The Wheels on the Bus

When I was about 12-years-old, I decided I wanted to be a bus driver. I decided they had the cushiest career around. Think about it: They work for about an hour in the morning and then hour in the afternoon. During those two hours of work they get to drive around--an activity I would have to wait another four years to enjoy. And their means of transportation? A giant butt-kicking yellow above-ground submarine.

It was the down time I was most excited about--the hours between 8:15am and 3:15pm. Seven hours to go to the pool, watch soap operas, sleep. As a twelve-year-old I would make up little bus driver schedules in my head and map out how I would spend my day.

My dream of being a bus driver was really an inevitable one, what with all my meaningful mentors. First there was Ms. Ravy. Or Ms. Gravy Train as we cleverly nicknamed her. Even if Ms. Gravy Train arrived early to the first pick-up location (which happened to be my house), she wouldn't let us onto bus #16 until it was actually time to go. She'd sit about a block down the street and smoke. When we piled on the bus from my driveway (where our bookbags were already placed in order of who arrived first), the chariot smelled of smoke and sweaty kids. I tried not to look down but every day I found myself staring at Ms. Gravy Train's toe. The big one was missing a toenail. Did she have to wear open-toe shoes even in the winter? Or come to think of it, did she wear shoes at all? Another perk of being a bus driver.

Not sure what happened to Ms. Gravy Train but sometime around age ten we were blessed with Ms. Tilly. Yes, I know what you're thinking and yes, we did. We called her Ms. Tally Wacker. And yes, I did not know what that meant. She was a hippie--or as much as you could be in 1987. She had long straight hair and an equally long face. She brightened it up with frosted blue eye shadow. Ms. Tally Wacker was more lively than Ms. Gravy Train. So much that she would even let us go backwards which we thought was the next best thing to having Joey McIntrye make an appearance at our school. No, I don't mean the bus would go backwards. It's lamer than that. We would just do the stops backwards. Maybe I'm the only one who thought that was cool.

But besides the bus driving pioneers who were my inspiration like the Gravy Train and the Tally Wacker, what I really admired most about the vocation was the comraderie. No matter what, even if there was a blizzard (okay, that never happened in Houston, TX) or an impending traffic accident, if another bus passed us, our bus driver would always wave at the other driver.

I never did become a bus driver. But in a special tribute to bus 16 and the women whose names we mocked, when I see a passing bus, I always give its driver a little wave. Of course they're usually too high up and too busy scolding children to see me. But still, I wave. And I honk. And then they get annoyed. And then I think maybe I'm glad I'm not a bus driver because of jerks like me.