School Buses

While I occasionally rode my bike to Alcott Elementary and Peabody Middle School, the big yellow bus was it. From kindergarten through my senior year in high school, I took the school bus almost every day. In high school, there were two different locations where I could catch the bus—the corner of Elm and Wood meant I had to be there by 7:00 a.m., but the corner of Wood and Nashoba Road gave me an extra 30 minutes to get my act together at home.  

Still, I usually preferred the early—and first—pickup because it offered a choice of seats. Toward the back was where you wanted to sit in the winter so you could be near the heater that wheezed and groaned to keep us warm. The very back was a crowd favorite if you liked the extra bounce going over the speed bumps in the school driveways—that got old once we got old. Getting on first also meant that you didn’t need to find someone willing to let you sit with them—children on school buses are just as bad as adults on Amtrak who stack the empty seats with books or bags while feigning sleep or looking away.  

Daily trips to and from school on “Big Bertha,” as Mr. Curran, the transportation director, called them, provided ample time for us to misbehave. We got to meet him when he would climb onto our bus to remind us about the proper way to sit and act on one of his vehicles. He was a mountain of a man, and he rarely had to repeat himself. Headphones and smartphones weren’t a thing, so sitting with our two feet on the floor and watching the world go by was what he expected of us—a high bar for fidgety school children. 

About a week ago, I saw a school bus while running an early-morning errand. It shouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy, but then it hit me that I hadn’t seen one in over a year. Rather than nostalgia, I realized I felt a sense of relief—relief that the familiar rhythm of the school year was returning, even if it was already April. 

These past thirteen months have been anything but normal, and these ‘first’ days as we have reopened and expanded our on-campus offerings have felt both ordinary and surreal—the competing harmonies of student and teacher voices filling the nooks and crannies of our buildings again. Parents are racing back to campus to drop off forgotten lunches and musical instruments, and misplaced sweatshirts have sprouted like spring flowers across the campuses. We have done a lot of watching the world go by over the last year and wondering when it would slow down enough for us to match its rhythm and step on. We will never take these days when we come together for granted again, and I hope we will always make space for someone to sit down—our connection to each other is too important.

Be well,

JWB