Reems of Dreams

Somehow I got through that first day.  It seemed that all the kids got to school and back.  I looked over my route sheet that night and thought about a bunch of things.  I thought about how this thing I was driving was quite a  piece of machinery. I recalled how they had taught me the weight of these rolling tanks. Someplace in between 26 and 30,000 lbs. in contrast to a car which averages around 3,000 lbs.  Facts are that school buses have about everything but a gun turret on the top.   They have a bunch of switches on your left panel.  They have a 2 way radio.  They have an air brake system that lets a big gush of air out at every stop that would knock over a big turkey.  They have a pre-trip requirement that reviews the working features of all the lights, the brakes, the fans, the defroster, the seats, the suspension system the tires and anything else that you can think of that might involve the safe transport of a human being.  This is performed before every morning run and every afternoon run.  In our district we transport thousand of kids every morning and afternoon.

They teach you to count the kids going on the bus and off and they teach you to watch the 7 mirrors very carefully.  That bus does not roll until all kids are accounted for. Seated and/or let off the bus and in their right place. You learn in the training that it is statistically much more safe to have a kid go on one of these buses to school that to transport them in a car.  I have one stop though were some how I did not see a kid out there waiting to be picked up.  I had heard from the other drivers that this is not all that rare.  I did open the door but no kid anywhere was in sight. So I went on. It was in my mind that night as were all the other things that come with a new job

Somehow though the next morning I went back to this same stop and there the kid stood in the front yard.  He had one arm raised the air and the other tucked in his coat.  I had been to France once and seen a few statues of Napoleon.    The kid kind of reminded me of Napoleon. It was even colder the second morning than the first.  It was close to zero that morning and I opened the door.  Napoleon did not move so I took the key out of the bus and went up to him in the yard.   He was looking at me with a fixed gaze so I grabbed him by the arm to wake him up and the arm cracked off, then the other arm came off as well.  By this time I was sensing a real problem so thinking the bus was warmer I loaded the pieces on the bus and called headquarters to report the problem.   About the time the dispatcher, a very organized lady with the name of Madonna was telling me I would have to go in to the parents and explain I had frozen their kid I said 10-4 and I woke from my dream. It was 3:30 in the morning. In the moment that it always takes to figure out it was a dream {more like a nightmare} I was overwhelmed with the task at hand.  I was thankful for the extensive training I had received.  And when I really did reach this stop on the next morning Napoleon waved at me.  I held up the sign to have him cross and get on the bus.   I told him I was really glad to see him.  I decided to spare him the details but I think it will be some time before that dream leaves my memory.

After my last stop I have a long run back to the yard.  By this time most all of the frost on the windows was gone.  I turned on the wipers to catch the last little corner of frost in the very corner of the window. In the east I could see the sun trying to make an appearance on the horizon.  For a moment I did think some more about my one trip to France.  I recalled seeing a Napoleon statue with one hand in his vest and the other arm broken off.  I recalled seeing the Alps and thinking about how cold it must be on the top of those mountains.  I recalled thinking about why and how it was that the arms and sometimes some other parts were broken off of some of these great pieces of art.  Somehow for me though these art pieces meant even more and remained in my memory longer thinking about how this happened.  {Did somebody break off the arms or did they just fall off one day?} So some dreams you never forget.  And a few of them just stand around for some time.  Others help you recall the sights of statues and mountains.  Still others make you be really careful on a school bus. On the second day of my driving Napoleon himself gave me a lesson.   I arrived a little early at work that morning and my boss asked me what I was doing there so early.  I told him that I was having trouble sleeping.  I decided to spare him the details.

No telling what I might see in these window the next time.  I will keep the wipers working and let you know. Till next time.

StM

Mad and cold Napoleon

Napoleon

A Swish and a Wish

A Swish and a Wish

I want to start something new.  As life's events have unfolded I have chosen to drive a school bus.  I am not sure if anyone on this planet will find that all that interesting.  I recall watching a show from my generation. I think the show was called “The Honeymooners”. In that show Ralph drove the bus and Art cleaned the sewers. I must tell you when I watched this show I somehow had the feeling that each of these guys had a rather menial job.  As the years have passed  my perspective  has changed.  I am starting to think that the more menial people of the world run the world a little more than fits the imagination.

Let me tell you a story.   Kind of an old one perhaps but it is about a school where the people who ran the thing had a big problem.  Somehow the  mirrors in the middle school girls restroom was covered with lipstick.  Turns out the girls were practicing kissing on the the mirrors. Not sure if they were looking for their first kiss but anyway they were practicing.  After some meetings on how to handle this for the staff,  each who made quite large educational assessments of the problem, a janitor came in and told all the educated staff that he might be able to solve this.

He gathered the girls in the restroom, he dipped his mop in the toilet and he ran the mop up and down the mirror till all the lipstick was gone. He informed them that this is how he dealt with this problem on a regular basis  He then told them they could practice kissing all they wanted.  There was not much lipstick on the mirror beyond that point.

The title of this blog is the “wipers on the bus”.  Oh how boring.  But the front windows on buses  are  huge and every day as I drive down the road I see a new perspective.  When I turn the wipers on I see even more. So the title of this thing is going to be the “The Wipers on the Bus”.  It is going to have some stuff about young people,  some stuff about politics, some stuff about  human relations, some stuff about astronomy,  a few things about theoretical  physics, some stuff about kids and mixed in between a few poems and few stories that my readers might find interesting.  I am also going to mix in a few things about family.

Somehow I started this job in the middle of the winter.  I read a few blogs on school bus driving (of which I could find 3 or 4.)  One of the better writers talks a little about how school buses sort of remind her of giant twinkies.  I passed the test to drive one of these things and on January 5 I climbed aboard for my first solo run on one of these monsters.  I got there a little early.  My numbered twinkie had the frosting removed from the inside. Instead mother nature had placed the frosting all on the outside. This bus was covered with about six inches of what we call here “lake effect snow”.    I have never been sure how “snow” and “lake effect snow” are all the different.  They both are white, they both feel cold, they both get packed down on the roads that make roads slippery and on this morning a gentle wind blew that obscured the west side of all the street signs with snow.  I really had no clue on where I was going.  I had driven the route the night before but everything looked different on this morning.

One of the interesting problems that my trainers had not prepared me for is the fact that school buses are not the fastest warming up animals on this planet. In fact the front windshield on this thing decided to kind of cloud over. The wipers, the defrosters and all the rest of the stuff on this bus decided that the frost and related film on this thing needed  to win some sort of victory.  Over the Christmas season we had spent some time with our  1 and 1/2 year old granddaughter and she had learned one song,  “The wheels on the  bus go round and round’.  The second verse is the “The heads on the bus go up and down” and the third verse is “the wipers on the bus go swish swish swish”.

It is my wish that the people that read this can feel the swish.  Please let the clear windows bring  to your lives something special.  

As the wipers on the bus make a swish that brings clarity

Allow me to share a some thoughts that have  a strange rarity

As you read let me concede some feelings from my heart

Allow them to reach you solely as my attempt at art

We know that at times we will never really agree

With the ideas put forth let my readers somehow see

With any ideas of some guy who drives a bus

Waves of thought and ideas that should not cause a fuss.

I looked over the inside of this frozen Twinkie.  I am not sure why but for a moment I sat in the front seat and said a prayer.  I asked God if he would grant to me the privilege of transporting a bunch of kids and do it safely.  I kind of talked with God a little about how I had somehow arrived at the age of 63 and now sat in a frozen Twinkie.  I also asked him if somehow on this morning of snow and 7 degree temperature if He might help me a little in getting this sucker to start.  Not really sure that God has time for the school bus world or really is involved that much in getting engines to start. But I turned the key to right and somehow this baby fired up and the start of something new was in motion.

Stay tuned.  I have a few remarkable things coming up.  Bus driving is interesting and the widows are huge and the mirrors are amazing.  You can see where you are going and you can see from where you came. Please enjoy some of the introspections as well as the reflection as seen through these  windows and mirrors.

More coming!

StM

Am I sure I want this job?

Frozen Twinkie