School bus shenanigans

I didn't have a plan for this blog when I fired it up six years ago, and some 5,000 posts later, I still don't.

At the back of my mind I figured maybe someday I'd do some editing and winnow things down a bit and maybe come out with a "Best of Falling Downs" e-book or something.

But editing and winnowing are way too much like work, whereas just slapping my latest insights into the human condition out into the world is rather enjoyable.

Which is why this blog is what it is. Critical analyses of US foreign policy interspersed with commentary about where my dogs shit and too-fond memories of "the good old days."

I have zero interest in editing those 5,000 posts.

But when I see which of those five thousand posts have been looked at on any given day, it can sometimes jog me into a trip down memory lane. That's what happened when it came to my attention that Wheel of Karma had a few page views recently.

Looking at that from my 2017 perspective, I'd say my school-pal Billy was guilty of molesting schoolgirls on the school bus.

At the time, it was all "boys will be boys."

Be that as it may, it got me to thinking about other goings-on on the school bus.

My friend Ev Dargie, who hails from Ripley, told me about how her school-bus driver would stop at the Ripley pub...

"Sit tight kids," he'd say, and they'd sit tight while he got tight. Never a problem. He could down three pints in the half hour the bus sat idling at the curb.

Then there were the hooligans on my bus who prided themselves on their ability to cover roadside hitch-hikers with spit as the bus drove by. I secretly wished the bus driver would stop for one of those dudes, just to find out how tough those spitters really were, but it never happened.

Bullying was a fact of life on the school bus. I got lots of that, at least till I grew big enough to kick the shit out of the bullies.

In grade nine, I'd get on the bus, and I'd hear "oh look, it's the Moose Jaw Kid!"

Guffaws all around.

By grade ten, I'd put on fifty pounds and grown six inches.

"Oh look, it's the Moose Jaw... "

Thwack thwack thwack...

Buddy had his nose flattened, was dribbling blood all over the place, and I got temporarily banned from the bus, but I was never again called "The Moose Jaw Kid."

By grade eleven I had my driver's license and a car, so it didn't matter. I was one of the cool dudes by then.

The best school bus story by far comes from my Ponsonby Public School days. That bus driver from Ev's childhood must have got a job there, because one night on the way home, the bus just slowed down and gently veered into the ditch.

The driver was sound asleep.

Or shit-faced drunk... take your pick.

No matter. One of the thirteen year old farm boys on that bus was able to manoeuvre it out of the ditch and finish the bus route.

That would be a front-page scandal were it to happen today.

Back then, you just did what you had to do.

Even if you were just a thirteen year old farm boy.