School Buses

I can't say that I have pleasant associations to "school buses." They added stress to my life, once we moved to Great Neck. In the five years I was dependent on them to get to school, I don't think I ever missed one. Actually, I'm certain that I never did, since the logistics of getting to school would have been impossible. In Great Neck they were staggered over the early morning. The first round took the high school kids, the next took the junior high and the last round took the younger kids. Since I'm the oldest of three, and all three of us were in different age brackets, I had no back-up plans. I also found the mornings most pleasant when I could be out of the house before everyone else was awake.

I don't think our rides were much fun. In high school I have a memory of kids smoking and getting a burn in a dress I had sewn.

Years later as a parent, once we moved to Shiloh, I suddenly had to make sure one of my kids caught a bus, or van as the case was in the early years. Until my youngest was in the seventh grade, there was always one who needed the school bus. My kids must have had the best record, almost never, ever missing it.

Now I take a school bus once a week from work to Ofra, where I babysit for my granddaughters. The kids are noisy and wild, and one of the drivers is always stopping the bus and confiscating bus passes. I don't know how they manage to concentrate on their driving; some of the route can be dangerous. Other routes go through very high (for Israel) mountains. In recent years seatbelts have been installed, and the kids are supposed to buckle up, but few do.

What caused me to write about school buses?

A terrible accident happened to a school bus in Alabama, and students were killed.