When I was in grade school, my mom lied on the school application and said I lived a mile from the school. I think it was actually about 500 feet. She didn’t want me to walk on the highway because coal trucks came through the 35 mph zone going about 80 sometimes. So, I became an illegal bus rider.
All the other kids stayed on the bus probably 30 minutes to an hour. For that whole 30 seconds I was on the bus, I had to listen to their taunting, "I would walk if I were you!" Whatever. They didn't have my mother protecting them.
My Bus Number 75 driver, Dean, was the best bus driver in the world. The bus was her ministry. She was my friend Amy’s grandma, and she acted like she was every kid on the bus’s grandma. She gave us cokes and candy bars for holidays. One time, she pulled off the road and put on a mask to give us Halloween candy (okay, weird, but fun for kids!). Bus 75 also “adopted” an elderly woman from a nursing home. We all met before Christmas and sang carols to all the nursing home patients. And remember, this wasn’t with church, this was my school bus.
On that bus, I met a sweet little girl named Lacy that had to sit up from with the other little kids and me (since I was one of the first ones off the bus). This weekend, my best guy friend from high school, Jason, is getting married to sweet little Lacy from Bus Number 75. When I think about them getting married, I picture Lacy coming down the aisle in a little dress with her big glasses and long brown hair with bangs like she used to be on the bus. And I think of Jason in his high school days with his K.Swiss and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt driving a Grand Am (he hated that it was 4-door). They’ll probably look different at the wedding.
I might have to be the best man, so I'm keeping a moustache in my purse just in case.
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