Last Day Of School

The last day of school came and went this year for my daughter with little fanfare. We did go out for lunch that last half day day (if you know me that is somewhat of a big deal), but I do miss the grammar school days and their end of the year parties. Sometimes I think I actually became more attached to her school buddies than she did, but really I was just looking for a chance to have some fun.

My daughter is an only child. I don’t mean to inflect any type of tone into this, it’s just the way Mother Nature planned it for us. When the OBGYN wants to discuss birth control on the first post-delivery visit…you just know it’s time to leave well enough alone and enjoy what you are fortunate enough to already have. Having grown up with two brothers, I have to admit I have kind of liked the idea of having only one child. I can both take her to school and pick her up, and we have plenty of alone time to get to know each other. She may argue too much time, but I kind of like it.

One of the bad parts of having only one child is that I wouldn’t dream of her riding the school bus without siblings. She did ride some when she was a little kid, but this was mainly because she wanted to and we lived in a county with a tiny school system. I knew the bus driver and most of the kids she rode it with.

 But when I was a kid the school bus was the place to cause trouble! We (okay I) found plenty of trouble on a regular basis, but the last day of school called for plans of epic proportions. Something to laugh about all summer! I feel sure we discussed several potentially lethal scenarios, but at the last minute we decided something involving water guns…and the bus driver.  Okay, I never thought about the fact that we would have to ride next year, same bus-same bus driver; miscalculation number one!

Somehow we managed to keep the water guns in our pockets until it was our time to depart the bus. Living very close to the county line meant we were among the last to leave the bus, but there were still enough kids to laugh at the bus driver and maybe he wouldn’t be as pissed with only a few watching him get hosed down. Another miscalculation! As he pulled to a stop and worked the lever to open the door, we sprang into action. With all of the trouble there has been lately with schools and guns this hardly seems funny now, but watching the screaming driver cover his face with both hands as three little boys soaked him with water guns…well I don’t care who you are; that’s funny.

But the most memorable part of the day was what was to follow. Physics state that a bus driver shaped man would never be able to catch three little boys on a good day, but our last miscalculation was the fact that my father was walking down the driveway to celebrate with us the survival of yet another school year. As we tore down the driveway, the fear in our eyes was enough for him to know that what he really needed to do was run with us, and in any direction other than the house! Till the day I die I will never forget the image of three boys and a grown man, hiding in a ditch in the woods, listening to the infuriated bus driver scream “I’m gonna tell your daddy!”