Just a School Bus Driver
"Conner," I call in a soft dad's voice, "you're home..."
Just a humble job charged with trust.
I apply sunscreen. Another day out in the sun driving little kids and adolescents awaits me.
Among other things, I am a rural school bus driver. Bus drivers must pass a Colorado Bureau of Investigation criminal background check, driving record check, earn a commercial driver's license and pass many additional tests. No, it's not really a community service punishment for child-averse criminals as one might imagine.
The children give me daily gifts unawares. There's the little tyke who's so excited to get on the bus that he tries to squeeze through his ranch pipe gate. He's forgotten he has a backpack on. Firmly wedged, his arms and legs flail about like a stuck turtle. Dad gets out of the car and pries him 
free. Then there's the small boy who's dog is so glad to see him in the afternoon that the big canine just bowls the little guy over, a la Fred Flintstone and Dino. Or how about the little girl that sings me the song she learned in choir? I sing along with her if I know the words. Another girl sits behind me and has me help her with her arithmetic. Using the Socratic method, I ask pointed questions that help her figure out the answers for herself.
At the end of the day I drop the kids off at their homes. The burgeoning evening is gorgeous. A showy orange and purple sunset plays behind Pikes Peak, 30 miles to the west. As I let the kids off in ones, twos and small groups the noise level drops in the bus. At last the remaining cohort of chattering children pile off. In the mirror, barely visible above the seat backs I see the top of one child's head. "Conner, you with me?" I ask. About 7 years old, Conner will be the last little guy to deliver. The arched bus ceiling seems cathedral-like in comparison to his small, lonely self.
"Waddaya say we take you home?"
"Okay!" is his enthusiastic small voiced reply.
Driving on with miles to go, it's just the two of us in the cavernous, rattley bus. At the head of a comet's tail of dust, our bus is a yellow speck jouncing over a wide lonesome prairie. After a bit, Conner's head disappears below the seat backs. "Sleeping," I think, smiling to myself. School days are long for one so young and so I find I'm driving with extra care, as if hauling nitro.
Winter's sun has set behind the mountain now. At last Conner's family's place appears down the long gravel road. I creep slowly to a stop, the last stop - Conner's driveway. "PFFFF!" Setting the air brake doesn't wake him. The diesel engine growls, idling, waiting. "Conner," I call in a soft dad's voice, "you're home..." The top of a little tow head reappears. I wait. Rubbing his eyes, half awake he shuffles down the aisle. At the front he pauses and turns toward me in silence. Sleepy eyed, with arms outstretched and lunchbox dangling in one hand, he reaches without a word and hugs me as I sit belted in the driver's seat. Then he silently turns to go down the steps. "Good night Conner," I say softly.
Between surprise and affection, satisfaction spreads within like a hot drink on a cold day. Not a glamorous job, driving a school bus. Not the kind of thing that would impress people at a party... "So, what do you do?" But an important job none the less. Important to be done perfectly every day, every gear shift, every stop. I realize that my eyes and smile must warm the kids more than the old bus heater could. Suddenly Conner has made all the rolling "monkey house on wheels" pandemonium okay.
Just a humble job charged with trust. Oddly I actually feel better about the job for its anonymity - and its assumptions about me. A little bit of the old fashioned America remains.
I watch Conner as he shambles off down his long dirt driveway with his short seven year old's gait. He's flanked by two very happy, bounding muttly dogs. I pause to watch him because I have to. My eyes are damp and stinging. Darn that sunscreen.
Tom Preble