*The new bus driver*
Monday mornings, I hate them. Dublin is so busy but luckily, I travel in on the bus and I always sit at the front conversing to the bus driver Marty. He is probably the only reason I look forward to work, I love a good chat and I am the last stop so there is plenty of opportunity for this. We talk about lots of things, he is always interested in my martial arts as I have a black belt and so does his daughter. We get on like a house on fire.
Until one day when Marty fell ill he would be back in a few months but i would miss our chats. I hopped up on the bus the next day and sat in my seat, I noticed the new bus driver was a bit older than Marty maybe in his sixty’s. Knowing me I started to talk
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He started to open up after a week or two and told me his name, Frederick but Fred for short. He started to tell me about his friends but not the way you would expect anyone to talk about their buddies, he would start by telling me how tremendous they were then he would go on to how he hated them and then he would finish off by saying “they have been missing for a while now” I first sympathised with him, but I started to think it was very unusual when he started to talk about somebody new every day. I really didn’t think much of …show more content…
It usually takes about 20 minutes to get back to my apartment and we were now on the road for about 30 minutes. I really started to get distressed when I searched on my phone “traffic delays in Dublin” and no delays came up. Typically, I had no credit on my phone
I had to act. I didn’t know where i was going but one thing i did know was it wasn’t good. I un clipped my seat belt as softly as i could and moved myself carefully to the back of the bus. We were on a very narrow road, if i could find a way to get him to slow down.
A fortunate stroke of serendipity came as a large silage trailer came haltingly down the cramped road. This was my chance. I opened the emergency door as the bus was still moving marginally and jumped only to see that I could not move. My suit jacket was caught in the hatch. The silage trailer was reversing rearward into the gateway to let us pass. He spotted me and jumped up. I was trying to haul it out of the hatch but it wouldn’t shift. Fred shouted “what are you doing” and ran to me as well as trying to grab me. I dislodged it from the hatch and bolted down the road as brisk as i could. Really the farmer with silage had seen exacly what was going on and had rang the guards. I could hear the siren
about to urinate all over the bus, but they decided it would just be another
And so it began. Martin, in those days especially, had an approach to people that was at best "challenging", & at worst confrontational. Those who didn't "get" Martin brushed him off as a clown, but to those who watched, and listened, it was clear there was something extremely profound going on. Martin had an uncanny ability to see into people, to look through you, to reflect your own insecurities and hangups back at you, until you had no choice left but to drop them... and dance with him. Martin called your bluff every time... Despite his best efforts to the contrary, eventually we did become friends. I simply refused to let him go, or to let him push me away... I knew in my core that if being Martin's friend required change, well then I'd change. He was worth it...
Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the center of paralysis. I tried to
“The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal” by Jonathan Mooney is the story of his journey around the U.S. in short bus nonetheless to meet with different children and their families who have faced challenges in school due to ADD, ADHD, Autism, and other learning disabilities. Jonathan Mooney himself faced the disability of Dyslexia and often had to deal with many challenges in school himself, but he appears to be one of the more fortunate ones, who was able to grow from his disability and ultimately get a degree in English. Needless to say, his book and journey lead the reader to question what really is “normal”, and how the views of this have caused the odds to be stacked against those who don’t fit the mold. Throughout, this story, for me personally however, this story gave several events that I found moving, and had the potential to influence my further work in education.
"Hey boy where are you going?" the driver shouted at Bill while he stretched his arms across the opening to prevent myself from stepping down. I stood waiting. "Where do you think your going?" he asked, his heavy cheeks quivering with each word. "I'd like to go to the rest room." I smiled and moved to step down. He tightened his grip on the
not many cars on the road encouraging me to drive faster. I had just gone
Sure the guy passed me, but he didn’t stop there. He pulled over about 10 feet in front of me and waited. I stopped in my tracks. My job was another two blocks up. It was the only safe place to go but if I continued to walk up there, he would have grabbed me. I knew he couldn’t pull over into the opposite lane of traffic, so I quickly crossed the street to get away from the van. He pulled off, and made a right at the next light. I’m pretty sure he was attempting to turn around and come back but, I made it to my job before he could.
Little did I know at the time, but this was going to be the longest bus ride of my life. A bus ride that was going to take me halfway across the state of California, it was going to feel like I was traveling through the last four years of my troubled teen life.
It was the night before my driver’s test, and with each passing hour I felt the anxiety creep into my veins. Vying for first place with high school graduation and prom night, receiving a driver’s license is one of the biggest milestones in a teenager’s life. A driver’s license means midnight runs to Sheetz, road trips to the beach, and rides to the mall without your mom blowing kisses from the car as you walk sheepishly towards your friends. What more could a teenager want than these perks? Of course, I was hyper-aware of all that was at stake in regards to my driver’s test. Thus, the night before the exam, I intensively studied my driver’s manual and watched YouTube videos that offered helpful driving pointers. I even dragged my mother along for one more practice run on the road.
Starting at my early childhood I was forced to walk, crawl or ride a bike to get to where I needed to go, the next step was driving. I wasn 't sure if I was ready to drive, but I knew it was the next step towards adulthood. Driving is an essential tool that many adults in the real world cannot live without. Learning from my mistakes when I first started to drive helped shape me as a woman, but it was not easy at first trying to adjust. Driving meant that I was becoming an adult and that I had to take responsibility for all my actions. Thinking about that really gave me a hard time, because I was no longer my mommy and daddy’s little girl anymore. It was a bumpy experience but I was ready for the ride.
talked to him everyday, it was the only way I could cope. At least if
This old/new bus continued our route, and we all sat quietly, awaiting our stops. Everyone had a tired, almost forlorn look, as though they had been through much more than just switching buses. I did not have any concept of time as the bus chugged along, stopping occasionally to let people off, and all of a sudden I recognized that it was almost to my stop. I jerked out of the stupor I was in as the bus stopped in front of my apartment complex. As I gathered up my things to leave, I looked at my friends and said, "Well, this will make one interesting story at school tomorrow!"
I lived with my father for my entire life, but due to his work I did not spend much time with him. My father worked at a different city; and thus he comes home only a few times a month. My father is a mechanic. He works at a company that is distant from our home. This was due to the company being the only one and the first where cars were being assembled in Ethiopia. Sometimes on the weekends I used to go to his work place. He would give me a trip of the place; the station was filled with vehicles, trucks, and motorcycles. It was separated by sections. In each section there were only one type of vehicle and the assembly process was shown step by step. From a fuse to large engine of the car, components were getting attached.
As I was boarding the bus I looked up for a vacant seat. What I saw then
I often think of Robert Frost’s phrase, “I took the road less traveled by” when brushing against dirt, rocks, or grass on a trail. While following a single stretch of a path, whether that road leads in a curve or in a straight line, I notice a myriad of branches to trails that I normally classify as detours. Is that what Robert Frost means when he says he traveled a road less traveled by others?