Do You Know the Look?

Last week I wrote about some training a Registered Dietitian presented at my full-time job. For those of you who have followed this blog for a while, you know that I work more than one job. In fact I work three. When referring to each job, I try to avoid saying, “My second job.” This is because I do not prioritize any job as more important than another by assigning it an arbitrary number.

Let me share with you about my job as a school bus driver. I am not just a school bus driver, but a substitute school bus driver. Consider that fact for a moment. Remember back to your days in school. Remember two important facts. First, the class always took advantage of the substitute teacher. Second, students were always livelier on the bus than they were in the class room.

Now consider the fact again: I am a substitute bus driver.

Thankfully, most of the students I have encountered are very well mannered. However, I have had to speak to the students on occasion.

Allow me to also interject that if you combine all the years my daughters have graced this planet, I have well over 50 years of parenting experience, and that is notable for a 25 year old guy like me.

Consequently, I have mastered the look and growl of a father. It is a skill passed to me from my father, who received it from his father, and so on.

When students are misbehaving, I will pull the bus over and park safely. Then I will unbuckle my seat belt, get out of my seat, stand and turn to face the students. I give them the look, and then growl softly, “Ladies and Gentleman” and a quiet hush spreads across the entire bus.

Normally, I don’t need to get that drastic. In fact, normally, the students are quite helpful. I once had a route that had changed since the directions and a young lady assured me she would help me through the changes. I told her she had to be up to the task, because I didn’t want to get lost. She gave me her assurance that she would be with me every step of the way, and then she told me to turn right; I did. Another student said, “This is my stop,” so I let that student off at a corner.

As I pulled away from the stop, the entire bus called out my recently appointed navigator’s name. She looked up from her phone, startled, and stammered, “oh, you were supposed to turn back there.”

I started to give her the look, but the look on her face stopped me. She looked at me with a mixture of horror over making a mistake and that nervous laughter that comes along with it. It is a look I have seen my daughters use quite often, and it always makes me laugh. Apparently, it is not only Father’s who pass down looks to their sons, but Mother’s pass down looks to their daughters too.

How Did You Start Your Summer?

Back in September, I shared about the first day of school and my job as a school bus driver for a local school district. Things have greatly improved since that first day. I know my way around the district much better. I don’t get lost as much, and I get the right kids to the right schools at the right times more often. 

As a substitute bus driver, I get a variety of different runs and rarely have the same bus two days in a row. It is great to meet and greet some amazing young people.

Although there was the one time when the dispatcher called me on the radio at 7:30 in the morning and asked when I was going to be at a certain stop. I radioed back succinctly, “6:50”

There was silence. Then a strained voice squeaked from the radio’s speaker, “6:50? But it is 7:30 now.That was 40 minutes ago.” I replied that I was supposed to be at the stop at 6:50, and I had indeed been there at 6:50. I had stopped the bus, opened the doors, looked at the crowd of 15 or so students standing on the corner, and not one of those students got on the bus.

“No one got on the bus?” asked the dispatcher.

“Not a one,” I replied. Apparently, three different buses stop at that corner to pick up students for various schools, but I am still not sure why none of them wanted to ride with me. Am I that scary looking?

The dispatcher quickly got things sorted out and I continued on my run without returning to pick up the students who missed their bus.

On the last day of school this year, I was driving down a street with a stop at the very end.  As I threaded that 39 foot beast between two illegally parked cars I noticed two students leave the stop and run towards their houses. 

When I got to the stop one of the remaining students asked me if I could wait for her brother, who had to run home to retrieve a forgotten item. Being the last day of school and running a little ahead of schedule, I waited.

When the last straggler was on the bus, I closed the door and put on my grumpy father face. I glared into the mirror above my head and announced sternly, “Alright folks, I didn’t mind waiting too much today, but tomorrow you better be here on time because I will not wait for you!”

Everyone on the bus became silent, until one young lady, apprehensively spoke up, “But Mr. Bus driver, today is the last day of school.”

I grinned gave the mirror a big thumbs up and said, “You got that right! Guess we don’t have to worry about tomorrow then.”

And that began my summer break. How did yours start?

If Only Every Job was as Great as Mine.

As many of you know, I have three jobs. I am also sure that all three of my regular readers know that one of those jobs is as a substitute bus driver in a local school district. The following narrative occurred just the other day as I filled in on a bus run. Unlike my usual posts, everything here is mostly the factual, unadulterated truth. I promise.

When I first started training to be a school bus driver, I was in a group of somewhere between 4 and a bazillion people. When we finished there were two of us; Steve and me. Steve took a regular run and I opted to stay a sub. The other day, I got to drive Steve’s route.

He drives a handful of students across the county to a small school. When I stopped at the first stop, three girls came out to get on the bus; they were not excited to see me.

“You’re not Mr. Steve. Where is Mr. Steve? Is this the right bus? Why isn’t Mr. Steve here?”

After they finally stopped peppering me with questions, I was able to answer, “Mr. Steve isn’t here today. He asked me to drive for him, is that ok?”

The three girls looked at each other, while making all sorts of girlie noises. Finally a spokesgirl asked, “Do you know how to go?” I showed them the directions and responded, “Yeppers, he gave me directions.” The spokesgirl announced that everything seemed to be in order and we could continue our trip.

The next stop was for one little young gentleman. As soon as he saw me, he turned around and walked away from the door. The adult that was with him said, “Jimmy, you have to go to school.”

“But it isn’t Mr Steve!” he wailed, drawing out the Steve part to a long deep drawl.

I comforted him, as only a bus driver can comfort a forlorn student. “It is ok Jimmy; Mr. Steve and I learned to drive bus together.”

“You did?” He walked back to the door of the bus, sized me up, and decided it might be acceptable to ride on the bus. He got on, found his seat and we started on.

Everything was going fine until I turned left instead of right, or was it right instead of left? It really doesn’t matter, I got lost. Not really lost, just kind of going the wrong direction lost. Very soon the students on the bus realized I was not going the right direction and they began to riot. One girl clapped her hands over her face and squealed in terror. “Oh No! We are lost! Mr. Steve never gets lost. Take me home! I can’t take this, we are all going to die of hunger, or end up in Texas.”

I assured them we would neither die nor end up in Texas. Soon, after I got the bus turned around, they started to recognize landmarks and they were once again calm. That is until we got on the expressway to zip to the other side of town. One of the sweet first grade juvenile female life forms announced loudly, “Mr. Rob, you are a good driver. You are speeding, Mr. Steve never speeds.”

Let me assure you, gentle reader, school bus drivers never speed, that includes me. It is one of the 300 cardinal sins of school bus driving. We do not speed, ever.

Nonetheless, the sweet urchin boisterously announced, “Mr. Rob is speeding.” She boldly emphasized speeding. All of the other children were aghast. Until the girl said, “Just kidding, I don’t even know what speeding means.”

I. Love. My. Job.

How was your first day of school?

Today was the day; the day that children have been dreading, and parents have been yearning for all summer. It was the first day of school. I celebrated by going to work, driving a school bus. When I got to the garage, other drivers were gearing up for a busy morning. Soon, they had all left and I was hanging out waiting to see if my boss needed me. Sure enough, after a few moments of quiet, my boss looked out the window and barked, “Distaffen! There is a bus out there; go fire her up and pick up some kids and get ‘em to school.”

I asked which kids I should take to which school. There are a lot of children and a lot of schools in the district I work for.

“I don’t care!” He snarled, “Just get ‘em to school. Let the teachers and administrators figure it out, and smartify them. That is what they got all those college degrees for.”

I dutifully went out and started picking up students and dropping them off at school. Lots of different students, in different neighborhoods, and when I passed a school, I would drop some of them off. Although, once I mistook a lumberyard for a school, and the students pointed out my mistake.

When I got back from picking up dozens of students and dropping them off at a myriad of schools, my boss asked me how it went. “Just fine,” I replied. He grunted, “Fine? Then come back this afternoon.”

That afternoon I returned and looked around for my boss. He was chewing out a mechanic for using an amber light bulb instead of a yellow one. The mechanic looked plaintively at me. All I could do was spread my hands and shrug, because I couldn’t tell the difference either.

Finally, the tirade relented and my boss spotted me. “Distaffen! What are you doing back here?”

“You told me to come back this afternoon.”

“Well, yeah, whatever. Remember those kids your dropped off at school this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Go put them back.”

My children’s first day wasn’t much better. Except I think they had a good bus driver. Littlest and Middlest had large packets of surveys to complete. Beloved and I had stacks of papers to sign, assuring that our daughters would be respectful, involved, and interested members of the learning community. I always have nightmares that one of them will yawn in class and the school police will hunt me down with a copy of my signature on one of those forms, and when they find me, they make me go to detention.

Eldest, who is finishing up her secon week of her freshman year lamented over a paper she had to write for some guy named Phil. I asked her who Phil was and why she was writing his paper. She groaned, “Daddy, Phil isn’t a person, it is a class in Philosophical Ethics”

I couldn’t help her, so off we went to see grandpa, who has a bunch of college degrees and he smartified her.