School Buses

So today's blog topic is going to be unconventional and something not typically written about. But I can honestly admit that school buses have always been somewhat interesting to me. Don't get me why, but there's something about this motorized vehicle that I find cool. I remember riding the school bus when I was a kid for many, many years. It wasn't until I was a freshman in high school where I finally began to ditch riding the bus. And now that I am well beyond my school bus riding years, there's still something about them that I find fascinating.

My first experience riding a school bus was back when I was in kindergarten. I vaguely remember getting on the bus for the first time and it seeming so overwhelming. We were only in class for half the day as kindergarteners, so we boarded the bus quite early in the morning and left a lot earlier than the rest of the kids. The first bus I rode on was a Blue Bird 1984. It even had a special handicapped entrance for anyone that was wheelchair bound, although nobody on the bus needed it. It seemed like a shorter bus than typical, but it was perfect for the amount of kids that rode it for our class. We drove all around the school district picking up kids and then dropping them off for the day.

Once I graduated from the kindergarten level, I attended school for the full day once I started first grade. I began to ride the 1983 Blue Bird bus (and before I get too far ahead, Blue Bird is an actual school bus manufacturer -- quite possibly THE premiere school bus builder). Any student that was assigned a bus to ride on usually referred to the number printed on the bus. We rode on bus "83," which was also the year the bus was manufactured. It was probably by far the coolest bus of any that the school district owned because it had a radio! No other bus was equiped with a radio, so to and from school, we were able to listen to one of the local radio stations everyday and listen to our favorite songs. I remember the kids that rode the other buses being jealous just because our bus had a radio. This bus also had the coolest deceleration and acceleration sound whenever the transmission lowered or raised gears. There was just something about this bus that made it cool, and it was rather sad when it became retired.

After 10-11 years, a new school bus is purchased by the school district, replacing the "oldest" one that is actively being used. It is then downgraded to being a spare. Beginning in the fall of 1994, we started riding on the newest bus, bus "94." There was something unique about this one in that it had an emergency door in the middle of the bus on the driver's side. You could actually sit by the emergency door, and the seat in this spot would actually fold up in case the door needed to be accessed. However, our school district basically strapped the seat in an upward position so that no one could ever sit in this unique seat. Talk about a bunch of party poopers. But one thing that was sorely missing on this bus is a radio. We no longer had a radio to listen to and it was definitely missed. It just wasn't the same kind of riding experience without it. Yes, it was a nice, shiny new bus, but it never compared to bus "83."

A year or two later, the school district made some changes and started realigning the bus routes. We were assigned a new driver and the route changed a little bit. We no longer had the nicest, newest, cleanest bus anymore, but were relegated to the oldest and the noisiest bus - and no, it wasn't the radio that made it loud (it didn't even have a radio)! We now rode on bus "4." I honestly had no clue what year the bus was built since it had a weird numbering unlike the rest of buses the school district had (this was a bus used by one of the schools that eventually consolidated into another). But I have reason to believe it was the oldest the school owned. This bus had a standard transmission drive and the loudest windows you could imagine. Whenever the bus started accelerating above 35 mph, the windows started rattling. And this was on a pefectly smooth roadway, too! Many times if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to shout at them. I guess this bus wasn't "terrible" and it got us to and from school on many occasion (but I do remember one time where the bus actually broke down about 30 feet from my house). Eventually the school district retired this bus and we were designated bus "90" from that point on. But shortly thereafter, I stopped riding the school bus for good and instead drove to and from school. After all, that was the "cool" thing to do.

I can honestly list all of the buses that my school owned when I attended school. They were buses 4, 6, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 99, and 00. A lot of those are still in service, in fact, consindering the cuts to higher education in the state of Michigan in the past five to seven years. It was common for my school to buy new buses after a bus was used for over 10 years. But these days, they no longer can afford to buy brand new buses at that rate of frequency. They've even gone the route of buying used buses instead of buying brand new. My how things have changed. But the scary thing is that I actually keep track of this stuff. I hope I didn't bore you too much regarding my school bus memories. :-P