I have never really understood Shakespeare that way I maybe should. Never been able to get in to it all that much. The world might look down on those who have never been able to grab his artistry but it seems like for now I have to be one of those. About all I have from him is "does not a rose smell as sweet by any other name?". I kind of get this one but then I figure somehow I always kind of knew that.
Speaking of different terms, when you enter the bus driving world you become exposed to many of them. I talked the other day about some of the terms you hear on the bus. Today though I want to talk about some of the things I have noticed in the bus world. I am not sure Jeff Foxworthy and Shakespeare should ever appear in the same writing but for the purpose of this blog I must put their ideas on the same page.
Foxworthy made himself famous with what I might call his "redneck jokes". You might be a redneck if your daddy stares at the orange juice can in the morning because it says concentrate". 'You might be a redneck if your house has the ability to get flat tire ." "You might be a redneck if the sport you enjoy the most consist of all left hand turns." And on and on. So far I have noticed a few things about bus driving. As the driving of one does gets more experienced you start to find changes in habit. So far there are a few things that stand out for me. You might be a bus driver if you find your car stopping at Railroad tracks and opening the window. You might be a bus driver if you know what a tire buddy is. You might be a bus driver if you know what a pre-trip routine is. You might be a bus driver if you know what 10-4 means. You might be a bus driver if you do not spend a lot of time in the petite clothing section in clothing stores. You might be a bus driver if you try not to sign up for a route with middle school kids. And so on and so on.
One of the things I have learned is that the closer you follow a routine the better it will be for both you and your passengers. What the people do who train you for a job such at this is that they work you in to a routine and eventually you find yourself taking driving more seriously than perhaps I had ever thought of before. One of the nice things is that because of the training and some of the related difficulties in prepping and driving a bus with kids on it you find yourself no longer thinking about certain things in the driving area. Those become part of the woodwork. Fact is that packing 60-70 kids on a bus is a huge distraction and the better you have the routine down the better you will do.
I had a grandfather who was a mechanic. He never could figure out why mechanics did not make as much as doctors. His argument was that mechanics had to work on all sorts of brands and models and doctors only had two. He figured that pipe organs in the backs of churches were a bad idea because if God would have wanted them put there he would have put our ears on the other way around. He always was thankful that God put our noses on our face the way He did because if they were upside down we would potentially drown every time it rained, that is unless we blocked out the rain by holding our fingers over our nostrils when it rained, which could present a danger to the eyes if we ran in to anything when it was raining. I am not sure how he developed all these fine ideas but somehow when he presented them in years gone by they made some sense to us.
I checked with one of our drivers the other day and I told him that I sensed a feeling of relief when I dropped off that last kid and the bus was empty. This person told me that after many years of driving he felt the same way yet today. I must tell you though that the trip back to yard after you are empty feels pretty good. For me it gives me some time to think.
I was thinking on one of these trips back to the bus yard about Mark Twain. He was once asked who he thought was the dumbest guy he ever knew. He thought about it and said that for him it was Noah. He reasoned that the way he figured it Noah had a chance to forever get of rid of mosquitoes and sure enough he brought a couple of them on board.
Another person I was thinking of is Thomas Jefferson. Have you ever heard about the Jefferson Bible. I have a copy of it. What he did is chop out all the violence and anything controversial. At least when you read it you do not have to ask the question of why all the violence in the Bible. For me right now on the trips back to the yard I sometimes wonder if somehow my Grandfather and Jefferson and Twain sometimes get together. All of their ideas on these fronts make about the same level of sense.
So the question we are left with is "to be or not to be". For me right now I would just as soon reside in the "to be" catagory. Through the huge wipers on my bus, the people I work with, the related challenge, the promise of the spring, the humor that comes with life, the power of the engine, the promise of youth and thoughts that come when the job is done, a word comes out and that word is "satisfaction". And it cannot not be sweeter if it is called by any other name.
So maybe this Shakespeare guy had the right idea. In the adventures of human life, in the work catagories in which we all spend our time, in the relationships we all form, I am somewhat certain that we all can give thanks "to be". It somehow beats all of the alteratives.
StM
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Saturday, February 7, 2015
A Nerd a Word a Twerp and some Syrup
I was somewhat thankful the other day when one of the kids who climbs on my bus motioned backwards. He said that the kid behind him had called him a twerp. I had not herd this term for many years. But somehow I was glad at my age that it had survived.
When you are driving a school bus one of the things that you learn is that over the years not all that much has changed. When you listen to all things that are going on you hear some interesting words. Perhaps for me one of the most interesting things is the fact that middle school kids have adopted some of the same words that I have always known,. The words twerp, prick, dubie and more are ones that I had not heard for a while. I spent some time thinking about what may be the difference between a nerd and a twerp a prick and a dubie.
A twerp I think is someone who is just sort of agitating. Perhaps a nerd is someone who deals in sort of the Star Wars world. A land of zeros and ones, a land of not understanding how parents can not get the idea of files, x-box, computer games, domains, passwords and all the other stuff that goes with this. I have never understood the word prick all that well. It somehow has within its pronunciation an idea. I think at one time it was meant to symbolize a male organ but over the years it has just learned to stand alone. When it is spoken everyone just sort of knows what it means
Anyway, when you are driving a bus all of these terms hit your ears at a certain point. I have sort of been glad the word twerp has survived. It is sort of something from my generation which I think yet today fills a exacting description of some human behavior.
I had a kid crawl on the buss the other day. Very well behaved and very nice. He had been in a controversy with some other kid. Not sure the makings but some somehow whatever interactions had resulted in a fight. I asked this kid why he had chosen to have variance with this person and he answered me very quickly. He said in no short terms, (and for this I want to tell you the summation is the combination of a donkey and something a well digger might dig.} In case if I have young readers let me forever refer to this as **********.
Later that day I pulled up behind a car. This dude had a bumper sticker. On the top I could see it said "Jesus Loves You." When he pulled a little forward I could see the words," Everyone Else Thinks you are an ***********." I somehow thought about these words. Not sure why but I might guess that somehow they hold a prophetic message for most of us. Not for all perhaps but sometimes for me the bumper sticker fits. It somehow is in the syrup. Not sure all that deserved but somehow still a little interesting.
Anyway, the thngs you hear on the bus represent the crossstich of life. The wipers on the bus bring sometimes some clarity to where you are going. The mirrors have some impact and feeling on where you have been. And in the ears you might have to hear some memories of the terms and recalls of a life that exist within all of our memory. A twerp, a nerd, a word and some syrup. Held within the sticky nature of the syrup are the words that will probably last for a while yet. I am sort of glad they have survived. Part of the world as I see it through the wipers on the bus.
Your Friend,
StM
When you are driving a school bus one of the things that you learn is that over the years not all that much has changed. When you listen to all things that are going on you hear some interesting words. Perhaps for me one of the most interesting things is the fact that middle school kids have adopted some of the same words that I have always known,. The words twerp, prick, dubie and more are ones that I had not heard for a while. I spent some time thinking about what may be the difference between a nerd and a twerp a prick and a dubie.
A twerp I think is someone who is just sort of agitating. Perhaps a nerd is someone who deals in sort of the Star Wars world. A land of zeros and ones, a land of not understanding how parents can not get the idea of files, x-box, computer games, domains, passwords and all the other stuff that goes with this. I have never understood the word prick all that well. It somehow has within its pronunciation an idea. I think at one time it was meant to symbolize a male organ but over the years it has just learned to stand alone. When it is spoken everyone just sort of knows what it means
Anyway, when you are driving a bus all of these terms hit your ears at a certain point. I have sort of been glad the word twerp has survived. It is sort of something from my generation which I think yet today fills a exacting description of some human behavior.
I had a kid crawl on the buss the other day. Very well behaved and very nice. He had been in a controversy with some other kid. Not sure the makings but some somehow whatever interactions had resulted in a fight. I asked this kid why he had chosen to have variance with this person and he answered me very quickly. He said in no short terms, (and for this I want to tell you the summation is the combination of a donkey and something a well digger might dig.} In case if I have young readers let me forever refer to this as **********.
Later that day I pulled up behind a car. This dude had a bumper sticker. On the top I could see it said "Jesus Loves You." When he pulled a little forward I could see the words," Everyone Else Thinks you are an ***********." I somehow thought about these words. Not sure why but I might guess that somehow they hold a prophetic message for most of us. Not for all perhaps but sometimes for me the bumper sticker fits. It somehow is in the syrup. Not sure all that deserved but somehow still a little interesting.
Anyway, the thngs you hear on the bus represent the crossstich of life. The wipers on the bus bring sometimes some clarity to where you are going. The mirrors have some impact and feeling on where you have been. And in the ears you might have to hear some memories of the terms and recalls of a life that exist within all of our memory. A twerp, a nerd, a word and some syrup. Held within the sticky nature of the syrup are the words that will probably last for a while yet. I am sort of glad they have survived. Part of the world as I see it through the wipers on the bus.
Your Friend,
StM
Monday, February 2, 2015
Lazy and Crazy
I am not sure why but somehow Michigan Winters can make you a little lazy. I was thinking though that somehow this winter is making me a little crazy. I am not sure how or why I started to think about this but right during the super bowl the automated thing on my phone told me that they had cancelled school today and so I have nothing to do but write a few words. Here they are:
One of the things that happens on the route I drive is a certain point where I have a drive to the east about 5 miles. I have been noticing that on the stops I have that the sun becomes more prominent a little earlier each day and so I started to wonder about about a few things. On these school buses if you mash a little on peddle they register around 45 MPH. Somehow I wondered one day how fast I was really going. I figured it this way. I figured that this planet we live on must be rotating to the east. Somehow when the sun appears at different times it must be true that that the earth is revolving at a certain rate. That night I did a little work on this and found that if I was driving this bus on the equator the speed of rotation would be near 1000 MPH. If on the 45th parallel around 500 MPH and if on the top of north or south pole just a gentle turn everyday day of 0 MPH. All this would do is make you dizzy and perhaps a little frozen if you were on the north or south pole.
But then I thought about something else. I figured that the earth must be rotating around the sun and it does so every year. With the distances involved around the the Sun you have to travel very near 66,000 miles per hour to accomplish one rotation per year. On an even greater scale the Sun holds the planets in its orbit and the sun rotates around the Milky Way every 250 thousand years and to do so it needs to travel at 23 million miles per hour.
I am not sure what to do with all of this. I figured that as long as I was driving to the east I could at least subtract the 45 MPH that I was driving. I stopped by the bus yard the other day. A cop was outside. He was watching his radar screen. He kind of looked like one of these guys who when he was a child someone stole all of his toys. He invited me to sit in his front seat. An alarm went off and his radar told him that a car was traveling 60 in a 40. When I got done explaining all this to him he decided to let the guy go.
Just food for thought, a little crazy and perhaps a little lazy, and perhaps a little note on how fast we are going. My thought here is that slowing down might be a good idea. My other thought is that God is a pretty big guy. Somehow he holds the world in his hand and He does not make us all the scared to be going 23 million miles per hour minus the 45 of the school bus.
StM
One of the things that happens on the route I drive is a certain point where I have a drive to the east about 5 miles. I have been noticing that on the stops I have that the sun becomes more prominent a little earlier each day and so I started to wonder about about a few things. On these school buses if you mash a little on peddle they register around 45 MPH. Somehow I wondered one day how fast I was really going. I figured it this way. I figured that this planet we live on must be rotating to the east. Somehow when the sun appears at different times it must be true that that the earth is revolving at a certain rate. That night I did a little work on this and found that if I was driving this bus on the equator the speed of rotation would be near 1000 MPH. If on the 45th parallel around 500 MPH and if on the top of north or south pole just a gentle turn everyday day of 0 MPH. All this would do is make you dizzy and perhaps a little frozen if you were on the north or south pole.
But then I thought about something else. I figured that the earth must be rotating around the sun and it does so every year. With the distances involved around the the Sun you have to travel very near 66,000 miles per hour to accomplish one rotation per year. On an even greater scale the Sun holds the planets in its orbit and the sun rotates around the Milky Way every 250 thousand years and to do so it needs to travel at 23 million miles per hour.
I am not sure what to do with all of this. I figured that as long as I was driving to the east I could at least subtract the 45 MPH that I was driving. I stopped by the bus yard the other day. A cop was outside. He was watching his radar screen. He kind of looked like one of these guys who when he was a child someone stole all of his toys. He invited me to sit in his front seat. An alarm went off and his radar told him that a car was traveling 60 in a 40. When I got done explaining all this to him he decided to let the guy go.
Just food for thought, a little crazy and perhaps a little lazy, and perhaps a little note on how fast we are going. My thought here is that slowing down might be a good idea. My other thought is that God is a pretty big guy. Somehow he holds the world in his hand and He does not make us all the scared to be going 23 million miles per hour minus the 45 of the school bus.
StM
Thursday, January 29, 2015
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
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
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| Mad and cold Napoleon |
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| 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?
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| Frozen Twinkie |
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