1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/CREEK RISIN'

Mr. Riley, the bus driver,  probably secretly hated my mother.  At least on days it rained.  He was one of the quietest men I had ever met.  My daddy and brothers talked fast and loud.  Not Mr. Riley. 

 He drove the bus every day and taught math at the junior high I attended.  He was softspoken, and he spoke to us when we entered the bus and when we exited.  That was all.  But he was pleasant and careful.  He never drove too fast.  But rainy days probably taxed that quiet resolve, and I imagine if he knew any curse words, they may have bounced around in his head on those wet days even if they never passed his lips.

The problem was that Mother had a lot to do.  She had the three of us girls, and Daddy was working away all the time now.  She cooked breakfast every morning,, and it was not something fast.  She cooked bacon or sausage, oatmeal, eggs, biscuits or toast.  We all ate together, and then everyone got ready for school.  By 7:30 a.m., we had headed out the door, walked the 30 yards to the front gate at the road to wait, and the big yellow bus usually got there just a few minutes later filled with kids staring morosely out the windows, joyless, looking like they were bound for the worst fate in the world. 

Most days we got on the bus without incident.  He turned around at our stop, backing the big bus around at the entrance to our driveway, moving it onto the dirt road that turned at a ninety degree angle from the gravel road on which he'd come, backing up several times, then forward, then finally taking off with a small kick of gravel to retrace his route.  The mile trip down to our house from the farm to market road was just for us. No other kids lived on the road.  We were effectively one mile from anything.

Mother  got up very early every day, cooked, cleaned, picked up the house, maybe did laundry.  It wasn't that she didn't get up early enough.  She just tried to do too much in the time she had.  Most days it was up to us to walk the 30 or so yards to the front gate, nimbly walk the metal poles of the cattleguard, and wait beside the road.  She didn't have to be involved in actually getting us to the bus.  So that is why rain days slipped up on her. 

At work, they were used to her skidding into her parking spot, running quickly up the stairs, and showing up about 15 minutes late most days.  I could never figure out why she didn't get  in trouble for that,  but I think it was because once she actually got there, she had tremendous powers of focus, and she worked like a person possessed.  A bookkeeper, same company, E. W. Hable Construction, 22 years.

On rainy days, the road, which was gravel, got very slick.  But even more dangerous, the water in the creek often rose and sometimes  lapped just under the edge of the bridge.  At times, it covered the bridge.  My dad had forbid her to drive over it with us in the car if it lapped the bridge, so she didn't do that, though I imagine she would have tried it if he had not been so forceful in his warning. 

At any rate, when it was rainy, we tried to meet the bus one mile away, at the farm to market road.  If we left early enough, it was lovely.   If we didn't, and we often didn't, it was terrible, and awkward, and embarrassing.

"Let's hurry, Mother.  It's raining." I said one morning.  "We're all ready.  We need to go.  The bus will start down the road.  Mr. Riley won't say anything, but he'll be irritated at us.  Let's go, please."

"Just a minute," she said.  "Let me run get my purse. I think we have plenty of time."

"No, we don't have plenty of time.  Let's go."

I was right.  She was wrong, as was often the case about time issues.  She always thought she had plenty of time. 

We all rushed to the car, she backed fast out of the garage, then slammed the car into low and took off toward the cattle guard and gate.

 "I sure  hope all the dogs and cats are out of the way," she said half teasing, while we grimaced. 

 Then she tore out of the driveway, drove faster than she should have down the gravel road, and slowed only slightly at the creek bridge.  Just past the bridge, which was one-half mile down the road and around a curve, we started screaming.  "There's the bus, there's the bus."

There was no place to turn around, for her or the bus.  Through the large windshield, we saw Mr. Riley's patient face turn sullen .  He made no motion toward Mother,  simply stopped the huge yellow vehicle, looked to his right, reversed the bus, and began backing.   Mother followed slowly, car and bus nose to nose, as he backed one-half mile up the rainslicked gravel, including a big hill in the last quarter mile. That half mile seemed interminable as I imagined everything he was thinking and wanted to say but couldn't. 

 Mother stayed right with him as she said so we "wouldn't delay the bus", so when he reached the farm to market road, he backed around, pulled the metal handle opening the bus door, and we piled quickly out of the car, saying goodbye to mother and hello to Mr. Riley as we ran up the bus steps, looking apologetically at him.   He was tightlipped, but nodded at us.  The other kids were very quiet.  But as soon as the bus got going at regular speed, and the noise of the motor made you have to shout to be heard, some of the boys started teasing us and laughing about the situation.  One look in the overhead mirror from Mr. Riley and they stopped.

I wanted to apologize for her, but somehow it seemed disloyal.  We just made sure we were extra nice to him the rest of the week. 

"Have a good day, Mr. Riley," Susan said as she got off at the junior high.

"See you this afternoon," I said shyly, while Jan smiled and waved at him as we exited at Bowie Elementary. 

He said goodbye to Susan and mumbled ok to me, and gave a slight wave to Jan and a half smile.  In my heart I felt his day might not go very well, but I hoped he wouldn't hold it against Mother.  She really didn't mean to always be late.  I thought if he saw how much she had to do, how she ran us everywhere, checked on my grandmother, mowed five acres, cooked two large meals everyday and did mounds of laundry, all while working a fulltime job, he might not think poorly of her. 

That night I asked, "Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Why?" she said cheerily, oblivious to my angst. 

"No reason," I said, "but if it does, let's just have cereal.  That way we can leave the house earlier, okay?"

"Okay," she said, shoveling clothes into the washing machine.  "I guess it is pretty hard backing that bus up that hill."  And then, troubling to me, I heard her giggling.