Life in progress

#SoCS – Bussing

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If a busser bussing tables runs into you in a restaurant, is it like getting hit by a bus? I’ve always wondered why they call it “bussing.” And why does my spell-check not like the word? Does it like “busing” better? Yes, it does. When I finish this post, I’ll check to see if it’s a Canadian spelling. Spell-check also doesn’t like “colour,” after all.

I never took a bus to school. It was only half a mile to walk, so they let me walk. Even when I was five and six, I was walking to school by myself. There weren’t many crazies about. But I do remember sitting on the curb on the way home from school one day with a friend, and we were throwing stones under cars as they went by. One woman stopped and yelled at us, even though we didn’t actually hit her car. By then we were getting good at clearing the wheels before the car got past. We stopped after the lady yelled at us… until the next day. I think I eventually got bored with it.

What I did do when I was little was make up stories in my head. All the time. That is something I still haven’t gotten bored with.

My kids have always taken the bus to school. When we lived in Gatineau, Quebec, the school board payed a student $5/day to sit with my Autistic son, Chris, on the bus. The first year a student we didn’t know did it, but after that they let his brother do it. Years later, I still have all that money sitting in a bank account for him, for when/if he decides to go to college.

I’m actually appalled at the fact that they no longer have an aide on the bus my Deaf son, Alex, takes to and from school. The bus driver doesn’t know sign language, and the kids, by the time June comes, are up to all kinds of antics. I should probably advocate for an aide.

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This post is brought (not by bus) to you as a response to Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link for the prompt and join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-2416/

Author: Linda G. Hill

There's a writer in here, clawing her way out.

23 thoughts on “#SoCS – Bussing

  1. I have a million bus stories, but unfortunately I missed SoCS this time round. I rode on them to school all my school years. I had an older lady bus driver who worried about a little blind girl on her bus. She stuck me in the second seat from the front, behind only the kids who had misbehaved. I was there, with someone sitting next to me at first, until I entered eighth grade and until she retired. Then I moved to the back of the bus with my friends. That was a great year. It was just always a bit nerve racking to keep track of the stops, to know when it was my turn to get off. I learned to look out the window, back when I could see more, for familiar landmarks. I would count stops and turns. Ah, so much time spent on those big yellow things.

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  2. If you were in the states you could definitely get a sign interpreter aid. I’m apalled they paid a kid to sit next to someone with autism! People who have autism as people just like any other student. I have 2 nieces with autism and I would take serious offense if they tried to pay someone to sit next to them.

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    • Actually, it made me feel safer. It was a long bus ride for him and it often included traffic jams. His autism is severe, and any change in schedule and he was bound to have an anxiety attack. (Picture Rain Man.) It was good to know there was always someone on board he was familiar with, who wouldn’t just sit and watch him hit himself in the head and laugh at him.

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  3. There are a lot of cracks in the system that kids fall through. Quebec is one of the better provinces for services for kids but they are poor in other areas.

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  4. Pingback: SoCS — And Now This?! | joeyfullystated

  5. I now have this image in my head of little Linda throwing rocks under cars. Today, you would probably get arrested for that. I’m glad you never stopped making up stories. I would ask for an aide. I would think your son could have problems if there was an emergency.

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  6. I remember being in awe when I discovered it’s buses and not busses. Who knew? Not me. Not until a few years ago, with all my busing trauma!

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  7. We don’t have school buses in the UK until the kids are much older. The roads are chaos in the mornings!

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