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.