Every weekday morning a bus would come and take us, the children from the neighborhood, to school. In the Bucket called “Allocation of funds for adequate School District transportation vehicles”, my neighborhood scraped the bottom. This was my first real experience with School Bus Culture, (hereafter, SBC). To the uninitiated, only Freemasonry rivals the intricacies and subtleties inherent to SBC.
First, the large, orange, monolithic transportation device arrived. Its proximity intuitively measured by the increased resonating pitch produced by the drinking glasses in our kitchen cabinets. Then, as if on cue, all the animals in the forest converge. Most of the indigenous life forms from our particular Savannah exited their hovels and dens. Thus introducing the most intricate and complex of all the native customs. The ritual of the Parting. Those, allotted to stand guard and protect the den and so remaining behind, gave off peculiar sounds of encouragement. For the most part, the sounds were imitations of high birdlike calls communicating heartfelt affection and hope to their young. Each one wishing their offspring well and a hope for a bright future. Others were more reticent in expressing external support in full view of the eyes of the Savannah. Simple and rather stiff movements of the hand communicated all that was needed. Most of the larger animals, of which I was numbered, simply exited their domains with no visible signs of support from the pack. Support was, therefore, taken for granted or not expected.
One did not, however,simply approach said large transportation device without regard of consequence. Being new to the Savannah, I was still learning the pecking order by which one transitioned onto this bearer of all things unbearable. Gaining the ascent to the platform came with no small risk to life and limb. While ascending, one was painfully aware of the positioning of nose to backside of your predecessor. It also left ones hind parts open to evaluation which contributed to the innate insecurities attributed especially to this particular species. Upon ascension, you approached Her. She was the Gate Keeper.Your worthiness to enter was ,in some way, calculated by this Keeper of the Gate. And either by a deep, psychic intuition or a powerful, unconscience subjectivism bred by the anger of, at a young age , love gone a miss, the Keeper of the Gate deemed you worthy or not so. It was clear, after witnessing not a few failed attempts, that offerings to the Keeper, burnt or otherwise, were not blessed. It became so that silence and reverence while passing the Keeper yielded her most beneficent spirit.
After admittance had been granted, the vista painfully morphed into a variety of obstacles, corporeal and incorporeal. Before a place of repose could be unearthed it was deemed the right of passage to push and shove and grunt and groan your way through the minions of Jr.High purgatory. This was the place of holding. This mobile receptacle reserved for those between a rock and a hard place, between hell and high water, between the 14th and 15th year of life on planet earth served as the link. It was the conduit by which we , the uneducated, would be later inserted into the uterus of educational fertility. This container of the best and the worst of our generation was, however, full of others. From neighboring Savannahs, young men and women looked similar but did not smell or act familiar. Some were obviously Tree Dwellers. They had a lofty, airness about them that inhibited trust and limited conversation. Others were clearly murky Water Dwellers. These had scaley, aquiline features that required the constant wiping of the frontal lobe in the hopes of the capture of some supposed moisture. If it were in my power, I would usually attempt at some hybrid solution. I would sit next to or around a group of Hovel, Den Dwellers like myself with just a hint of Tree Dwellers. I loved their syntax.
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