A few days before Christmas as I turned out of CVS and headed north on Van Buren Street, I had to come to a sudden stop.
Blocking the road was a Brown County Deputy Sheriff. Now what?! But of course, no mystery really. It was shortly after 3 p.m. and time for the daily parade of school buses leaving the high school parking lot.
I was in no hurry. Good time to take a few minutes and reflect. Those school bus drivers in this county deserve great praise and kudos for their mission.
Of Indiana’s 92 counties there is none more demanding than our own.
And it is always in circumstances such as this that I am reminded of my own experiences as a former school bus driver.
The job description of my first teaching job included driving one of the buses.
There were three buses in the fleet. Bus No. 1 was brand new. Bus No. 2 was maybe five years old but still very serviceable. Bus No. 3 would best be described as an antique. I was the new guy. I got the antique.
In the course of its existence due to legislation Bus No. 3 had undergone numerous modifications mostly for safety reasons.
These upgrades practically all involved electrical wiring. So their controls would be immediately accessible to the driver, all the additional wiring linked together on the steering column resulting in a baseball size wad of electrical tape.
One other noticeable feature of the steering column was this ugly weld where it had been re-attached to the dashboard. I never gave any of this much thought. Everything seemed to work. Drive on.
And then one day the inevitable happened. There was no warning. The steering column separated from the dashboard.
Only a couple of kids were left on the bus, and they thought it was funny with the steering wheel swinging way left and then way right as I made my turns.
I dropped them off and then headed back towards school. Luckily it was a subdivision with not much traffic. But after a couple of more turns there was a crackling sound and then that special Christmas scent of electric malfunction when you have overloaded a socket. And then smoke! Right there practically in my lap! Fire!
I pulled to the curb, put it in neutral and set the hand brake. Where’s the fire extinguisher? Okay there was one by the door. At least something that resembled one. It actually looked like army surplus.
I pulled it off and started pumping the handle. Finally, a small stream of water began to ooze forth. I sent the meager stream of water arcing towards the wad of flaming tape. Ah — that special aroma of an electrical fire squelched.
With relief I sat back in the door opening and sadly examined the scorched front of my new suit.
Monday morning there she was, old No. 3 in the garage ready to go again. A fresh weld now added to the dash along with a new ball of shiny black tape housing a rainbow of new wiring.
Jim Watkins is a Brown County resident who was a public school teacher for 42 years and has special interest in history. He is also a member of the Brown County Historical Society. He can be reached at [email protected].
