Riding A School Bus

One of the main parts of the school day is getting there! The bus picks up most of-the kids living in the country but some of them drive in themselves.  The kids from town walk to school.  The bus has about 16 seats in which 2 adults can fit or 3 children.  In the morning the first person is picked up about 7:20 and the last about 8:20.  School starts at 8:30.  The bus stops at each house.  The bus is a good place to do your studying or homework because if you get stuck you can ask someone to help you.  If you are tired you can just curl up in the corner of a seat and go to sleep.  No one is allowed to stand up on the bus when it's moving and they really don't want you eating on it but you can.  In the spring and fall when it's hot you can open the windows.  They slide up and down and latch at the top.  In the winter the buses often have trouble.  They slide off the road into the ditch or get stuck in a drift.  They often stall too.  When this happens the driver calls in to either the school or a garage on his radio in the bus for either another bus to come and pick up the kids or some vehicle to pull them out.  The radio is like any other radio with different stations and knobs for volume and channels except it has a hand piece connected to it by a cord.  The driver pushes a small button on the hand piece to talk into it and then releases it so someone on the other end can talk.

Mary Stahl

Source: Cooperstown, North Dakota 1882-1982 Centennial page 68