SUPERINTENDENT’S CHAT

Richard J. McClements, Shonto Preparatory School

Hello. I’m Buster Bus. You see me motoring along the roads, and sometimes you toot a greeting. But what do you really know about me?

I am an expensive, and I might say modestly, a beautiful piece of machinery. I cost about $110,000 when I’m born. Just because the Shonto Preparatory School buys my services twice a day for 180 days does not mean that I’m about to sell myself to just anyone like some of my distant cousins with Greyhound. Although I don’t ask for much out of life, maybe just a clean filter or a steaming body wash, I never see one red cent of the reimbursement of $2.17 per mile per student. It’s the same old,“We do all the work, and the boss gets all the money.” I have a life span of approximately fifteen years or 150,000 miles, before (and my tires go soft at the thought) I am retired from the roads, used as a spare, or sold to some fix-it-up-chappie.

In recent years, new family members have tended to prefer guzzling diesel oil, although, some of the clan still enjoy regular unleaded. I consume one gallon of this delicious mixture for every six miles I travel. Not much, you say. Well, I tend to do an awful lot of starting and stopping, and I’m not as svelte as you might think. My 66-passenger variety weighs up to 17,000 pounds.

I take quite a pounding delivering my special cargo to school on time. My family and I travel a combined 190,000 miles per year on the nine routes. I am handled with precision and care by gentle and loving drivers. They do their best to check me out carefully before each trip to make certain that all my parts are in good condition and road ready. Every 90 days or 7,000 miles or so, I am sent to the shop for much needed R&R as well as being tuned, greased, and oiled. The cost to keep my friends and me in shape ranges from nearly $1,200 to $1900 per year. Big Daddy, Paul Huber, looks out for me by seeing that my handlers rarely exceed 65 miles per hour and have the most economical routes. When forced to, and I am not bragging, I can probably sprint up to 80 m.p.h. That is, I could do it, if the darn manufacturers hadn’t performed a surgical operation called “a governor” to limit my maximum speed. I wouldn’t go faster anyway, because I know my quickness would cause a human to lose his job. I also watch my speed, because policeman watch what I am doing pretty carefully. I, like you, watch my rear view mirror all the time, because a bus never knows when “the man” will show up to kick my tires and look under my chassis. I can’t help it, but when I see him coming, I start backfiring, and I shimmy uncontrollably.

If there is anything that causes my radiator to burst, it’s those ugly, smaller, distant cousins – cars and trucks that pass me when I am stopped with my red eyes blinking to unload or pick up my precious cargo. The second thing that gets me steaming is putting me and everyone else aboard in danger by passing me around dangerous curves, slippery roads, or with limited vision of oncoming traffic. My drivers take down the license numbers of such culprits and submit them to DPS. You may think of me as being yellow, but I hope they get what they deserve when it is reported to the police.

I may be prejudiced, but I happen to think that, if I were asked to name the toughest job in the schools, I’d have to tip my hood to the drivers. While I am an absolute pleasure to drive and am so responsive to the human touch, sitting behind my wheel is not easy. My handlers have too much to watch without correcting misbehaving youngsters behind them. One glance too many in the mirror can cause me to do something I don’t really want to do – such as go off my track, bump somebody ahead, or run over some object.

I prefer a quiet, peaceful ride so I can hum, “On the Road Again,” or “Truck Driving Blues.” Come to think about it. Greyhound could possibly use the song I’ve been working on. It might begin. “Over the river and through the woods, it’s to Grandmother’s house we go…” What do you think? Why do those words sound familiar? Have I got a hit?

It’s been my pleasure to meet you.