One of the joys of growing old, besides not taking a shower every day, is the comfort and pleasure derived from a good rant. To the younger folk rants seem to be an unnecessary, bogus, waste of time and an evil excuse for an older person to make a complete fool of them selves. But, we all know that a rant is not really needed to be seen the fool. so much for that argument. No, a rant is a "pressure release device" that serves a healthful purpose to the older folks. As we age the arteries and veins grow lazy and blood pressure rises. The rant is a key method to release some of those PSIs. "Keeping it in" will result in hair loss in men, saggy bosoms in women, and a general piss poor attitude in everyone. So today I will fulfill my monthly obligation to rant. ------------------------------------- I was on my way down to the geriatric section of town the other day in my '27 Maxwell when I got stuck behind a school bus. A big yellowish one. Now, i have nothing against school buses in general, it's more the way they are operated these days....Stop me if you've heard this before...I tend to repeat myself. Anyway, I noticed that the bus was stopping at almost every house along its way and the houses were only about ten feet apart. In addition, after the bus stopped a car door would open, a parent and child emerge, and the parent would escort the little youngster to the door of the bus while shielding him or her with an umbrella. It seems the kids can't be trusted to wait on the sidewalk ALONE, and manage all by themselves to find that huge yellow vehicle that stops right in front of them. ------------------------------------- Of course this got my wife and I reminiscing about the "good old days" when we rode the bus to school. I, myself, when I was in grade school had to walk about 200 yards through a horse pasture and then cross a four lane highway and stand around until the bus came. In the winter the field might be covered in snow so my mother would put bread bags on our feet, shove us into holey boots and snowsuits, wrap a scarf around our necks, and then we'd put on mittens with strings and hats with ear flaps.....and off we'd go. At school it would take us about an hour to get out of all that stuff but it was fun watching the teacher fighting with miss matched boots and mittens. Later on it was great fun to try and avoid getting beat up by my older cousin as we waited for the bus. We never had "snow days". School was always in session. The buses always ran. In the winter it seemed they used tire chains from October to April, snow or not. When it snowed we had the 15 minute rule. If the bus was 15 minutes late we could turn around and go home, otherwise school was on. Teachers also were expected to make it to work. If they lived along the bus route, they rode the bus with the kids. If they couldn't get to the school they just doubled up classes or held them in some big room somewhere. If you didn't make it to school you had to have a parental excuse the next day. The bus had little heat and the windows usually didn't close the whole way so we would be constantly rubbing off the frost so we could see out into the world to see if we were going to get stuck or not. We'd make those little feet with the side of our hands and then add toes with our fingers. If the bus got stuck the driver would rock it back and forth, gnash a few gears, slide around and usually get it unstuck. If it was hopeless he'd get out and walk to a house somewhere to find a phone and they'd send another bus to transfer us to. All the drivers were men as the buses had no power steering, power brakes, or synchromesh gears, so few women had the strength to drive them. The chains were constantly broken so they'd slap against the wheel wells all winter long...we were always waiting for one to wear through the floor and wipe out a few kids or two. My bus had a bad reputation. Sandy something or other rode in the back. She carried a switch blade and was always threatening the girls on that side of the bus. My cousin and his buddy ruled the boys side. In the winter they would smuggle snow onto the bus and throw snowballs at the driver as he was cruising along. He used to get pissed and take us back to the bus garage for a lecture about once a month and one time he just swerved off the highway, hit a tree and broke a side window and then wandered off and left us. So we all just got off the bus and walked home. ------------------------------------- Every year someone would die or be a horrible accident..but school just went right on. One year Ron K. wrecked his car about two miles from the school and there he was lying in the middle of a two lane road with blood running down the middle and his car punched through a telephone pole. The bus just went around him and continued on its way. Luckily a Boy Scout came along and stopped the bleeding so he lived. Another time this guy tried to pass too many cars in a Triumph and didn't make it. He was sitting in the car talking to someone, his friend was laying still on the road. Funny thing is he died and his friend lived. The bus just went around again. Next day at school we had a moment of silence or something then continued with classes. Then in grade school I was in a bus accident. We got hit head on by a truck. That stopped the old bus cold. When I got up off the floor the driver was trying to get untangled from wires and stuff, luckily he ducked or he would have lost his head. Kids were screaming and crying, blood was everywhere, chaos ruled. Some people wrenched the emergency door open and most of us filed out. One girl was trapped up front so we had to leave her. We just laid down on the grass and waited for help. There weren't enough ambulances so those of us who weren't too bad off just rode to the hospital in any car that happened to stop. I was in a station wagon with some women who claimed to be a nurse but she passed up the hospital and had to turn around, so I didn't believe her. We got a pencil box out of that ordeal. So I don't have much sympathy for today's little over protected kids....... Oh ya then there was the time a pickup tried to stop when the red light lite up on the bus and he landed in the top of a tree, that was cool! Okay I'm done.
That was a pretty entertaining rant, MeAgain But this: Maybe it was a joke, but I've never heard of that being a belief among younger folks. Young folks like to rant just as much as anyone else, methinks.
^^The difference is the younger folks don't rant, they complain, big difference AHHH the memories. We lived in upstate NY, Along a compacted dirt road with the nearest neighbor 2 miles away. Poison Ivy along the side of the road with the mailbox and lilac shrubs on the other. (nothing like infected Poison Ivy rashes to curb your summer plans). In the winter, we waited at the end of our 200 meter driveway for the bus; which usually was following the snowplow; sometimes it ran late so adding an hour to our wait. Frozen snot on our nose hairs, lips and eyes; shallow breaths because the cold hurt on inhale but the exhale was like pretending to smoke, so it was cool. Get on the bus and you felt like a snowman on a finally warm May morning, melting away until gone. Oh yeah and the bread bags ( the ones with the colored polka dots, cannot remember the brand ) and if no bread bags then cling wrap. And we didn't have phones to pass the time; something called an imagination, millennials might need to look that one up, perhaps wikipedia has a good definition. Side note, when we moved up there, my Dad built our house but due to the slow process we had no insulation and my Mom tied my feet to the bed frame so I wouldn't push the blankets off and freeze to death. Found that out only a few years ago. Sorry not really a rant but just a rehashed memory from your story.
One year my bus driver dropped me off at the end of the road and I had to walk about 3 quarters of a mile home. I didn't really mind it, I enjoyed the walk but when I mentioned it to my mom she called the school and put a stop to it and the bus started dropping me off at my driveway. I can understand why she worried though, I was the only person on the bus who lived on my street so I always walked alone and parts of the street between the houses were kind of isolated. There is a bus stop in front of my house. I was at home sick the other day and noticed parents were parking their car up and down the street to pick their kids up from the bus stop. I don't really get that - if you're not at work at 3:30 and can pick your kid up from the bus stop why not just pick them up from school instead? Or let them walk home from the bus stop? My neighborhood isn't that large, it wouldn't be a long walk for anyone.
Meters? We didn't have any metric stuff back then. Just plain Imperial and English Whitworth system.
Dude, you missed out Nothing like aiming for the snowbank with 5 of your friends clinging to a toboggan for dear life. :yikes: By the way, how far up that hill are you anyway
We used car hoods for awhile, my wife used a refrigerator door. Car hoods were cool if you ripped off the ornaments as you could cram lots of kids onto one of them and they weren't to heavy.
My public school district didn't offer bus service to anyone who lived within a mile of the school. If your mom couldn't pick you up and you couldn't hitch a ride with somebody else, you had to walk. This was in town with no leash laws, so you were likely to get chased by a dog. At least the girls didn't have to worry about the neighborhood bullies who wanted to beat up most of the boys. On all four corners of the elementary school property, they had fifth grade boys serving as crossing guards. Children in charge of a safety project? What could go wrong? It's a miracle nobody got killed. One of the things that put an end to the old policies was the annexation of newer suburban neighborhoods that had been built with narrow streets, deep ditches on both sides, and fences built right up to the ditches, leaving absolutely nowhere for anybody to walk. In an era of cheap gas, walking anywhere had become socially unacceptable. In most schools now, parents have to show some kind of document or pass when picking up a kid to prove who they are. I guess the biggest problem is divorced parents who don't have custody. We were just released from the building to scatter. All that freedom really wasn't fun until high school, when we had become hedonistic enough to know what to do with that two hour block of time between the end of school and our parents getting off work.
In all fairness on two separate occasions while walking in my old neighborhood I was offered a ride when I was clearly way under age by men who were clearly over 18. It happens. I had freedom to roam wherever I wanted with friends but not so much by myself.
Smart parents as well as yourself. To bad alot of families aren't around for their kids both physically and more so, mentally. Not saying it has never happened but the technology age has increased the idea that the country is over run with paedophiles. Most are more likely to be molested by a family member then a stranger. Yes it happens, no denying and it has happened throughout history. My son has a half sister and I have a Hippie camping van. She cringed when I gave her a ride one day because she didn't want everyone thinking she was in a paedo van. Shows the mentality or maybe it is just her overly paranoid mother lol.
Try getting a 550 fucken dollar ticket for going around one of those piece of shit school busses when it's red fucken lights were flashing!!!!!
No, I told him I went around it because I was ABOUT to shit my pants. I remember I had two burritos and a chili dog that day for lunch at school. And a chocolate milk.
