Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Bus to Sleepytown

Blair and Anita.
And me.
In my beautiful 'fur' coat.
Okay. I was six. Grade one is hard work! I was tired!
And we lived a million miles from town.
Enough background.
Living 20 miles from the local schools might be a blessing during ‘snow days’ in the winter when the buses didn’t run, but the rest of the time, it merely meant a very long ride. A very long, boring ride.
If one didn’t have someone to visit with, the trip was interminable. Especially to a six year old.
Which I was.
Seating was a highly organized, painstakingly structured fact of bus life.
The eldest kids got to sit in the back. The youngest directly behind the bus driver.
Okay, maybe not so organized . . .
Hijinks were restricted to the back two rows. Your progress through school and through life was largely measured by where you sat in the school bus.
I had never sat more than two seats behind the driver.
Until that fateful day.
The Lindemans weren’t on the bus. Will and Louise's seat in the second last row was empty and just waiting to be claimed. My day had come.
Happily, I perched in that heretofore inaccessible spot.
Our bus driver, a wonderfully kind and loving man named Dick Sabey was responsible for delivering us safely into the waiting arms of our mother, Enes Stringam, at Nine Mile Corner. It was a corner situated, interestingly enough, exactly nine miles from our ranch buildings.
Okay, so imaginative, we weren’t.
Day after day, our faithful friend dropped us off at the corner, waving to us cheerfully as we began the trek towards home.
Usually, we managed only a few yards before our mother’s car, trailing a cloud of dust on the country road, appeared around the turn. She would skid to a halt and load us in, questions and news being tossed back and forth before the doors had even closed.
Now that day...
It was chilly. I don’t remember if it was Spring or Fall, but the weather necessitated the wearing of fairly warm clothing. I had a golden faux fur parka. Purchased by my Dad specifically for a trip to cut our family’s Christmas tree. A coat that could easily have doubled as a bear disguise. But which was wonderfully warm . . . and cozy . . . and *yawn* comfortable . . . When I awoke some time later, Dick and his dear wife, Scotty, were standing over me, shaking me gently. I sat up and looked around. It was dark. The lights of the Sabey home were shining dimly into the shadowy bus. Nine Mile Corner was nowhere to be seen. Or my brothers and sister. Or my Mom.
That’s when the tears started.
Dick picked me up and carried me into the house, where Scotty calmed me and cuddled me. And fed me. (Amazing how so many of my stories revolve around food.)
Later, my relieved parents arrived to pick me up and the story was finally told.
The Stringam kids always left the bus in a group. The bus driver, watching alertly to make sure they were safely on their way, noticed that Diane wasn't with them.
But sometimes, kids stayed in town for some reason or another. The accepted practice in such an instance was to give the driver a note explaining their absence.
But it wasn't unusual for said note to be forgotten.
Dick surmised I had had piano lessons . . . or something.
And since I hadn’t been sitting in my usual spot, my brothers and sister had concluded the same thing and headed quickly down the road. By the time our Mom arrived and my absence was noted, the bus was long gone.
The time for panic had truly arrived.
Cell phones existed only in the imaginations of science fiction writers. The only phone connection available was a single party line, installed by my father (and enormously entertaining, but that is another story).
Once she reached the ranch buildings, Mom wasted no time in calling the Sabey household and raising the alarm. Dick hadn’t yet returned from his route, so Scotty waited breathlessly at the front window for the bus. When he arrived, she met him and the two of them quickly searched the bus.
They soon discovered that a bulky coat, discarded on one of the last seats, actually contained a person. Not a very big person, to be sure, but a person just the same.
Me.
Some time later, with my Mom’s arms around me, I could see the humour of the situation.
Almost.
Until I grew taller, about grade nine or so, I never again sat anywhere but directly behind the bus driver. It was safer there. And less forgetful.
And, oddly enough, I find it impossible to fall asleep in a moving vehicle.
Except when I’m driving.

18 comments:

  1. That final sentence - EEEEEEK, Diane!!

    The image of tiny you in a big furry coat on a back seat of a school bus - I can just picture it. I travelled on the school bus my whole school life, too. Big kids in the back. Little kids in the front. Exactly as you described :)

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    1. Heehee! My job here is done!
      Yep. It was a right of passage for us country kids!

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  2. Your poor, poor parents. I CAN sleep in a moving vehicle (except planes). My partner says that if has to stay awake so do I, so he prevents me sleeping in the car. Amazingly (and dangerously) I did go to sleep a few times while as a pillion passenger on his motor bike.

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    1. Yow! I've always wondered about the person riding pillion. What would happen if they dozed off...

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  3. It's amazing how much more panic (or maybe how much more prolonged the panic was) before cell phones. As much as I would have loved to have had them available when I was a kid, it's much more important to me that I had them when my kids were kids.

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    1. I don't think I would have survived my kids' childhood without the ol' cell phone. Maybe that's why my mom went prematurely gray! ;)

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  4. When I was teaching, this would happen every year. Generally toward the beginning. One bus driver did not check the seats before he went home and a child was locked on the bus. Poor little person probably never sat in the back or slept in a moving vehicle again.

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    1. Oh, my word! Locked in the bus?! Poor little one! It would definitely create some sort of phobia!

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  5. Phew. My oldest Patrick did the same thing when he was five. I'll never forget that panic. Your poor parents, but thank God, the story had a happy ending.

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    1. Any time I couldn't lay eyes on my kids, I panicked! My mom often told this story and every time, I think she got another gray hair!

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  6. Too funny. Glad you had a happy ending.Can you imagine today the poor bus driver would have lost his job!

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  7. Your parents must have been frantic! Fortunately Dick was able to find you. Note to self: sit behind the driver. It is safer anyway.

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    1. Totally. Strangely enough, I still try to sit behind the driver on a bus...

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  8. A bus driver friend of mine discovered a sleeping child in the bus after dropping everyone at school and then driving the bus to her second job. After that scare, she always checked the bus to make sure there were no stow-aways.

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    1. They're just so little. And silent. Now if my Husby fell asleep on the bus, the whole world would know... Just sayin'.

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  9. Oh what a story. And a happy ending to it. I never did this, as I lived within walking distance of the school. But several of my children have done this, getting on the wrong bus, forgetting to get off etc. And not all of then´m 6 years old either. And of course without cell phones. My por heart.

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