I was a school bus driver part of my junior and all of my senior year. I really had some great experiences doing this and it was something I wanted to do from my freshman year. It seemed all the cool people drove buses. I think it was only boys who did it, although Mrs. Freeman, the cafeteria lady drove one of the midget buses that was always the first to leave the yard.
Bus driving training was three days and for me it was held in the little town of Pinewood, where Furman High School was located. The first day we had classroom lessons, then took a written test. If we passed, we continued the next two driving test days. We also had an eye exam the first day. I knew I needed glasses, but hadn't gone and gotten them yet. So I memorized the eye chart, forward and backwards down to the 5th line. I could only see the third lines without glasses. I passed, but could not really see. I did get glasses sometime the next year, but did not wear them... too geeky.
Most of the kids got newer decent buses. I got a 1956 Ford. Now in 1965 that was not too old, but most of the kids had buses from the 60s. I think we were paid $37. a month no matter how long your route was. Some of us had bunches of kid and they told us to take two trips to get them home safely. I always had football or basketball practice after school, so I did not have time for two trips. So I crammed nearly 70 kids in my bus that was only supposed to take 38. Kids were crammed in so much that I joked that babies could be conceived in the back and I would have no clue!
I basically only had five stops. Like everyone going toward the base, I stopped at the Jr High and the Elementary Schools. I then continued down 441 and stopped at the Opa's grocery store, then out to Hiway 76 and dropped off a ton at Cherryvale Trailer Park and one more trailer park about a half a mile down 76. Nothing exciting.
I parked my bus on my street in front of my house in the Oakland Plantation subdivision. We were supposed to check tires, oil and gas every day. I never did as the mechanics were at HHS every day doing this. So one morning, the bus was knocking bad. I picked up my Hiway 76 crowd and it was really raining. I should have stopped and checked, but it was raining to hard. By the time I got to Opa the engine was shot and I "blew an engine rod" and the bus was dead.
The next day I was given a substitute bus. It was a 1953 Chevy clunker. I had that piece of crap for a month while they fixed mine.... such punishment.
The day mine was finished, they took me to the bus garage in Sumter to pick up my bus with a new engine in it and they told me to break it in slowly. All buses had a govenor on the carburetor to keep them going no faster than 38 miles an hour. As I brought mine back to HHS that day, I noticed that I could go 40, then 45 and then 50 mph. They forgot to put a governor on the carburetor!!! Now I will not get into the stories about my bus, but I had it up to 84 mph once with only a couple of boys. Now I never went faster than 50 with kids on board. In the last three months of the year I had it with the new engine, the mechanics never noticed! My bus became the bus of choice to drive baseball and track teams to away events. I do have many stories, but think I should save these for campfire, barroom drinking or reunion times! Ask me!
We all look back and fondly remember our best friends from high school. These are the kids we learned about life together. We learned how to talk to and get dates. There are so many things that helped to develop and mold the rest of our lives that could not be done without best friends. I am just going to mention a little from my first years at Hillcrest.
