School Bus #34. The Magical Ride.

Failing Up

From September, 1964 to June of 1977 I was transported to and from school on the magical bus #34,( it later became bus #62, but I always called it #34) driven by our captain Eddie the bus driver. Eddie was not just a bus driver he was everyone's uncle, the bus decked out with speakers listening to top 40 radio spanning the British invasion to Disco. The bus was our cocoon and Eddie the Captain of our journey, that took us from childhood through puberty.
From the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, four Presidents, (one resigned), eleven Super Bowls, (four of them AFL vs NFL), tragedy in the 1972 Munich Olympics, the escalation of the Vietnam war and the fall of Saigon. Bus #34 and Eddie remained magical, with music, singing, racing other buses. You know you survived the school year when he handed you your ice-cream sandwich at the end of the year in June. That last ice-cream sandwich marked an end as well as a beginning. What a gift to ride through those turbulent years with Eddie at the helm.

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