Memory Monday - riding the school bus

For the last three years I have been bemoaning the fact that we live only 2.3 miles from the school my children attend. According to the school district you have to live 2.5 miles away from the school in order to qualify for busing. We've managed quite well for the last 3 years since my oldest started kindergarten, and I am proud to say that my children have not been late to school once this year.

On Saturday we got a letter in the mail saying my children would now be allowed to ride the bus to school. This was received with mixed emotions. My husband is thrilled with the idea, not that it really makes much difference to him one way or the other. The kids are also thrilled with the idea of getting to ride the bus to school. Seeing as how I've been complaining for the last three years about this very thing you would think that I would be thrilled too. In light of recent events in our area, I am not quite as thrilled. I also say, why fix something that isn't broken. Our morning schedule is working, why change it. I imagine that if the kids rode the bus we would all have to get up a little earlier too and I fear the morning rush hour would return to our home.

All this talk of riding school buses has gotten me thinking of riding the school bus when I was a child. I rode the bus every year beginning in kindergarten until we moved to Salt Lake City at the end of 7th grade. We have a family joke about my sister telling my mom that she was going to freeze her keister (meaning her bottom) to the bus seat if she had to ride it one more day in the cold.

For a couple of years, while a new high school was being built, I attended split session middle school. This meant that the junior high and the middle school shared a school building but went at different times. The junior high kids went in the morning and the middle school went later in the day. I don't recall exactly what times we went to school, but I do remember coming home from school in the dark. Those were miserable cold winter days walking home from the bus stop. I was sure that my fingers would fall off from frost bite. I'm sure it was uphill both ways and there was at least 10 feet of snow as well. At least!

I remember Mean Dean the big green bean. Dean was a bus driver that was mean, hence the nice nickname he received. My brother and Dean didn't exactly get along. I for one did not have a problem with Dean because I was perfect a good girl. I also remember my brother throwing up the apricots we had eating that day at school on the school bus. To this day he refuses to eat an apricot or a peach.

I remember being teased on the school bus because my hair would stand up on end when I took my hat off or rubbed it against the seat on the bus or...well it pretty much stood up on end all the time because it was so fine.

I have many memories of riding the bus home from school. Some of them fond, some of them not so fond. Most of my friends rode the bus too and that was just an extension of our time together. I don't want to deny my children of an opportunity to bond with their friends outside of school or to grow a little with increased responsibility. I really like knowing that my kids get to school every morning on time safely and on time and that they arrive home the same way. I like having that control in my children's lives. I know I can't keep them in a bubble and protect them from all the yuckies in the world, but I don't know if I am ready to send them out into the big, somtimes bad world of riding the bus to school.

Any thoughts?