest liquor store and stock up before picking up her sweet little charges. When a concerned citizen called police, they stopped the bus to check it out. The kindly bus driver told the kids to hide her stash of bottles at the back of the bus so the cops wouldn’t see them. Apparently, some little snot-nosed tattle-tale was on the bus as well, cause she got in big trouble. The school board is going to look into it!

Now you might not see the connection to these three stories, but in my near-unconscious state I am as close to Zen, or Yani, or Budapest than I’ll probably ever be, so here goes:

The children in this country, obviously in every state, are terrified of their bus drivers. They will do anything to avoid riding on that big yellow death trap with a driver who you wouldn’t even trust to take your mother-in-law to a Nursing Home. Can you blame them? I’ve seen the way some of them drive. Come rain, snow, sleet, hell, or high water, they will get those kids to school and off the bus so they can park at McDonalds and chat it up with the gang until the next Indie 500 route.

I know there are some sweet, old, retired folks driving buses part-time to help pay for the necessities of life that their social security doesn’t cover. But there are also those fringe element types who could definitely become volatile and dangerous individuals given the circumstances: “ex-pastors,” divorced moms, people laid off from Ford, college graduates who don’t know what they want to do with their lives, etc, etc.

So when you see another bus careening around the corner, children’s faces pressed desperately against the glass in an attempt to signal for help, remember that you may lose an hour of sleep, but you will gain love and a lifetime of thankfulness from your children if you get your lazy butt out of bed and take them to school. Or at least-- throw’em the keys.