The Wheels on the Bus

I’m at that nostalgic point of parental life where I look at other people’s children writhing and crying at restaurants, in churches, on airplanes, and just say, “Aww!” I false-remember like my mother-in-law did, “She was a delightful baby! She never cried!” And, I find that I have fond memories about random things like school buses. 

The other day, I was stuck behind a school bus for a three-mile stretch where it painstakingly stopped and started, ejecting backpacks and children, no less than eight times. In another stage of life I would have spewed curses, flashed fingers, and beat dashboards. 

But, I wasn’t in any particular hurry last Wednesday at 3 pm. I didn’t have that insides-shaking anxiety about having to be there when the kids got home from school. Or over the thought of short-order cooking family dinner. Or about having to be at a Little League board meeting and a PTA event before driving to cheerleading, baseball, basketball, or all three.

No, now I’m free; enjoying a refreshingly free freelance life with physical freedom from most of my children. A life in which I can sit behind a school bus, alone, and reminisce without fear of getting caught. 

I grew up riding a school bus. In the mornings, I’d walk up Woods Road with any number of my three sisters, or none, depending on who was in the same school at the same time, and who, if any, were in my favor on that particular day. I, or we, would pause at Margaret’s house, where she and her brother, or sister, or neither (same deal as above), would skip down their steep driveway. We’d wait for Debbie Atlee to appear in her hip huggers and tube top, then head up to Schaeffer’s for Kit and/or Johnny, again dependent on familial relationships. We cut through the Schaeffer’s backyard to avoid Carol Zeigler, crossed the edge of the Faust’s property, and ended up on the outer edge of the Eble’s yard, waiting for the bus with one or six other kids who chose the upper end of Woods Road over their pre-assigned bus stop.

Because, in those days you could do that. There wasn’t a mother out there who cared if you preferred to walk a block farther so you could clamor for the attention of Bobby Amsler, John Rothrock, or Jimmy Lustri at their bus stop. There was no mother who chided you for singing “Pink, pink, we all turn pink cause Matthew Ramsey stinks.” Or Henry. It ran in the family. 

There was definite bus protocol. The older kids sat in the back, the youngers tried to act cool near the front. The bad boys smoked cigarettes in the rearmost seats and the bus driver rarely bothered to notice. We made fun of Andrea Mumford who “threw fits,” which cruel as it was, probably wasn’t much worse than the upper classmen who sprayed my puffy red hair with a water pistol, laughing as it frizzed, calling me Bozo the Clown. (And, my spouse wonders why I spend the big bucks on keratin treatment at my advanced age. Some scars run deep.)

Every now and then, when we got older, we’d actually choose to walk the 1.9 miles home from the high school, cutting through Oreland Presbyterian Church so we could pass the Maher’s house, filled with kids, one more popular than the next. But mostly, we rode the bus, earning our backseat status as the years flew by.  

So, when my kids went to school, I didn’t suffer any of the school bus angst that many of my peers experienced. I was happy not to have to drive them to school and dismayed to find that parenting norms and gasp, school rules, dictated that a parent had to be at the bus stop at both ends of the day. What, I wondered, did these people think was going to happen?

But, I found a way to turn the bus stop into a social opportunity, and turned the elusive Claire-on-the-corner into the best of friends. Between the two of us, we had seven kids, in seven different grades of school. And while all seven were never on the same bus, we’d wait for the elementary school bus with the kindergarteners and pre-schoolers in tow, so we pretty much dominated the sidewalk. Our fluid parenting style confused outsiders as to which kid belonged to whom. The only sure thing was my daughter because everyone knew Claire only produced boys. For a while, my middle son, Max, truly believed he was Claire’s child. 

I did nothing to set him straight.

One year, the day before Christmas break, Claire sent her son, Zack, onto the bus with a present for the driver. 

“I had no idea!” I exclaimed. “My mother never gave the bus driver a Christmas present!” 

“It’s my husband,” Claire explained. “His reasoning is; if something happens, the driver is going to remember the kid who gave him a gift.”

I laughed, never been one to buy into bad things happening. But, I still felt bad. 

That afternoon as I stood waiting in anticipation for my young ‘uns to hop off the bus, I heard the bus driver say to my Max, “Thank your mom for the gloves!” 

"Okay," he said in his deep kid voice.

So much for remembering which kid gave the gift. Or which mother birthed the kid, for that matter.

The squeal of the bus brakes at Every.Single.Corner last week triggered me back to childhood. I remember jumping off those high, high bus steps and rushing home where my mother would ALWAYS be waiting with open ears and open arms. And while I was never half the mother she was, I can still picture the unfettered joy on my own kids’ faces as they bounded off the bus, prized (and crumpled) artwork in hand, into my half-open arms and closed-off ears.  

The sound of brakes remind me of coming home from hockey practice on the late sports’ bus to my meatloaf, mashed potatoes and string beans warming on a plate in the oven. They also remind me of my grown-up self, crammed into a pint-sized seat, bouncing all the way up Route 17 for yet another apple picking trip. 

But, mostly they remind me of the punch-in-the-gut look of trepidation as my youngest got on the kindergarten bus for the very first time. An image repeated time and time again, by each and every one of my kids, in each and every stage of new life challenges. And, how each and every time, I pretended to be happy about letting them go.  

Sometimes a Dream is Just a Dream

I am a memory hoarder. 

So much so that I have notebook after notebook filled with my life’s details, including New Years’ Eve in Moscow, phony number fun and foibles with Margaret, honeymooning in Montreal, singing karaoke in Manilla, bicycling in France and just about every hope, dream, victory and vice I ever combatted throughout my high school career. 

I have charts recording the fluid that came from the drains in my chest after my double mastectomy, the number of steps I took, and when, and how much it hurt, after each of my joint replacements, and how much I weighed every single week of my adult life. 

I have scraps of paper with profound statements that have changed my life, prize emails saved from the hundreds of thousands my friend Laura and I have exchanged since 1990, lists of names and descriptions of people Patty and I have loved, for a week at a time, on cruise after cruise, and a file cabinet with folders marked Memories, Things to Remember, and since I’ve been a mother, Fun Kid Stuff.

Which is where, when looking for nothing in particular, I found a conversation that took place, in the brand new minivan, between my son, Leo, and his best friend, Koree. It was July, 2005 and they were nine years old. 

Koree: 

Me and Leo are best friends. 

Me: 

Do you think you’ll be friends for your whole life?

Koree: 

Nah. Cause we’re going to go our separate ways. Leo’s going to be a professional baseball player and I’m going to be a professional basketball player. 

Me: 

Well, you can certainly still stay friends!

Koree: 

No. Cause when we split up, he’ll be in Baltimore and I’ll be in Dallas. 

Leo: 

I know. We’ll write each other’s names down so we’ll remember each other. 

Koree: 

But we’ll need a cell phone. 

Leo: 

When Koree’s famous, I’ll go backstage because I’ll be like Barry Bonds and I’ll get in for free. 

When I was nine years old, I had been a published author for two years, having my “Christmas is a time of giving, and I’m so glad that I am living,” second-grade poem printed in the Oreland Sun. For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was be a writer. 

And write I did. I recorded everything I did and said and heard and witnessed with the hopes of one day twisting and turning those phrases and fragments into the Great American Novel.  And in the meantime, I wrote short stories and poems, and love letters to my friends. I wrote speeches and eulogies, and long-winded yearbook homages. I wrote toasts and tributes, and silly little birthday ditties.

When I was in 11^thgrade, Ms. Scott, said my writing style reminded her of Lillian Hellman, which prompted me to devour every one of the famous author’s plays and memoirs. When I was asked to read one of my pieces aloud at Creative Writing Night, I had to sheepishly admit to a tearful audience, that the story about my dead sister was purely fiction. 

In a journalism class in college, realizing I was about to miss a deadline, I whipped up the story of how we pulled off the old bucket-of-water-perched-precariously-outside-the-detested-resident-assistant’s-dorm-door caper. The feature story was published in the school paper and we were caught, perhaps precipitating our subsequent visit to the Judicial Board. 

I majored in Advertising, with a concentration in copywriting and a minor in Creative Writing. When I graduated, I was an insecure college graduate with no paid writing experience, so spend ten years in related, but unfulfilling fields, working harder on making friends than making a buck. After I got married and moved to New Jersey, I landed a job at the new cable station, CNBC, as an administrative assistant in the marketing department. Had it not been for the faith of my boss-turned-friend, Caroline Vanderlip, to this day, l may never have had made a dime penning my words.

But, my dream never included writing brochures about how to read a stock ticker tape, or ads touting Maria Bartiroma as the first woman to report from the floor of the NYSE. Though I must admit I did have fun writing promo spots for Geraldo Rivera, trembling my way through an interview with Phil Donahue, and dodging the late, great Roger Ailes. 

My career evolved from CNBC to freelance writer, working from home, playground benches or baseball bleachers. I crafted all kinds of copy for all kinds of companies, but still, it wasn’t what I had envisioned back in Mrs. Baker’s second grade classroom.

And, so I wrote my novels. Three of them. One about a bunch of families navigating their way through the 12 year-old travel baseball world. Another about a 30 year-old looking for love in all the wrong places, and the last about four college friends who reunite for a week on a cruise ship. They say always write what you know.

Novels, plural, complete. I did it. 

Except that they’re all three still sitting in my computer, afraid to come out, afraid to face the world, afraid to become a dream come true. 

Back in 2005, Koree and Leo both played baseball, basketball and football. But within a few years, they had each committed fully to their sport of choice. Leo to baseball, Koree to basketball. They never balked, they never wavered; they were all in. They traveled the country playing in national tournaments, showcasing their skills and picturing themselves first in UNC jerseys and then in whatever pro uniform they were paid to wear. They played hard through high school and into college until their pro ball dreams came to an end. 

“Did you ever think of coaching?” I recently asked Koree, who is now in the throes of job hunting. 

“Never!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want anything to do with basketball ever again.”

Leo nodded in solidarity. 

And that hurt my heart.

Not because of the thousands of hours they devoted to the game. Not because of the tens of thousands of dollars we pumped into the sport. Not because of the millions of dollars they wouldn’t make. 

But, because, like their parents before them, they, too, had unfulfilled dreams.  

I thought not just about myself and my unsubmitted novels; I thought about Koree’s father who had big dreams of his own. As a college hoops star, he went up against the likes of Michael Jordan and Kenny Smith, who even gave him a shout out while commentating the NCAA tournament. 

I couldn't help but wonder how different all our lives would be if he, or I, or the both of us, had "made it." What if our DNA had just a little more drive, a little more confidence, a little more talent? 

For one thing, Koree and Leo would never have met. He, or we, would be living in different towns, in bigger houses, running in different circles. Instead, we co-raised five pretty decent athletes, who someday, somewhere, will lead their adults leagues in base hits and buckets. They say they won't, but they'll coach their kids in cheerleading and soccer and softball. 

I picture ourselves, in the not so distant future, gathered for a Hargraves-Voreacos family dinner. There will be a spouse, or five, at the table, a bunch of grandkids in tow. We'll get to talking about the good old days - the coulda, woulda, shouldas. 

Looking around the table, soaking in the love and laughter, we old folk will finally come to terms with our lives. We'll realize that, despite all of our missed shots, we still ended up with a winning season. 

And that is, indeed, a dream come true.