Category: bus

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A Long (Sometimes Strange) Trip

The other day, I was sitting in my transportation office and started thinking about how many years I have been transporting passengers in various types of vehicles. I started in college by driving various athletic teams to contests in fifteen passenger vans. When I graduated and began teaching and coaching, one of my duties was to transport the teams. We generally drove vans and cars. After a year out of the classroom I took a another job as a teacher and coach, and learned to drive a school bus. Back then, all you needed was a driver’s license to be able to get a chauffeur’s license, which then allowed you to drive a bus for churches and private schools. Over the next ten years, I drove teams and field trips all over southwest Ohio.

After leaving that school, I spent a year as a collegiate athletic department intern and assistant basketball coach. Things had changed, and I had to get a commercial driver’s license with a passenger endorsement During that year, I transported teams around Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even into upstate New York. From there, we moved to South Carolina for another job teaching and coaching. This time I had to upgrade my license to one with an air brake endorsement, and a move up in class to drive heavier buses. That job ended, as they all do, and for a couple of months I drove for a local motor coach company, mostly shuttling military reservists from a National Guard camp to a fort where they were processed to head over to the Middle East for Desert Storm. The next eight years I worked as an classroom assistant in a public middle school. Once again, I also worked as a coach and drove the bus to away games. I also drove to field trips and other outings. My next job was driving a bus for the county’s low cost service for seniors and other folks who don’t have much income. I did that for a year and a half. In the summer, I also drove a shuttle bus for a local camp. After a two year detour as a legal assistant, I began my current job. I drive for a retirement community. I get to go all over the states of North and South Carolina and see some pretty interesting things. I expect this will be the job I retire from, but you never know.

During the forty six or so years I have transported passengers, I have driven up and down the East Coast numerous times, have driven from Pennsylvania to Missouri and back twice, and traveled from Maryland to Pocatello, Idaho and back. While I haven’t driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made, I have driven cars, vans, mini buses, buses holding anywhere from fourteen to forty four passengers. I’ve driven on the interstates and on the back roads, and navigated through the middle of nowhere and through New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and other cities.

Most of the time, the work has been good and very rewarding. There have been moments and trips that were strange, and moments when everything was great. When I first sat in the driver’s seat of that fifteen passenger van, preparing to drive a team to a game, I never imagined what it would lead to. I’m grateful for the opportunities I have had had, just because I can drive a bus.

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One Year Ago

I have seen a lot of articles about remembering the “official” beginning of the pandemic one year ago. It was the start of a year that significantly changed our lives in many ways. Before the Covid virus hit, we could go wherever we wanted and be with friends and family without fear. That changed drastically.

For me personally, March 11, 2020 brought a significant, life changing event. I woke up that morning, and got ready for what I thought would be a normal day. I went to my usual Wednesday morning book discussion time with a couple of friends, then went to my job as a bus driver. At the lunch time, I did my usual workout. Afterward, I felt a little off, with a bit of a headache and just a general blah feeling. I figured I must have pushed myself too hard and didn’t give it another thought.

We had a new driver starting and he drove a group to WalMart to do some grocery shopping, while I rode along. When we arrived, I got off the bus to use the restroom. When I walked in the store I began to feel sick to my stomach and thought that I needed to get to the restroom quick before I lost it or passed out.

To make a long story short, I ended up in the hospital with a heart attack. I had had a couple of episodes earlier, but nothing that seemed overly concerning. I had even passed a stress test with flying colors. Little did I know that the artery hiding in the back of the heart had become 95% blocked and needed attention right away. The doctor put a stent in to keep the artery clear. After three or four visitors came to see me in my room, the hospital was put on lockdown.

I left the hospital after four days, and began the recovery process. I am now completely recovered. I have lost ten pounds, and my blood pressure and cholesterol are down to more normal levels. I feel good and have exceeded my fitness level of a year ago.

The most significant change has been my attitude toward life. I am realizing that I can’t take this life for granted and I am much more appreciative of the things in my life. More than that, I especially am thankful for the people in my life. I have been blessed with a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren, other family, and very good friends.

Facing my own mortatlity and seeing others, including people I know personally, face theirs, has taught me how precious and precarious this life is. It has taught me how completely dependant we all are on the grace of a good God. I have learned to depend on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:26 about the Father’s care for the birds and how he cares for his children so much more. That is a great comfort and encouragement.

I have no idea what lies around the bend on the back road of life. We all have things we wish wouldn’t happen in our lives and the lives of those we hold dear. I do know that the same God who takes good care of the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, is my loving Father who is going to do what is good and best for me and for those I care about.

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Reflections at 65

Yesterday I completed my sixty fifth year on this earth. It seems hard to believe it’s been that long, yet at the same time it feels like a long time has past. There have been a lot of changes over the years, in me and in the world around me. When I was born, Dwight Eisenhower was President. Many more have come and gone, some good, some bad. Communication has gone from rotary phones with party lines to Dick Tracy style wrist watches with video calling. Back then, a zoom meeting meant driving fast across town to a particular location. Wars used to be fought in person, now they are sometimes fought remotely.

Over the years, I have gone from being a rail thin youngster to a chubby middle age man to a slightly slimmer senior. I used to be athletic, now my knees ache when I get up in the morning. As a matter of fact, a good bit of my body aches in the morning. I have finally learned that when my mind tells me I can do something that I used to be able to do, I shouldn’t listen. My body always disagrees with my mind, and it is usually right. I have had the opportunity to continue my athletic career as a coach, and been able to coach some pretty good athletes, including my children. Because I coached, I also drove buses and have been able to turn that into in-between jobs, and finally into the job I have now.

I have learned a few things along the way. Some of them are important and some are good answers to trivia questions. I have learned that a great many of the things we think are vital are not, and some of the things we think are inconsequential are extremely important. Even though I still get upset more than I should, I have come to realize that there are really very few things in this life worth getting upset about. More and more, my philosophy is boiling down to, like Karl Barth, Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, along with love God and others. I have found that holding those thngs closely makes things simpler and more complex. I do believe if more of those of us who call ourselves Christians would live in the realization that we are loved by God and are to love him and our neighbor, this world would be a much better place.

I am truly blest by the Father. He has given me a wonderful wife, two fantastic chidlren, and three of the best grandchildren in the world, with one more on the way. Jan and I are part of a beautiful community of fellow Jesus followers. I have been able to do things that I loved, both in work and play. I have seen some amazing things and met some amazing people. As the years have gone by, I have become more and more grateful for all my blessings and for all the lessons I have learned, even the hard ones.

None of us knows what the future holds. That is not in our hands. I am thankful that my loving Father has the future in his hands. I hope to spend many more years traveling the back roads of life trying to keep up with Jesus.

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Blast From the Past: Still More

When we last left our hero, he was wondering what was going to happen next.

I was without work. I thought I was going to realize the fulfillment of a long held dream of coaching college basketball. So, I sent out resumes and waited. I talked to every coach I knew. And I waited. The summer came and went and still no coaching job. In fact, there were no jobs at all on the horizon. We didn’t feel free to move to another area because my parents and my wife’s parents had moved here to be near us and they were in declining health and needed our help. The search continued. As all this was going on, we had to give our Cocker Spaniel to the pound because he was old and had too much wrong with him for us to afford to have him treated. It was not a fun summer. About a week after we gave our dog away, I was out on yet another job search. As I drove past the animal shelter, I lost it. I began to pray, cry, and yell at God. I even cussed (I know that shocks some of you, but that’s the way it is). I told God that if I had anywhere else to go, I’d chuck this whole Christian thing. I realized that, like the disciples, I had nowhere else to go, that Jesus was the only one worth following.

In September of 2005, I was hired by a tour bus company to drive. I was glad because it would give me a chance to travel. As it turned out, the majority of the job consisted of leaving the house at 4:00 AM, driving to a National Guard camp eighty miles away, and shuttling troops back and forth from the camp to a nearby army base so they could be processed for active duty in Iraq. Most of the day was spent sitting on the bus and waiting for the soldiers to get their paperwork in order. I would usually arrive back home sometime after 10:00 PM. Because of this schedule, I usually only worked three days a week, so the income wasn’t real good. The company also had no health insurance for their employees.

At first, I wondered what I had done wrong, wondered why God had “put me on the sidelines”. I felt like I was in a desert. Sitting on the bus gave me plenty of opportunity to read, think, and pray. God began to teach me about trust and patience. He reminded me that he was the most important one in my life, and that my identity was in Jesus, not in being a teacher or coach. I began to rethink even more of my assumptions about God, church, and life. At the same time, God was teaching me increasingly to trust him. Jan and I saw God provide for us again and again.

In January 2006, I walked out of the desert. I was hired as a teacher’s assistant in a self-contained special education class at a public middle school. The kids I work with all have learning disabilities, some more severe than others. Many of them are from low income families. Quite a change from the Christian schools previously worked in, although not as much as I would have thought. Kids are kids wherever you go.

Also in January, both my mom and my mother-in-law went into a nursing home. Jan’s mom suffered a stroke, and my mom was suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s. Our ministry to our parents changed somewhat, as we were visiting our moms and essentially being there for our dads. It was hard to go into a place full of people who were essentially waiting to die and visit Mom, knowing that she would never leave in this life.

I’ll give your eyes a rest and write more later.

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Lessons From Bus School

No, I didn’t mean to say school bus. It seems that God puts me on a bus for a while whenever I need to learn new lessons, hence “bus school.”

There are a number of things the Father knew I still had to learn. One is patience (Dang! I thought I had that down!). I am getting extensive experience with older folks who don’t move very quickly and who can be somewhat cranky from time to time. Because there are senior citizens on the bus, as well as folks in wheelchairs, I can not travel at normal speeds around corners or on some of the bumpy roads around here. I am learning that it does no good to be in a hurry. I am also learning to be patient with my self. Believe it or not, I don’t do everything, even driving, perfectly. I’ve made mistakes, and lo and behold the world didn’t end, the sun still came up the next day, and I didn’t get fired.

One lesson that was reinforced the other day is the importance of relationships over and above just about anything else. I pulled up to a house to let one of the seniors off and there was a man in the driveway who knew another one of the passengers. She hasn’t seen him in a while, so he came to the door and began to talk to her. I was supposed to be pulling out and moving on to another drop-off. After all, I had a schedule to keep. The Spirit spoke to my heart and told me to just let them talk, that their relationship was far more important than keeping to a schedule. Don’t be mistaken. I am as concerned with doing things efficiently as anyone. Maybe more, considering my struggles with perfectionism. But, there are times when being a friend is more vital than any task, probably more than some of us realize. When it’s all said and done, what will matter is not how perfectly we did things, but how we treated others, what kind of friend we were. As Jesus said, the greatest commandments are to love God and love others.

The wheels on the bus continue to go round and round. It remains to be seen how much I still have to learn.