Do you have memories of riding a school bus? In 1971, the year after school integration, black and white children rode together on school buses to McComb public schools. The older buses from Higgins High, the black school, were added to the newer fleet, and kids from both sides of the tracks piled in the spacious yellow motorcoaches with no heat and no air conditioning to shuttle to our school buildings.
My bus driver was a guy named H.L., a part-time baseball umpire who weighed more than 300 pounds and routinely sat on you if you got out of line on his watch. He had eyes in the back of his head, somehow able to use his large rear-view mirror to detect the slightest juvenile offense. Without turning his head, he would loudly say, “Clark, I see you playing paper football back there! Don’t make me stop the bus!” Rain, ice, or even snow, H.L. was always on time at the bus stop, and he departed the stop at the exact minute each day. Many times, my friends and I would sprint, books and all, to catch the bus before he closed the folding doors, using his right hand to turn the metal crank. When those doors closed, they did not open again, and H.L. would slyly smile at you through the glass as he pulled away to the next stop.
Once in the bus, I have no idea how our driver tolerated the deafening sounds of children talking, laughing, and singing. Boy, did we sing! We made up songs, rapped, sang church hymns, and routinely belted out, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town!” Bus riding was a critical component of note passing, making friends, and being complete goofballs. A few students caught up on homework, but most of us acted like we were at recess on wheels. On bitterly cold days, the adjustable windows fogged over, and my classmates would engage in silly finger art by using the condensation to draw on the windows. On the rare occasion the bus broke down, we gleefully cheered, knowing our first period class would be cut short. Field trips were a particular delight, and looking back, an absolute nightmare for our pitiful substitute bus drivers. By junior high, boys and girls began to sit together, and the big Blue Bird school buses were the place where some romances began. In fact, it was on a long school bus ride that I first spent meaningful time with my wife, almost forty years ago!
Today, over 25 million American children ride almost a half million school buses, making them the largest mass transit system in America. They are much safer and dependable today than when I was a child, but they still have no seatbelts! Through many generations, school buses have had a profound impact on the social fabric of school children. Most of my experiences were positive with some bumps in the road. Yes, I saw a few punches thrown. There was occasional bullying. I once had my favorite pencil fall to the floor and roll to the front of the bus. Without thinking, I crawled under multiple seats to snatch my pencil, only to be rewarded with a day of detention. But, on the bright side, I learned card tricks, became an expert at hand-clapping games, and even wrote a song that my teachers let me sing in multiple homerooms!
The advent of school buses ended the misery of rural children walking miles to school. They enabled black and white kids, poor and rich, to attend school together. The school bus has provided untold relief to working parents who do not have the financial resources or time to drive their children to school. So next time you are driving and stop for a school bus loading or unloading children, take a moment to give thanks for something uniquely American. As a national school bus advocate recently said, “The future of buses is the future of American children.”
Clark Hicks is a lawyer who lives in Hattiesburg. His email is clark@hicksattorneys.com.
