Friday, May 14, 2010

School Bus Memories

The other day I was stuck behind a school bus on a two-lane road.  It brought back memories of my own experiences on school buses.  No, no Ottos or crazy woman who can’t hear right, but I recall an African school bus monitor who told us kids to "shut your mouse!"  Here were my adventures.

 St. Martin’s.  This is a private, Catholic school in Gaithersburg, Maryland.   I went here from first grade (1975) until Fall semester of 5th grade (late 1978).  The school bus – those big orange (or is it yellow?) things - really didn’t directly connect us to the school.  The bus stop was on Montgomery Village Avenue, at the entrance to the subdivision, Lakeside of Whetstone, which is a 5-10 minute walk from our house.  To make matters worse, the bus didn’t go to St. Martin’s itself, which is on 355 at the corner with Summit Ave.  We had to walk 10 minutes over to Gaithersburg High School.  You can’t really mess up getting ON the bus in the morning, as only one school bus will come to your stop.  But in the afternoon, I can remember what seemed like an infinite amount of buses, and having to wait for the right one, with a specific three digit number, while being surrounded by dozens of high school kids and having no one from my school living in my neighborhood and being on my bus.  Eventually my mom decided it was better to drive us to school.

 Marymount – Rue Van Loo.  We moved to Paris, France in January 1979, and started going to Marymount, which was a Catholic school in Neuilly, which is a suburb of Paris to the northwest, immediately next to Paris itself.  Our sea shipment took about a month to arrive from the US, in the meantime we were in temporary quarters in the 16th Arrondisement (far western part of Paris).   The bus stop was at the Michel-Ange Molitor metro stop, and the way to the bus stop from the apartment was extremely convoluted, though I believe if you put me there today I could probably find my way.  This was also the last stop on the route.  It was a 30 minute walk.  Fortunately the school bus went directly to Marymount, so on that end there wasn’t a problem.

 Marymount – Neuilly Compound.  In February 1979, our shipment came in, so we could move into our apartment in the Neuilly compound for US Embassy employees.  Although both the school and the compound were in “Neuilly”, they were very far apart.  In fact, one day we missed the bus, so our dad made us walk the entire distance, something like a full hour.  But at least the bus did come to the compound – and this time we were not the only kids at the stop.  I remember having disputes with the other kids as we lined up for the bus, since whoever got on the bus first had a better choice of seats, but there were enough other kids to fight about this issue.  The buses were commercial buses (not the classic American school buses) which had some provision to convert the seats into beds, but we never had occasion to use them for that (no overnight trips by bus – all such trips at Marymount were by train).

 ASP – Neuilly Compound.  From Fall 1982 onward, I went to the American School of Paris, for high school.  Instead of Neuilly, this was located in St. Cloud, which is a suburb a bit further out, about southwest of Paris.  The private buses were nice, very similar to tour buses. 
            Now that I was in high school, the issue of extracurricular activities arose – how to get home from school after rugby practice.  Fortunately ASP had two “late” buses which actually did come to the Neuilly compound, so it wasn’t a problem.  However, I’d have had NO idea how to get from the compound to ASP by public transportation.

 ASP – Malesherbes.   In spring of 1984 (my sophomore year) my family moved from Neuilly to Paris itself, the 8th Arrondisement on Blvd. Malesherbes, which is northwest Paris.  The school bus picked us up a few blocks away, on Blvd Courcelles.  Unfortunately, this was the end of the line, and the school bus company had hired some incompetent clowns to drive that route.  Often the bus was late or didn’t come at all.  Around exam time of 1985 (junior year), we discovered the local train station was a better option.
            Moreover, the “late” buses didn’t come all the way to our neighborhood.  They’d stop at the Etoile, which was 4 Metro stops away.  However, I didn’t mind walking, as I walked past the huge record store, FNAC, on Wagram, and spent my excess lunch money on vinyl and cassettes (the latter I could listen to on my Walkman on the walk home).

 ASP – Malesherbes – Train.  The train station, Gare St. Lazare, was 10 minutes away.  Near the high school, there were two train stations:  St. Cloud, which was too far to walk (take a bus the rest of the way), and Garches-Marne-La-Coquette, which was a 5 minute walk down the road.  Much better.  Back at St. Lazare, there were three morning trains, all commuter/suburban trains.  The 8:00 a.m. train only went as far as St. Cloud, meaning you’d have to still take a bus.  No good.  The 8:15 train went to Garches, and got there around 8:45.  With the 5 minute walk, you’d get to school at 8:50, just in time for the first period which started at 8:55.  The 8:28 train would put you in the classroom no earlier than 9, so you’d be late for class.  If you missed the 8:15 train, you could at least try to catch the 8:28 train.  If you missed the 8:28 train, the next train was 9:15 or so, VERY late.  So I’d shoot for the 8:15 train.  Matt…well, he preferred to sleep later and take the 8:28 train.
            There were other advantages of the train.  In the afternoon, there was no “3:30” or “late train”, you’d just take whichever train left Garches when you got to the station.  No hurry to “make the bus” and no issue about a late bus which left you off 4 metro stops away from home. 
            The other (huge) advantage was that to pay for the train, you’d buy a “Carte Orange”, an orange ticket good for an entire month of travel, on every form of public transportation: Metro (RATP), RER, bus, and SNCF (train).  The same carte orange we’d use for the train to get to school would get us around Paris on the weekends on the Metro, without having to buy the individual yellow tickets. 
             By the way.  The bus route from Neuilly to ASP had to pick up two kids who lived in a neighborhood at the bottom of a hill where the streets were extremely narrow.  This was a major detour and caused the bus driver a ton of grief and inconvenience.  This was easily 30 minutes extra just to pick up and drop off these kids. If, for whatever reason, the two kids were not on the bus going home, everyone on the bus (not just the poor bus driver) cheered as we could completely bypass their damn neighborhood and get home 30 minutes earlier.   Anyhow.  When I started taking the train to school, I noticed the train went right through their neighborhood, and the local station was a block from their house.  D’oh!!  These idiot kids could have taken the train and made everyone’s lives (including their own) much easier.  We ALL could have slept another 30 minutes each morning.

 Headphones.  Nowadays, I’m driving in a car, not a school bus.  But I always listen to music in the car, which is why I make sure both the Neon and the Formula have good stereos.  Back in high school, I would listen to music on my Walkman – unlike Otto (above) I wasn’t actually driving the school bus (actually, I’ve never driven a school bus).  On one occasion I was listening to Speak of the Devil, the live album by Ozzy Osbourne in which he plays nothing but Black Sabbath songs.  Oblivious to the distinction, I thought these Ozzy songs were great!  One of the older students asked if he could listen to what I was listening to, and I said sure.  His reaction: “Hey, these are BLACK SABBATH songs!”  Clued in, I later checked out the Black Sabbath records at FNAC.  Hmm, this guy Ozzy Osbourne is on these albums.  And those songs are there!  Wow!  So after that, we asked for Black Sabbath albums for Christmas.  And we got:  The Mob Rules (with Ronnie James Dio) and Born Again (with Ian Gillan).  D’oh!  But I ended up buying the Ozzy/Sabbath albums at FNAC, on my way home from school.  It all worked out.

 Specifications.  Aside from “short buses” and larger transit-style buses, what we think of as the classic American school bus is the “class C”, or conventional.  It seats up to around 77-80 kids.  One of the major manufacturers, and among the few surviving ones, is Blue Bird.  Its current standard model, the Vision, seats 77 and has a Cummins diesel engine, inline 6, 5.9L, running anywhere from 200-260 HP.  The “yellow” color was established in 1939 as the standard color.  

1 comment:

  1. I remember my daughter describing the bouncy ride on the school bus when she was little (almost 20 years ago) and I was shocked (and angry) that school buses still didn't have seat belts for the kids. Seat belts have been mandatory in cars since... when? Mid 1970's?

    And school buses STILL don't have seat belts for the kids today. Just the drive. Messed up!

    ReplyDelete