"In college, I drove a school bus"

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Gerard Baker had a beautifully expressed, memorable and oh-so-true line: “...relative extremism in pursuit of persuasion is all the rage...” Political extremism has been enhanced by media extremism.

 

However, onto a lighter theme, for life goes on; this essay has nothing to do with spring or April Fools’ Day, but celebrates grandchildren and memories. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“In College, I Drove A School Bus”

April 1, 2026

 

“Now I drive the school bus.”

                                                                                                              Otto Mann, school bus driver

                                                                                                              The Simpsons

 

In 2009 my youngest grandson, George, attended Christ Church Nursery School in Greenwich, Connecticut. A highlight was Grandparents Day, a way to celebrate the bond between students and their grandparents. On the day we attended each child was asked to introduce their grandparents. When it came George’s turn he was excited to introduce me as a school bus driver. I could not have been happier, knowing that he had listened to stories of my youth.

 

....................................................................................

 

George was correct. While I had spent the previous forty-two years as a stockbroker, I did drive a school bus between September 1963 and January 1965.

 

In high school and in my first two years of college I was an indifferent student, a cynic with no goals. My grandmother had paid my tuition at Williston Academy and at the University of New Hampshire. After two years I dropped out. I spent the summer working at Canada’s Falconbridge Nickel Mine, and later as a lab technician at the Metal Hydrides Corporation in Beverly, MA. Then, by a stroke of good fortune, on New Year’s Eve, I met the girl who would become my wife, and my life began to turn around. My cynicism dropped, and I had a goal, convincing Caroline (and her parents) that I would make a responsible husband.

 

I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves to fulfill my military obligation and then returned to college for the spring term of 1963. However, given my past academic record, my grandmother would not pay my tuition; so I was on my own. While taking classes, I worked a number of jobs, making sandwiches and writing a sports column for the Dover Daily Democrat. That summer, while also continuing my studies, I secured a job driving a school bus for the city of Dover, NH. I kept the other jobs, but driving the school bus became my most consistent source of income. In April 1964, Caroline and I married, and I continued my school bus-driving duties.

 

Transporting students, I came to know the children, and we had fun, so long as they behaved and stayed seated. However, one episode remains fixed in my memory. It was a winter morning after a snowfall, which narrowed streets with cars parked on either side. I stopped at the top of a hill. The street went down to where a right or left turn could be made, but my route went up the other side. I sat for a minute or two, calculating whether there was room for the bus to navigate between cars that lined the street on the hill beyond. The children were in no doubt that the attempt should be made. After a few  minutes, I agreed.

 

The bus picked up speed going down, knowing it would be needed to crest the hill opposite. With children cheering, “You can do it! You can do it!” down we went and up the other side. Like taking a camel through the eye of a needle there could not have been more than an inch or two to spare on either side! We made it. 

 

I am grateful to George for his introduction of me that day. It brought back memories.