LIFE LESSONS
Godless Small Children Crash School Bus
Lessons learned in childhood are hard to forget
When you’re six the lessons you learn stay with you.
“Druther” isn’t a word, the teacher said. I was pretty sure she meant I hadn’t spelled it right in my story. It’s a pretty big word for a first-grader, after all.
I shot my older brother a look that said ‘This isn’t right. We have to work this out later.’
Big D (as opposed to our brother — Little D) wanted so badly to be free of me. Having to hear the teacher read my stories out loud was bad enough. That I’d debate the teacher on my word choice was another thing entirely.
Nine Mile Falls is exactly nine miles from downtown Spokane, Washington. It’s a beautiful forested area great for nature exploring and childhood adventures. But like many small, rural towns, the scarcity of technology and emergency services kept the area in a similar state as the mid-1900s.
One small school served 300 students living within an 80-mile area. The classroom I shared with my brother was used to teach first through third graders. Mrs. Buell walked around the head of the class addressing first graders facing one way, second graders facing north, and the “big kid” third graders who faced west. I was awed by her power.
The teacher seemed okay, but she told stories about her sons that concerned me. Like when she admitted to coming home late and intuiting they’d been rough-housing. She appeared proud to magically catch them without proof or explanation. It bothered me. I thought long and hard about that. Not even Big D could figure out her special powers.
After a couple of days, I asked if her sons were still fighting and further questioned her detective skills. Did they have marks she could see? Had they broken something? Was one crying?
The teacher finally gave up her secret.
“I can tell because all the dust is gone from the center of the room. It’s spread out from where they were fighting.” she beamed at me.
I’d not yet taught my face not to react honestly.
Our mom kept a clean house. Finding dust anywhere was a surprise. I druther wished I hadn’t asked. A quick glance in Big D’s direction confirmed I was on my own with this one. He was doing his I’m-invisible-I-didn’t-hear-any-of-that act.
I wondered what my older, wiser brother would normally do in this situation. If that is, he had to be conscious. Nothing. Okay, Mom? What would Mom, no, Grandma do? Grandma never made anyone upset, something I did often.
“Wow, you’re smart,” I told the teacher.
She smiled and I was relieved I’d passed the inspection since my face hadn’t been in on the plan.
We both knew I’d just learned deceit.
“You’re pretty smart yourself young lady. Since you’ve finished your work, you can go outside to play early.”
The exchange left me feeling a little bit sick. It was a feeling I’d have to get used to.
I was thrilled getting to the classroom door meant I’d get to walk past my brother and secretly kick him back into awareness.
Big D and I also learned that we didn’t like notoriety
There was snow on the ground, making it slick. Our house on the river had a steep driveway that blocked the view from the road, so on the day we were late the bus driver didn’t know to wait another minute or two. As we crested the hill he had just pulled away when he saw us.
Big D lightly punched my arm — a move we traded frequently at that age. He did it because his dad did it to him. I punched back because there was no way I’d let him think I wasn’t just as tough.
“You should have hurried up. Now we’ll probably have to walk all the way to the gas station before he’ll pick us up,” he grumbled. I slipped on the ice again, making us later.
I was about to hit him back when I noticed the bus driver was slowing down instead of accelerating toward his next stop.
Was he going to stop in the middle of the road? Even I knew at 6 years old that stopping in the middle of a two-lane road was dumb, especially when there was snow on top of the ice. Cars had to stay in their own lanes and take turns otherwise, they’d get crunched.
We hurried to catch up.
The bus driver made a bad mistake.
As we watched in what appeared to be very loud slow motion, the driver pulled over into a ditch. The bus rolled onto a large snowbank and came to rest at a 90-degree angle.
The door to the bus was blocked by snow, but the rear exit was clear.
At just 6 and 7 years old neither of us weighed more than 45 pounds. We struggled with the back door while watching the confused kids inside.
Finally, a couple of older kids came to the back and pushed hard on the exit door, releasing it. A man driving by stopped and together, we were able to hold the door open as the children began to exit.
I recall a lot of confusion as if everyone had suddenly been startled awake by a loud noise. No one appeared to be seriously injured or panicked. Just rather uncertain about what comes next.
Big D told me to go get Mom as he struggled with the door. Something made me turn back and witness his face changing from serious concentration to fear at what he saw coming next. He looked back at me and barked “GO!!!”
What had seemed to be a rather suspended reality suddenly became a horrifying circus. I ran shouting down the hill for my mom to call for help.
We became responsible (and guilty as charged)
I remember rushing the story out as though it were just an interesting event but nothing to get hysterical over. Kind of like the little grass fire we’d accidentally started before. But when I got to the part where Big D looked scared, I started to get excited.
“And now there’s something WRONG!”
Two little girls arrived in the doorway, followed by more from the bus.
Mom shouted at me to stay with the children who were now playing with my little (is he defective?) brother, who they seemed to think was normal. Now Mom wants me to stay here? With them? I was a headstrong child who insisted on using “druther” correctly.
Something had scared Big D and I wasn’t going to let him face it alone — I needed to see too!
An ambulance pulled alongside the bus blocking the road in both directions. My sense that cars needed to take turns caused alarm.
Big D was a little ways off by himself, leaning against the ambulance in a spot that shielded him from the view of most, doing nothing.
“You know you’re not invisible,” I told him. When he looked at me he appeared lost behind his eyes. I punched his shoulder — this time our cue to stop being a baby and talk.
“Jimmy got hurt. His face is bloody. The ambulance guys told me to stay out of the way. They’re still inside with Jimmy.”
Everybody knew Jimmy. He was a different kind of boy, one with his legs bent wrong so he had to use a wheelchair. I imagined how out of control he must have felt when the bus went over.
I’d asked my mom before why Jimmy had legs that never worked. She’d said God made him that way. I said I thought he needed to fix Jimmy, and she just smiled.
Sometimes Big D needed to be told what to do. I told him to be a cop now and tell the drivers to move their cars down our driveway to make room.
He nodded and wandered off.
More people came, and just when I thought they were all here, more would come, and they all talked at once over each other until they found their own kids. Then they’d hug and talk and someone would point our way. Big D pretended not to notice, but I knew he cared, even more than me.
A man angrily asked the bus driver what happened to cause all this. He looked my way then quickly looked back.
I was thinking “Just tell him you druther not say…” Right. Not druther.
The bus driver did the strangest thing. He told a story that left us out, and his face didn’t even give him away.
“I made a mistake. I pulled into the wrong spot.” He said it like he meant it, and his face even agreed. Magic, I thought. I need to learn that trick.
I learned what being honorable and selfless meant.
Becoming TV News focal points “Look Mom! I’m a STAR!!!”
I wish the story ended there, but it didn’t. Because a lady with a microphone who looked like a movie star approached me just right and asked me to show her what happened. She wasn’t like anyone I’d seen before, but she was powerful like Mrs. Buell, and I was pretty sure she had special ways of knowing if you’re being honest.
Silently, I walked to the side of the road, stood still facing away from the mess, then moved slowly forward. I did a little side-step just off the pavement into a rut and stood stiff as my body fall sideways into a snowbank. I laid there too long, waiting for a reaction.
My mom was by then handing out all our towels and blankets to people she said needed them. Some, she said, were in shock.
That’s probably what the man trying to help me thought. He shouted “What are you doing?” as he grabbed my arm and pulled me up.
“I’m being the bus.” using my best leave me alone voice.
The news reporter had what she wanted but without words. I figured she was scary enough that I shouldn’t talk to her.
Becoming famous on the 6 o’clock news
There was a time when children were interviewed and shown saying stupid things on the news. A cameraman caught my imitation of a bus falling over sideways and it played — repeatedly.
That evening we discovered what a TV local lead story is. With only three networks available my dad got a kick out of turning the dial quickly to show us that the same story was on all three stations. That’s not interesting — it’s appalling!
The movie star woman was on TV! The way she talked made it sound like maybe it was my fault.
As the silent girl on the news rigidly fell sideways into a snow bank, I knew for certain I’d be teased mercilessly by classmates until the day I died.
Big D’s look couldn’t hide his embarrassment for me. Mom laughed and my dad groaned, giving me a look of incredulity. Are you stupid? his face seemed to ask.
I went to my bed to hide, but there weren’t any blankets left so we all put on layers of clothes and slept in the living room next to the fire.
Big D said maybe we deserved to be cold for causing the accident. I argued that the driver should’ve waited longer for us, plus, Mom shouldn’t have given everything warm away.
“Her God wanted her to.” he sounded so sure of himself. We hadn’t received a lot of religious instruction.
“Then her friend God isn’t very smart, so he shouldn’t be driving buses either.”
I was waiting to be punched but it didn’t come.
I learned that sometimes you can be forgiven for sharing an odd opinion.
Also, you don’t have to do what reporters ask of you.
Guilty children move on (and move!)
Jimmy missed a few days of school but suffered no long-term damage.
During the time he was out Big D and I were held responsible for the accident by the other kids. They were hardest on my older brother and I wanted to defend him, but he insisted there was a rule that I couldn’t get in trouble that way. He was allowed to stick up for me, but not the other way.
We were learning the patriarchal, double-standard method.
I was learning outraged frustration that would later become activism.
Before he came back, Mrs. Buell asked the kids to pray for Jimmy, so we all bowed our heads. Mostly it was quiet, but a few kids prayed out loud. Mrs. Buell was walking past me as I was finishing up.
“And I don’t think you’re a good friend or else you’d fix Jimmy. I’m not going to be your friend! Amen!”
She gave me that funny look that maybe promised she wouldn’t tell, but I was pretty sure there’d be some discussion about it with Mom.
If you’re going to be belligerent when you pray, do it privately, I learned.
As was a habit in my family, we would soon move to another town. Big D and I attended classes with our very own teachers.
We were no longer the ones to blame.
I learned you can leave your problems behind, but the guilty feeling may have to be dealt with in therapy.
Also, to stop using “druther”, no matter how often Mark Twain used it.
PS. I don’t appreciate Charlie Chaplin’s physical humor from the silent-film era. No intelligent person would.
PSS. For some odd reason, my brother and I pretended not to know one another in school from that day forward.
Thanks for reading!
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