Keep your school bus window closed ~ September 7, 1989

David Heiller

School starts this week, and along with all the advice parents will be giving their children, I’d like to add this: If you ride on a school bus, keep your windows up.

Let me repeat that in a different way so that you understand clearly.

The narrator of this cautionary tale.

Don’t open your windows on the school bus, kids, unless it’s an emergency.

I know, there’s no rule that says you shouldn’t open school bus windows. And on a nice September morning with the smell of dew and apples drifting by, you may think I’m nuts. After all, my son is going to ride on a school bus 80 minutes a day, which works out to six and a half hours each week, or 10 days out of the year keeping Dave Nyrud company. Shouldn’t he be able to smell the burning leaves along the way?

Keep your window closed, Noah.

Take it from someone who rode a bus to high school for five years, and who has never forgotten that one morning, lo these 20 years ago...

My cousin, Jeff, was sitting in the fourth seat back, on the left side, like he always did. But I noticed how pale he looked the minute I swung past him and sat down next to the window that fine fall morning.

(I kept the window closed, although the Cool Kids at the back of the bus had theirs open. They had their windows open almost every day of the year, even in the dark of winter. I think it had something to do with the cigarettes they smoked.)

“I don’t feel so good,” Jeff admitted right away. “I threw up twice before getting on the bus this morning.”

“Why the heck are you going to school?” I asked.

“I feel pretty good now,” he swallowed. Jeff liked school, you might say.

But as the bus started up the hill toward Caledonia, Jeff seemed to grow even paler. His white face changed to an off-green with each pot hole we hit. He wasn’t talking either, which was unusual for Jeff, who usually boasted about his muskrat line or fishing or, lately, his girlfriends. His eyes fixed on the back of the head in front of us, but they didn’t see it, seeing instead something inside himself, something awful and lurking.

Even Dale, our bus driver, noticed it. He scanned us through the mirror on his windshield visor as we neared the top of the hill. “You okay?” he called back to us. Jeff had told him earlier, somewhat proudly, about his upset stomach. Dale was concerned for his passengers, but he was concerned about his bus too. He had to clean it.

Jeff swallowed again, twice in rapid succession. A weak “Yeah” was all we heard, as he nodded at Dale.

Everything was fine for the next minute. Then suddenly I felt a furious tapping on my left shoulder, as Jeff scrambled to his feet. I looked up at him; his cheeks were bulging, his face puffed out like a bull frog. He was gesturing frantically at the window.

Remember, it was closed. But not for long. I sprang up and pulled out the two side locks and slid the window down in an unofficial Guiness Book of World Record time of opening a school bus window, .079 seconds.

Cousins, a number of years 
and a number of tales later.

Jeff jammed his head out the narrow window, and his stomach contents came flying forth in a grand finale of what was once oatmeal and corn flakes.

If you’ve ever tried to spit out an open car window going 50 miles an hour, you know what happened next. The windows behind us were instantly coated, all the way back to where the Cool Kids sat, by their open windows. A fireman with a hose couldn’t have done a better job.

I won’t describe what was said next from the back of the bus. (I’ve already crossed the fine line between humor and good taste in this column.) But I’ll never forget Bobby Blair standing up in his seat back there, and taking off his glasses and cleaning off the oatmeal on his shirt tail.

So take it from Jeff, and me, and the Cool Kids: Don’t open your bus window, unless you have no other choice.