Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080031
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I was never the teacher's pet.
I was, however, Mr. Parsons' pet.
Mr. Parsons was my bus driver long ago when my whole body weighed less than my left leg does now and when my biggest problem was a lanky boy named Joey who chased me around the playground at Christiansburg Primary School.
It was nice then to be someone's pet.
Mr. Parsons was waiting for me when I boarded his school bus each afternoon.
He always had the Merthiolate in one hand (for the predictable scrapes and scratches and nicks on my knees) and a stick of Juicy Fruit in the other.
He would dab the fiery solution on my wounds while I sucked in my breath and blew out little puffs of air to cool the sting.
Then, he would cover the red mess with a Band-Aid and slip the piece of chewing gum into my sweaty palm.
I always felt better after Mr. Parsons ministered to me.
Each year, on the last day of school before the winter holiday break, Mr. Parsons handed out gifts to every passenger on his bus: a pencil and a piece of hard candy.
When I entered elementary school, I decided I wanted to play a musical instrument and be in the school band.
My parents asked if I wanted a nice clarinet or maybe a nice flute.
No, I had my heart set on something else.
A nice, big trombone.
The door on the long yellow bus would swing open and Mr. Parsons would wait patiently as I stomped up the tall steps, dragging the trombone case (ka-thump, ka-thump) behind me.
"Honey, that thing's bigger than you are," he cracked in his country drawl.
Sometimes I would hear Mr. Parsons stammering muffled expletives under his breath when some impatient motorist swooshed past the bus after he had turned on his flashing lights, signaling a stop. He would grab his clipboard and strain to see the license number on the back of the retreating car so he could turn the leadfoot in.
By the time I got to high school, I think Mr. Parsons was running out of gas.
"Hi, Mr. Parsons!" I would chirp as I hopped past him and jounced down the aisle to the back of the bus. He usually responded with a weary smile.
One day, he told me he was going to retire.
"When?" I asked.
"The year you graduate," he said.
I didn't ride the school bus often during my senior year at Christiansburg High School. By then, I had my driver's license and was burning up the road in my '63 Ford Falcon. Sitting behind the wheel of that little yellow bird gave me a new and exhilarating feeling of independence.
I always stopped for flashing school bus lights, though.
Mr. Parsons turned in his keys and his clipboard in 1971.
That was the year I graduated.
Not long afterward, I heard that Mr. Parsons had died.
I didn't go to his funeral, but I wish I had. I had just drifted out of his life without ever saying good-bye.
I've thought about Mr. Parsons a lot this past year.
Each morning, when I hear bus No. 46 grinding up the hill past my house, I start my get-a-move-on-it routine.
"The bus just went up the hill!" I squawk, tossing bookbags at my two sons.
The younger one makes a beeline for the door, wiping toothpaste on his sleeve. He sprints down the driveway, heaving his backpack over his shoulders. His snare drum case bangs against his leg (ka-thump, ka-thump) as he dashes for the curb at Grant Street.
He's usually there by the time Bonnie Wimmer slows bus No. 46 to a stop.
He hops on board, but the bus doesn't move.
That's because Bonnie, the bus driver, is waiting for my older son, the dawdler.
He's the one who has to slurp the last drop of milk from his cereal bowl before he saunters to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
He's the one who dogtrots to the bus stop, lugging his backpack and saxophone like a ball and chain behind him.
"Doesn't Bonnie fuss at you for being late all the time?" I asked him several times this past year.
"No," he said.
Each morning, when I peep out the kitchen door and watch the older son straggle onto Bonnie Wimmer's bus, I think of Mr. Parsons.
Bonnie could, of course, teach my son a lesson. She could just drive off, leaving him sputtering in the exhaust fumes of bus number 46.
But she doesn't.
She waits a minute. She holds the door open for him. Unlike his mother and his teachers and his peers, she doesn't reprimand him for his sluggishness.
Maybe she's teaching him a lesson after all.
Maybe years from now my son will remember Bonnie Wimmer with fondness. Perhaps he'll take that extra minute to be patient and tolerant and kind.
I hope so.
When we're young, we never know how the Bonnie Wimmers and Mr. Parsonses will propel us. If we're lucky, they steer us in the right direction.
by CNB