We’ve been walking to school in the mornings – even one very wet one – but she’s mentioned on several occasions that she wished her school had a bus. Her best buddy O lives further out and he gets to take the bus to school. There are so many kids that catch the bus at his particular spot that once they all get on the bus it just turns around and heads back to school – 55 kids at the stop, 55 kids max on the bus. We think this is a funny image, and we talk about the crowd of people that must gather as we walk to school. In our city, the school systems are so complicated and the enrollment so jumbled that when you toss in the magnet schools, the parochial schools, the private schools, the charter schools, well – you see lots and lots of buses, but none with lots and lots of kids on them. So instead of riding we count them, and we try to hit our daily goal of ten buses in ten blocks. Yesterday afternoon we saw fourteen, although we usually get a good half dozen or so alone on the interstate highway below the bridge we cross midway.
This past weekend E found this school bus coloring page in her room and decided to color it for O and add a little joke at the bottom, which amused me to no end. She may not get to see him every day at school like she did for the past five years, but we think of him, and smile and giggle, each and every morning when we see those shiny yellow buses go by.