School Bus Blues

When we were elementary school students at Radio Park, our bus stop was in front of the Becker residence at the bottom of the street we lived on, where Cherry Ridge Road hit Berkshire Drive, about five minutes’ walk from our front door. The Beckers lived in a stately tudor house with a long, flat driveway flanked at the street end by twin brick lamp posts. It was worth every effort to arrive early, because the kids gathered there would shuttle-run races back and forth from the edge of the drive to the garage doors, and back. You’d be paired with someone in your grade and one of the fifth or sixth graders serving as ref would kick things off by chopping the air sharply and shouting, “Ready, set, go!”. There was something inexplicably thrilling about it: the anticipation of your turn, the crowd of schoolmates transfixed on the runners, pressing as hard as you could to break the plane of the finish line first …

But much of the running I ended up doing in those days afforded far less enjoyment — in trying desperately to get to the stop just a second before the bus would show, or even in the first moments after it had arrived and stopped to let the kids on (because it would be a full 30 seconds that the entire queue would have it paused there, while they boarded one by one). I’d bolt from the starting gate of our garage entrance, lunchbox in hand, backpack beating from side to side with each gasping stride down Cherry Ridge, in hopes of not hearing the wind-stirring approach of the bus, and its too-brief stop, before making myself seen by the driver. Of course the worst part of the unhoped-for missed bus outcome, was then having to turn around and ask Mom for a ride to school because I had failed to get it together in time. She always obliged, and we’d get there before the morning announcements every time, but I knew the ride over would be a certain kind of hell to pay.

Our new bus stop was right across the street, at the corner of Hickory Hill and Chestnut Ridge Drives. It should have been the end of missed buses — at less than a minute away, and in full view of our kitchen window, there was really no way it could have been easier for a kid to get there on time. Nonetheless, on numerous occasions, the sound of the school bus pulling up, stopping to let students on, then rolling away while the we were still upstairs, scrambling to get ready for the day, signaled to Mom that she would again need to drop her stragglers off at the South Building before going to work herself. Once we grew old enough to take the wheel and passed our drivers’ exams, we were allowed to borrow keys to the Dodge Caravan and drive ourselves — conveniently, if not fashionably, our own way.