When I was a kid, we lived just outside of town.
We lived on a hillside, with a view that looked out over the town. We also had a view of a valley, and several fields. If someone was coming to our house from town, we could look out and see their car, small in the distance as it got bigger and bigger heading up to our house. I complained that no other kids lived nearby. I was jealous of kids in my books who had neighborhood friends. I was also jealous that other kids lived in flat neighborhoods and could easily ride their bikes----for me, it was a fast pace down to the bottom of the hill and a slow climb to the top. Not much fun. I also hated the fact that I had to wait for the bus at the bottom of the hill. On a nice spring morning, it was a beautiful place to wait with birds singing and flowers blooming. But most days were not a nice spring morning. Most days were dark, filled with blistery wind, and pelting rain. I hated that bus stop. There was no where to hide from wind or rain. There wasn't a shelter and there were no structures nearby. Just an intersection and a stop sign beside a big ditch. I don't know why, but I often think about how miserable it was to stand at the bottom of the hill in the freezing cold wind and watching and listening for the big yellow bus to put its long yellow arm out, and its big red stop sign so that I could cross the highway and enter the bus safely. I was one of the very last kids to get picked up in the morning, and I was one of the first kids to get dropped off after school. I liked being dropped off first. The shorter the bus ride, the better. I did not like being one of the last ones picked up. If the bus broke down or it was late, I had no way of knowing if I should stay down there or if I should run back up the hill and wake my dad up. My dad worked evenings so he was often asleep in the morning when we left for school. There were at least a few times when I went all they way down to the bus stop on a day when there wasn't any school. How miserable it was to find out that I had waited down there for so long, on Presidents day, when we did not even have school. Since I was one of the last ones picked up, if I was not down at the bus stop waiting or there was a substitute bus driver who did not know to stop for me, there were several times that I missed the bus. If I got distracted by the TV before school and did not make my way down to the bus stop on time, the bus would just race on past. Sometimes it would stop and honk, but if I wasn't down there, it usually did not wait for me. How fast I would run down the hill if the bus was early, my backpack dragging behind me as I tried not to fall on my face in front of the full school bus of kids watching me, annoyed that the bus was waiting for me. The bus never came at the same time every day. Sometimes it came at 8:00. Sometimes it came at 7:45. Sometimes it was 8:05. As a result, I would go down to the bus stop at 7:40, just in case. I would needlessly freeze my fingers and toes off rather than risk missing the bus. When I finally got my driver's license, I could drive myself to school! It was a very happy day!! No more bus stop!
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Mrs. Mitchell
This is my 'slice of life' blog. Archives
March 2020
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