My interesting day so far, and it's early yet

I messed up my computer this morning. I was trying to uninstall something I downloaded but accidentally began to uninstall my display device thing. The program that configures the display. Or something. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. That's part of the problem, and how I got all messed up in the first place. I managed to fix what I broke, but haven't been able to do what I originally intended. Very frustrating!

I didn't sleep well last night. It was later than it should have been when I went to bed, and I woke up at 3. The plan was to go into work this morning. I'm supposed to be working out my 2 weeks notice. Because of the vertigo I couldn't work last week and they managed just fine without me. I thought I would drive today just to see all the kids and tell them I'm leaving for good. But as I was lying in bed chasing my thoughts last night I decided I didn't want to do that. I don't know why exactly. It's possible that we need a clean break, and that break already occurred when I wasn't there last week. Or maybe in my mind I'm already finished with the bus and just can't bring myself to get back on it. Both seem plausible.

Since I had told the boss I'd be there this morning, I went. He was putting another driver on the bus too, just in case I had trouble with the vertigo. This other driver is the one who drove the route last week. I went out to the bus, talked to the driver and told her she can go ahead and drive today if she wants, that I'd rather not do it unless they just needed me for something. She and the monitor are doing fine. So I gave her the rest of the paperwork I had for the route, took my window cleaner and left.

Well, I didn't actually leave just yet. I waited for the boss to get in, and talked to him about my decision. He was cool with it. He thought I wanted to work out this last week of my notice, but I told him that unless he really needed me, I'd be better off not driving. I can tell he's concerned about me. He is a friend. Assuring me he's not trying to pry, he asked if there was something wrong. He knows me well enough to know something is wrong. I told him it had nothing to do with the bus or the job, but he knew that. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on. I'm waiting for something and need some down time to prepare for it, or find it, but don't know what "it" is. He seemed to understand as much as this can be understood, I guess. He said to call him if I need anything or if he can help in any way. I'm going to miss working with him. He's a great boss. A pain in the ass sometimes, but overall a great boss.

So I came home. I'm very tired, should probably take a nap. I have some errands to run, but that can wait until late morning or early afternoon.

I'm uneasy. When I left the bus office this morning I felt like I need to cry, but I don't know why. I'm not particularly sad to be leaving the job. I can see any of those people whenever I need to. Maybe it's a sense of relief. Or maybe I am un-well. I can feel myself beginning to lose my mind. That sounds worse than it is. I say "lose my mind" because I'm not sure how else to explain it. It might be another big bout of depression moving in. I'm having trouble concentrating and making simple decisions. That is a classic symptom of depression. I'm easily distracted (more than usual? What do you think, Light?) and a bit jumpy. Obviously I need a tranquilizer ;) It has been very hard for me to deal with all the cleaning going on around here. Is that a symptom or a cause? I have no idea.

I have had some healthy food, including protein this morning, and am well hydrated. What I need now is sleep. So I'm going to take a nap. Let's see how I feel this afternoon.

Pretty thoughts

I want to tell you about an interesting positive experience I had this morning. On Thursday mornings I drive a few of the special ed students to the vocational school where they get their hair done by the cosmetology students. I got to the high school a little bit early and went in to use the bathroom. (Two cups of coffee, then 2.5 hours on the bus first thing in the morning, and I'm heading to the bathroom!) As I washed my hands I looked at myself in the mirror. I usually don't pay attention to my reflection. Today I looked. I really like my eyes. Recently I've been wearing my contacts instead of the glasses, so my eyes aren't hidden behind thick lenses. I looked at my eyes, then the rest of my face and my hair. I've mentioned before that I have good hair. My face is pudgy, of course. One doesn't carry this much weight without it being well distributed throughout the body. As I looked at my face I realized that there is a pretty woman hiding in there. The fat conceals some of it (IMHO) but there is a hint of pretty. This is the first time I've considered myself anywhere near pretty in a long, long time. This is probably good progress.

But that's only the beginning of it. As I walked out of the bathroom one of the ladies who works in the office there at the high school came up to me and said "I just wanted to tell you how pretty you are." OK, kinda freaky, coming as it did 15 seconds after saying that to myself! She has seen me there at the school interacting with the students in that special ed class. She told me that I have something like an aura of beauty, specifically when I'm working with the students. Of course that's when she sees me. I told her I really love those kids, they are special in many ways. I guess it shows.
So today I have been pondering pretty thoughts in my heart.

I thought this would be more cheerful, but it turned out more depressing than anything

I mentioned a few days ago that I bought myself some new shampoo. It is "refreshing tangerine" shampoo. But it smells like peaches to me. That's alright, though, because I like the smell of peaches.

I have three new students on my bus this week. All of them are older boys who go to the alternative school in the behavioral program. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but you will all know exactly what I mean when I say they are in the last chance, bad boy program. (To be truthful there are a few girls in the program, but none of them ride my bus.) They are ...um... challenging. One of them is a boy I've had off and on for the past two, maybe three years. There isn't a lot of hope for this kid, I'm afraid. I HOPE he gets is act together, but it doesn't seem likely. A friend of mine, now a school teacher but who previously worked in the local women's prison, calls kids like this "Future Criminals of America." Sad. Sad because it is so often true.

These boys in the bad boy program only go to school two hours a day. They get out at 10:30, so I pick them up and take them out to the bottom of the county. This adds hours to my day, which means more money. But it fills my day, and breaks up my free time. I only have maybe an hour and a half between my on duty times. That isn't enough time for me to concentrate well enough to write, or think, or NAP!! I'd much rather have the time off than the money. But for right now I don't really have that choice.

Superman and I have been discussing things, and I've pretty much decided to quit driving the bus after this school year ends. I haven't told anyone I work with, and don't plan to. I'll let the boss know after school lets out for the summer, of course, but I'm not going to mention it to anyone before then.

I want to write a whole lot more about this, and about other thoughts that flow from this. But I just don't have the time to settle in and concentrate on it! It's 9:00 now, the kidlets finally went to bed and got quiet about 20 minutes ago. I need to be going to sleep right now! It is like this all day long. I'm very frustrated.

And I'm very tired. Tired in a few different ways. I'm tired of teenagers making promises to do things then leaving me in the lurch. (I'm pissed at S right now. Not going to go into it now. Don't have time or energy.)

I'm going to shut up now. The more I think, the things that come to mind that want to flow out of my fingers here are just getting more depressing. I'm tired of listening to myself whine about how confused and depressed I am.

The mood on the bus goes round and round

I'm getting used to having the monitor on the bus. He really is a friendly fellow. He talks about dirt track racing, and a lot about cars. The racing seems interesting. (I said this to Light earlier this evening, and she said "No, Mom!") But I especially enjoy the discussions about cars and trucks. He is a wealth of information at the very least. He's lived here all his life, knows a lot of people, knows history and reputation and other useful stuff.

Today we were discussing cars, used cars, buying cars, buying cheap cars, deciding what would be the most financially beneficial for an old clunker- stripping it down and making it into a race car, or buffing it up a bit and selling it as a cheap used car. Sometimes it's a tricky decision to make. I'd never thought about it before.

Twitch is 17. He still has a driving learner's permit that has now expired. He never asks to go out to practice driving. The only thing we have to drive now, anyway, is the full size van (very very large and hard to maneuver) or my beloved truck. Twitch despises my beloved truck. He also isn't keen on learning to drive on a standard transmission.

It would be extremely helpful if he had a car and a license and could drive himself to and from school, take his siblings to school in the morning, run errands for his darling mother, and have transportation to and from an eventual JOB!!! PLEASE!!! SOON!!! So I was discussing with my monitor the options for buying a cheap used car. He's got connections! He knows lots of stuff.

There is a car for sale now that he knows about. It is in excellent mechanical condition. This is like saying the blind date your cousin is setting up for you has a pleasant personality. Oh, yeah, it is bug ugly. We drove past it on the way back to the bus lot. The hood latch doesn't work, which the owner discovered after the hood flew up while she was driving down the highway. It flew open and hit the windshield, cracking the windshield badly. She should have suspected there might be a problem after she rammed the car into a tree in her yard, bending the front grill and hood area. But she remained clueless. The car needs window glass in one of the doors, too, because she did some dumbass thing to break that. There are a few other areas of body damage from various too-close encounters with stationary objects. (Not a good driver, methinks.) With a little bit of body work and some salvaged parts, this could be a very good (if ugly) car. And I think I can get it for under $300 if I move quickly.

My original purpose for this post was to say that I'm feeling better about having Mr. Monitor on the bus. But I seem to have gotten distracted. Oh, well. Par for the course.

What's happening on the bus

As most of you know I drive a special needs school bus. There are two students in wheelchairs on my roster, and about half a dozen other kids with varying degrees of learning disabilities and behavior problems. Most of the special needs buses in our district have another adult on the bus to assist with the students. They are called bus monitors.

No, not that kind of monitor!

For most of the school year last year I had an elderly gentleman as my bus monitor. He and I got along just fine when it was just the two of us on the bus. I did not like the way he dealt with the children, though, and he would get into a screaming match with me in front of the students if I suggested to him that he should ease up on the kids. He was ridiculously strict. He was a grumpy old man. He left the bus toward the end of the year, sometime in April I think. Things went so much better after he left. I began to enjoy my job once I was on the bus alone (well, me and the students, of course)



The boss has been making some noises recently about placing another monitor on my bus. He and I have discussed it a few times over the past two years. He knows my preference, but he also knows I am flexible. A couple of weeks ago he brought it up again, and I told him I was fine without a monitor, but if he wanted or needed to assign a monitor, then that's OK, too.



So he did. Last week I got a new monitor. He's a fella just a couple years older than me, who loves kids and has a very friendly disposition. He was driving a bus, but had some health issues come up in December and can't drive for a while. The boss wanted to give him some work, so I have a new monitor. I thought about mentioning it on here last week, but just didn't want to yet.



He is much nicer to work with than the old grump. He's pleasant. He likes to work and has been sweeping the bus out regularly, which is nice (and something I don't do as often as I should).



But frankly I'd rather be alone. This guy talks too much. And just today he was telling me about Valentimes Day and the heat that escapes from a chimbly. Ugh. I can be kind of a snob when it comes to English usage, and I try to be patient and not get upset. This guy is sitting in the seat right behind me chattering away about all manner of things. Using poor grammar and usage and pronunciation. And he misuses the word "which." Which if he says it once more, a small part of my brain will begin to deteriorate. Which he was telling me about some car problems he's having. Which which which. Which Witch? At least he doesn't have any speech impediments, like just about every kid on the bus does.

Last Friday I casually mentioned that I had a few friends that I've meet online, and it came up in the conversation that many (most) of you are gay. I didn't purposely bring it up, and I forget now what the context was. But I was thinking it might be time to spring the "gay thing" on him. He took it pretty well. He's a good ol' boy, likes to hunt, and races cars on a dirt track. I wasn't sure how he would react to the information that I am involved with homosexuals and gay rights and all.

Today it came up in the conversation that there are two young gay men living in our house. We were able to have a reasonable discussion about that. He admitted he feels uncomfortable around someone he knows is gay, but doesn't have any specific gripes against homosexuality in general. I was able to tell him a few things that the general homophobic community doesn't know, like it isn't a choice, and homosexuals have a lot more similarities than differences with the general population. And that most of the problems gays and lesbians face today are a direct result of homophobia. I feel it was a good conversation. I am satisfied that I've said my peace.

But I still wish I was alone on the bus.

A brief history of my last 20 years book five

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book five

Now then, where were we? We had settled fairly well into the new ugly house in the conveniently located yet stifling neighborhood. By now both of the older kids are at the high school, Twitch a freshman and Light a junior. The young whipper-snappers were in 2^nd grade and not doing too well, but I don't want to talk about that.

Light was developing some good friendships and was excelling in school. This is what she's like, though. It comes easier for her than for my other kids. Everybody likes Light. She was involved with a few clubs at school and in the youth group at the large Baptist church just up the road from the high school.

One of her friends was a young man named C. Yup, that's our gay… I mean guy! He was very active at the church. He was a senior, as were most of Light's friends that year. For a while she had a bit of a crush on him.

Light and I have a very close relationship. We communicate well. Although we've had our share of differences and aggravations with one another, we share a lot of stuff with each other. I've always respected her opinions and most of her boundaries. I hold her trust, and she mine. If she tells me something in confidence, it goes no further.

She is like that, too. She listens well to others and doesn't betray a confidence. However, the lives of teenagers are a lot more complicated sometimes than a teenager is mature enough to handle. She had friends who were going through some tough stuff who would talk to her about it. If she felt like she needed a sympathetic but more mature perspective on something, she'd talk about it to me, yet without revealing the identity of the friend in need.

In late autumn she began to talk to me a little bit about "a friend" who was dealing with "a difficult situation." Mainly she was asking me to pray for this friend. I think also she wanted to express the concern just to have someone to share the burden with. She didn't tell me anything about the problem or who was struggling. But she brought it up every week or so. I sympathized, which was about all I could do of course.

There were a few of her friends who were dealing with various struggles. These are 15-19 year olds. It's a hard time in their lives. I knew, or suspected, who some of the kids might be. But there was one in particular she was especially concerned about. She finally told me that it was C, although she didn't say what the issue was, and swore me to secrecy. Not a problem. I didn't know him at the time. She had pointed him out to me in a crowd of kids at the church once, but I wouldn't have recognized him if he came up and punched me in the nose.

Over Christmas break, a few days before New Years Day, C came over to the house so he and Light could dye their hair. This was the first time I'd spoken to the boy. Superman and I were sitting on the sofa in the living room and the kids walked by on the way to the bathroom with their boxes of hair dye. C was giggling like a school girl. I turned to Superman and jokingly said "I wonder if he knows he's gay?"

Sure enough he was struggling with coming out. He had come out to Light I think before Christmas, and after school resumed he came out to more of the kids, expanding his confession to a wider circle of acquaintances. As many of you know, once the news gets out to so many people it takes on a life of its own. Pretty soon anyone who gave a damn knew that C thought he was gay. (That's the way most people perceived it, I think: he thought he was gay.) He got a lot of flack from most of the kids in the youth group and a big dump of grief from the youth group leader. Many of the kids at school only spoke to him to condemn him. There was a core group who stuck by him, Light of course being one of them.

And by this time I knew all about it. I sympathized with his grief but still held the view I'd learned in church about homosexuality. I thought it was a bad idea. Wrong, even. Though I didn't understand it very well, I wasn't willing to hate him for being gay. I still hardly knew him. We'd never talked, just the two of us. But Light had spoken so lovingly about him and his trials that I couldn't help but feel sympathy.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, I'd been taken off of the special needs route that I'd substituted on for most of the year. Another one of the drivers was going out on maternity leave and the boss needed me to take over her route. It was a regular route, and a rough one. Not the worst, but far from the best. I'm much better with the special needs students. This crowd was primarily from the old mill villages in town. The mills are almost all closed now, so the villages are populated with a wide variety of people. The houses are small and most of them were built in the first quarter of the 20^th century. In other words, cheap housing. A few of the areas are known for drug activity and other violence. These kids had a tough life, and they expressed it in their behavior.

One of the students on my bus was a very attractive, tall but slight boy with long hair and penetrating green eyes. His name was S. He usually sat directly behind my seat, mostly away from the tougher kids in the back of the bus. He talked to some of the girls but rarely to any other boys. I had my suspicions. J One day as the senior prom was approaching I heard him tell the girl in the next seat that he wanted to wear a dress to the prom; a green one that would set off his eyes. I listened intently. This guy was the source of some very interesting conversation!

The thing about S: he's pretty much never been in any closet. He's not flamboyantly obvious, but he speaks his mind and has a few telling affectations. He speaks with no shame about who or what he is. At 16 years old this was impressive. He had a toughness about it, though. A chip on the shoulder attitude as a defense against the bullies. He also had a big mouth without much control over what came out of it. He had been in some trouble and was now one of "the usual suspects" with the administration at school. I thought he was adorable.

C's trials were increasing, as one might expect. One day he got a call at home from another boy who called to ask him out. C wasn't a bit interested in this guy, so of course said "no." His mom asked who called, and C told her it was a guy from school who wanted to get together with him. Innocuous enough, right? Well, not surprisingly, C didn't have a large number of friends and didn't do a lot of socializing. His mom innocently suggested it might be nice to get together with a friend. Can you recognize this golden opportunity to come out to Mom? He was out to most everyone else, he knew his mom would find out soon from someone at church, so he took a deep breath and shook up his mama's world.

What happens next? What is him mom's reaction? When do I get to talk to him? How do he and S meet? Stay tuned.

12 for 12 from Tuesday

This is what the clock read as I left this morning. It's saying I should have left 10 minutes ago. I was checking email and got.... distracted by a blog. I blame you.
My dear little Sproing has lost his spring. He is home sick today. Actually today he is feeling much better, but still not quite well enough to go to school. This is a difficult part of the healing process. He feels well enough to jump around and be annoying, but not well enough to go to school. I gave him some work to do. He also watched DVDs a lot of the day.

This is the town's soup kitchen. This was taken at around 9:30 a.m. Lunch is served at 11:00, I think. I met a homeless man last night at the church across the street from this location. He was asking about this place and if or when dinner was served. They only do lunch. I gave him a couple of dollars for some food, but I went back to the area to look for him. I gathered a few basic supplies (toothpaste, toilet paper, razor, bar of soap) to give him, and I wanted to ask a few questions about his situation. But I couldn't find him. Oh, well.
This is the county court house. I was trying to find some information on properties sold at tax auction. I got no satisfaction. But it's a nice shot of the courthouse, anyway.
Time to go back to work. Tuesday is my busy day at work. I finish my morning run around 8:15, give or take 10 minutes. On Tuesdays I have a student who goes to the alternative school that I need to pick up between 11:15 and 11:30. After taking him to school (assuming he's at the bus stop) I then go to one of the high schools to take the special needs classes to the YMCA. This is a shot of my bus, Henry, (the one in the center, farthest away) waiting for my return.

This is the bus stop for the alternative school student. Notice the absence of any student. I get paid for showing up. So I show up. He shows up less than half the time. This kid's schedule requires only 2 days of school a week, only 2 hours per day. He has a hard time making that committment. There are many problems with the school system. Some of them are the fault of the schools, some of them are the fault of the students and parents. In this case I think all parties are responsible for the failure. And that's all the soap-boxing I'm going to do at this time.

From the previous bus stop, I head straight for the high school. I am the unofficial bus driver for the two special ed classes at this school. Together there are about 18 students, 2 teachers, and 4 or 5 assistants/aides/para-professionals. (I'm not sure exactly what these associates are called.) Three of the students are in wheel chairs. I only have 2 wheel chair docking stations on my bus. It works because one of the students is able to sit in a seat as long as someone sits beside her to keep her from falling into the aisle. We stow her chair in front of one of the other wheelchairs, and that young man holds her chair to prevent it from sliding around. With everyone present we have a very full bus! They spend the hour from noon to 1 p.m. at the YMCA engaged in various athletic pursuits. I park the bus in the side parking lot and spend that hour engaged in various quiet solitary pursuits. It is one of my favorite times of the whole week at work. This picture shows my bus with the Y building in the background. It was a beautiful day. The clouds were particularly appealing, I thought. This shot would probably work better with some kind of colored filter, but this is what I got.
And I got it again from a slightly different perspective. Both these shots were taken as I was waiting for the students to leave the Y. The sky was a lovely shade of blue, and the contrast between cloud and sky was striking. I don't know how well that shows up here, though. This is one of my kindergarten students. I stop at her mailbox in the afternoon so she can check the mail. I wait for her to empty the box and get at least 10 feet up the driveway before I pull off. This prevents me from driving over her. We learn this stuff in training. Actually, she should just get off and go up the drive. I'm just nice (a sucker) and let her check the mail. It means so much to her. See how far away the house is? In the morning when I get to the house she is still in it. It takes her a long time to wonder down the long driveway in the dark. It is still dark when I get there at 6:30. If I were stricter (less of a sucker) I'd demand from her and her mother that she be at the end of the driveway by the time I get there. But it has been cold recently, and it's dark, and I'm a pushover. So I wait.
This is the toilet in the girls' bathroom at the day care center where Diva goes after school. Can you see that it is especially designed for small children? The thing is SHORT! I begin my afternoon work on Tuesdays at 11:00 in the morning. After I take the special ed classes back to school I go straight into my afternoon route. I'm not finished until 4:00-4:30, depending on the vagaries of the day. I usually take a pit stop at the high school before I pick up my first afternoon student. But by 4:30 when I got Diva from the day care it was obvious that I needed to stop by the little girl's room. I, however, am anything but a LITTLE girl. I could have searched for a more adult sized facility, but priorities today were different. It isn't as amazing that I got onto the toilet as it is that I got UP from the toilet. It wasn't a very good toileting experience. There wasn't any toilet paper in the dispenser, which of course I didn't notice until it was too late to do anything about it.

That's my Diva in the doorway beside a piss poor mural on the wall. Yes, it is a church opperated day care. They are conviently located and affordable, and I don't adamantly object to the message. But I'm settling. Since Sproing got kicked out (did I tell you about that fiasco?) a month ago, things have been pretty peaceful.

Bus-ee-ness

It is another day, and not as bad as the last, so far. I slept well, but not long enough. I could be napping now, but I'm blogging instead. I like to blog. J

I spent an hour and a half this morning washing the bus. I hate washing that monster, but I enjoy the fruits of the labor. He looks pretty good. The windows had gotten so dirty that I was having trouble seeing out of them.

The boss called me first thing this morning, before I was even out of the bus lot. He asked me when my bus got shot. Huh??? I took yesterday afternoon off to take Diva to the doctor, so didn't drive. The boss ended up driving the bus back into the lot yesterday and noticed bullet marks on the side. I'd not noticed. We looked at it in the light of the streetlamp there on the lot. One of the marks is rusted over, so it's obviously old. One if them I think I've seen before. But one is new, I think. They are small marks, and look like "pings" to me, like maybe a rock got kicked up and hit the side. Upon closer examination they do look more like dents made by a BB gun or pellet gun. I have no idea when or where that may have happened. When he first asked about it he had an accusatory tone. If I'd thought of it at the time I'd have said "Well, I didn't shoot the damn thing, if that's what you're asking." But I didn't think of that until later. His demeanor softened somewhat as we were looking at the marks. I asked if I could shoot back!

This is a little bit like what my bus looks like. But not really. I'll take a picture of ol' Henry (my bus) and post it here soon.

From the short bus

It's a short bus. Many of the students are mentally challenged. Today I was talking to two of the boys. One boy is 13, the other 7. They're about on the same level mentally, and the 7 year old is kinda slow.

I decided to tell them a joke that was a favorite of mine when I was a young kid. "What time is it when the elephant sits on a fence? Time to get a new fence."

Used to crack me up when I was 7. I told it to them, with the punch line. Then I explained it to them. You know, what would happen if an elephant sat on a fence? Yes, it would break and you'd have to get a new fence.

Then I told the joke again, just the question. "What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence? 13yr. old-"6:00"; 7yr. old-"3:00." Cracked me up. Funnier than the joke.

Henry

I finally found a good name for my bus. One of my students helped me think it through, and we've decided to call him Henry. All the special-needs buses are numbered with the prefix "H". I think it used to stand for "handicapped," but since that's a no-no word now, we say "special needs." However, the H remains on the buses. So of course the bus name must begin with H. This is my third year driving Henry but the first time I've found a name that fits him.

Old Henry is having trouble with his wheelchair lift. Something in the hydraulic system I suspect. When I fold out the lift it begins to slowly descend on its own before I can use the up/down switch. Earlier this week one student almost rolled his chair onto the lift when it had dropped almost 2 inches below the level of the bus floor. I turned in a maintenence request Thursday morning, and Henry was gone Thursday afternoon. That's when I got the Kidney Shaker.

Stay tuned for more about the Kidney Shaker!

Where were you in 1988?

Remember my post yesterday about my clean bus? When I got back to work for the afternoon run my bus was gone. In its place was this nasty old bucket of bolts I call the Kidney Shaker.
OK, I suspected they might have to take my bus to the shop, so I wasn't surprised to see the Kidney Shaker. This old bus is one of the few spare buses we have in this district. It was new in April of 1988.

In 1988 I lived in Macon, GA. I'd been married for 5 years, and was 26 years old. Superman had a job in a small machine shop close to our apartment. I wasn't working outside the home, and we were foster parents with an adoption agency. That year we had a bunch of newborn babies at home, usually only one at a time. I didn't get much sleep, but I had a lot of fun (no, not on Grandma's feather bed) taking care of sweet little bundles of baby.

In August of 1988 Superman was fired from his job, ( a true blessing, really) and we had to leave Macon because he couldn't find another job before the end of August when rent was due again. We moved to Ringgold, GA into his parents' house. They were in exile in Houston TX at the time. Superman's baby brother was a senior in high school, living at home while his folks were in Texas.

Superman spent lots of time and effort looking for a job in that area, to no avail. But that didn't take up all his time. I became pregnant in October. He found a job in New Bern, NC in November, and moved there in December. I was left in Ringgold with my teenage brother-in-law and morning sickness. Not the best autumn of my life. Superman came home for Christmas, then I moved the rest of our junk to New Bern in early January. 1988 was a busy year for me.

Where were you? What were you doing in 1988?

The bus

I finally washed my bus yesterday. It was filthy. I could hardly see out the back window. It felt so good to get into a clean bus yesterday afternoon!

the pro-nounce-ation of words

There is a boy on my bus who goes by his initials, JW. Each of the other children on the bus have different ways to pronounce JW. The little kindergartner who is madly in love with him pronounces it "jay-duh-view." His sister says "jub-you." It took me a while to realize she was referring to him. The the bright-eyed simple boy says "ay-ub-a-yu," but he's got some speech issues, so that is a good excuse for him. The lovelorn girl's brother just calls him "Jim." I'm never sure what to call him.