Wheel man

Yesterday it was a record 81 degrees here in the Twin Cities. The average high for this time of year is around 45, so that means there were more people running and walking around our myriad lakes than aimlessly milling about all of the world's Old Navy stores combined. That factoid sounds suspicious, but I got it from my dog-eared copy of The Asshole's Almanac, so it has to be true.

Reports from my dear mother indicate that it's even been unseasonably mild back home in the topography-free hinterlands of North Dakota. This sounds nothing like the arctic seasons of yore (I know using that word makes me sound like I should be wearing a tunic while playing a lute and singing songs about dragons and stout bridge trolls, but I like it, so piss off). It was not uncommon for school to be canceled due to roads blocked with snow drifts several feet in height, winds that could blow over a Ford Escort, or temperatures that could freeze urine solid while it was still in your bladder.

Our farm was near the start of the hour long school bus route, so we had to be up bright and early every morning to hop on when it pulled up around 6:30. Since we could see it barreling down the road from several miles away, we would wait in the warmth of the house, then bolt outside as soon as stopped just a few dozen feet from the front door. We were particularly thankful for this curbside service when the brutal winds whipped stinging snow across open fields, but getting on the bus so early had its disadvantages. Ignore the obvious factor of having to get up so early, because when you're 7 or 8, you tend to keep more respectable hours. In bed by 8, up before 6, catching early worms, all that jazz. And it's easy to do at that age when you never stay up all night banging a "vulnerable adult" you picked up at a church rummage sale or freebasing a mixture of crystal meth, cumin, and airbag powder from a late model Honda.

Once in a while, if the weather was borderline, the buses were halfway through their route before the superintendent finally decided to shutter the school. So you had to get up obscenely early, clean up (with soap even!), put on 15 layers of clothing, and inhale diesel exhaust on a loud, rattling deathtrap with no seat belts doing 60 down a rutted gravel road, only to have the driver get the call to take everyone back home because they decided to close the school. In other words, they decided that the weather conditions were so dangerous, that it wouldn't be safe for kids in town to walk to school or for vehicles of any sort to be on the road. Thanks for not waking up early enough to make that decision about an hour ago, jaggoff. "Hmm... I should probably get up to ensure the safety of all children in the district, including farm kids, but I need another solid 30. [wipes burned airbag powder residue from cheek and falls back to sleep]"

One abysmal winter day when I was 8, the bus pulled up amidst blinding, swirling, wind-blown snow. We were the third family on the route that winter. My brother went to afternoon kindergarten and didn't ride in the morning, so until the next stop many miles away, it was just me, the mustachioed bus driver, and two morning kindergarteners. The driver powered through one hardened snow drift after another, launching our tiny, seat beltless bodies into the air like shuttlecocks in a badminton match.

Over the next several miles, the drifts grew both higher and longer. Eventually even the inertial energy of a 12 ton bus couldn't power us through the packed snow. Wheels spinning and kicking up a white cloud, we slowed to a crawl and soon stopped dead. We were stuck but good. The driver muttered in disgust under his breath and sat quiet for several minutes. He was likely thinking of how he could get out of this jam himself without radioing into the school for a tow, thus exposing how stupid he was for not turning back and reporting the road conditions. In a pure moment of genius and inspiration, he turned to me, the oldest and clearly wisest child on the bus, and asked, "Jeremy, can you drive stick?"

Can I drive a stick? CAN I DRIVE A STICK?!? Motherfucker, I could drive a stick before my feet could reach the clutch. That's how we roll in North Da-cocksucking-kota, fool! That's all he needed to know. "Ok, you put it into reverse, and we'll get out and push on the front of the bus." He was prepared to put some heavy duty muscle into this mission. When you are willing to yank a couple of 5 year old children off of a bus to push on the front of it in the middle of a blizzard, you are not messing around, my friend. "Roll those sleeves up and PUSH, or you only get the 16 pack of Crayolas instead of 64. Heave, you stubby-legged little bastards, HEAVE!!!" So there we were, miles and miles from a single other soul, a skinny, mop-lipped bus driver and a couple kids barely old enough to no longer be categorized as toddlers pushing away, and me gunning the engine like a jet before takeoff.

I learned a lot about myself that day. Despite my tender age of 8, the driver didn't need me to prove that I knew how to drive a stick. He just took me at my word. Sure, for all he knew, I was a boastful little prick who didn't know a clutch from a parking brake, and I could have easily accidentally thrown it into 1st and mowed him and the Kool-Aid gang down like meat-filled candlepins. But he trusted me implicitly and showed me where inner strength comes from. It comes from blindly putting the lives of you and two 5 year old children into the hands of an uncoordinated, overeager third grader. That shit's pure balls and heart, guy. Balls and heart.

Epilogue

It may be difficult to believe, but all of the pushing by all of the kindergarteners in the world couldn't have freed that bus. The driver had to give in and radio in for a tow. When Jeremy giddily reported his bus driving adventure to his parents after school that day, they were super pissed and called the superintendent. The driver was temporarily suspended from his job and had to live down the embarrassment in our tiny community for years afterward.

This driver was just one of many characters to haul the precious children of our town over the years. Let's not forget the guy who got pulled over for a DUI with kids still on the bus, the dude who drove with his legs while playing cards with the kids in the front seat, and the old man who's coveralls quite obviously were never laundered, as they were perpetually covered in stains from snot and spit impressively launched onto his back by a kid sitting in the back row. Some of those drivers are dead now, and most of them should be. God bless them, every one.